As a thought experiment, imagine it is a little over a year into the Obama administration’s first term and the 44th president of the United States is generating the same headlines that routinely haunt President Donald Trump. Instead of it being March 2018, it is March 2010:
On the eve of a trade war with Canada, Mexico, China, Europe and much of the developed world, President Barack Obama responds to the sudden resignation of Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council, by claiming that it is no big deal and that plenty of people want to serve in his administration despite a steady stream of resignations.
While operating under a cloud of ethics violations, Mr. Obama taunts Attorney General Eric Holder by comparing him to the cartoon character Tom Dubois in “The Boondocks.” Every day, Mr. Obama questions Mr. Holder’s competence on social media: “I never should’ve done that stupid beer summit with Professor Gates and that Boston cop. You were supposed to have my back, you Uncle Tom. What happened?”
White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer resigns after admitting to a special investigator that he occasionally told “little black lies” to cover for Mr. Obama.
Because Mr. Obama can’t be bothered reading the daily briefings from the nation’s intelligence services, he gives his senior political advisers Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod unlimited access to America’s secrets on an “interim” basis, pending FBI background checks.
This unprecedented arrangement ends abruptly when White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel announces that neither Ms. Jarrett nor Mr. Axelrod can pass the background checks because of domestic violence allegations and crippling financial debt that could make them susceptible to foreign blackmail.
Mr. Obama is angry with White House press secretary Robert Gibbs for his handling of a press briefing in which the claims of a porn star who insists she had an affair with the president years earlier, when he allegedly frequented strip clubs in Chicago and Kenya, aren’t deflected forcefully enough.
For reasons that are unfathomable to the Washington political establishment, the public and the press, Mr. Obama routinely denounces NATO, Russia and China, but says only good things about various Islamic dictatorships around the world.
He also plays golf every weekend, rarely attends church and leaves the raising of his daughters to his wife, who, outside of official duties expected of every first lady, is never seen in public with him.
If any one or two of these things had happened during the Obama years, the denunciations from the floor of both the House and the Senate would have been a daily rite of passage for every Republican.
Barack Obama’s presidency would not have survived into a second year with so much chaos and dysfunction swirling around him. Congress would have been so eager to impeach him that its members would’ve refused vacations until the stink of his administration was removed from office. Congressional hearings would’ve gone on around the clock, even into the night. A president like the one I describe here would’ve been considered an affront to every American ideal.
The source of the outrage wouldn’t have been primarily racial, though all sorts of bias clearly played a part in much of the opposition to Mr. Obama’s presidency. Still, I think every president prior to Mr. Trump would have faced the same reaction, broadly speaking.
Because Mr. Obama was never perceived to be sleazy, the sense of outrage felt by the electorate if any of these things had occurred during his presidency would have been disproportionately larger to reflect our collective sense of shock. Such disgust is a compliment — a way for the public to say: “This isn’t like you; we expected more of you.”
Prior to last year, the American public assumed it had a right to punish a president who conducted himself in a way that betrays the values most of us hold in common. But Mr. Trump made it clear early on that he would not be subject to the norms that kept his predecessors in line.
Something happened to nearly one half of the American electorate that makes it impossible even to consider punishing Mr. Trump for behavior considered unacceptable by every other president stretching back to George Washington.
But supporters and detractors have this in common — we are no longer shocked by Mr. Trump’s behavior or the things that he says no matter how crude or unpresidential. We expect it. No matter how outrageous or immoral the conduct, it is suddenly within the realm of possibility. A president who praises despots and jokes about authoritarian rule? What’s the big deal?
Even as the Stormy Daniels sex scandal and the Mueller investigation burn away the last thin layer of moral insulation at the Trump White House, the Republican-controlled Congress remains paralyzed by a holy fear of its volatile, yet inexplicably popular leader. Could the last days of Rome have been this ridiculous or hypocritical?
Tony Norman: tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631.
First Published: March 9, 2018, 5:00 a.m.
