It used to be that candidates and elected officials had a duty to answer reporters' questions. We assumed that answering questions from the press was part of the job. We thought democracy depended on it.
But we're now in the era of Donald Trump, who calls the press the "enemy of the American people."
It was never the case in the United States that candidates or elected officials beat up reporters who posed questions they didn't like. That was the kind of thing that occurred in dictatorships.
But "Trump has declared open season on journalists, and politicians and members of his Cabinet have joined the hunt."says Lucy Dalglish, the dean of Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.
More generally and menacingly, Trump has licensed the dark side of the American psyche. His hatefulness and vindictiveness have normalized a new meanness in America.
Since Trump came on the scene, hate crimes have soared. America has become even more polarized. Average Americans say and do things to people they disagree with that in a different time would have been unthinkable.
"I'd submit that the president has unearthed some demons," says Rep. Mark Sanford, a Republican Representative from South Carolina. "I've talked to a number of people about it back home. They say, 'Well, look, if the president can say whatever, why can't I say whatever?' He's given them license."
This is not only dangerous for our democracy. It's also dangerous for our society. "There is a total weirdness out there," says Sanford. "People feel like, if the president of the United States can say anything to anybody at any time, then I guess I can too. And that is a very dangerous phenomenon."
A president contributes to setting the norms of our society. Trump is setting them at a new low.
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