This is episode 130 of the Baehr and Curadh podcast. We are going to talk about cruelty.
- Donald Trump can say and do things that basically no one else on the planet can get away with.
- Has Donald Trump forever desensitized America to cruelty?
- For reasons that will be analyzed for years to come, consequences seem to evade him at every turn.
- Trump has thoroughly desensitized voters to behavior that, in another era, they would have deemed disqualifying in a president.
- The national bar for outrage keeps rising.
- Our ability to be shocked has dwindled.
- We get bored reading about the man's many indiscretions.
- Trump's followers argue that his success is a symptom, not the cause, of the country's bad behavior.
- Voters continue to rebuke others who try to act similarly.
- Mark Robinson – a Trump-endorsed anti-gay politician who called himself a "Black Nazi" and a "perv" for pornography featuring transgender actors was soundly rejected by voters.
- Every time Trump crosses a new line, he makes it that much easier for the next guy to do the same.
- Americans have internalized the idea that expecting our political leaders to be good people is quaint and foolish.
- Is it possible to resensitize the electorate to scandal and cruelty?
- Some people today are too young to even remember Trump's first time running for president. They have grown up with the cruelty.
- We should start by trying to remember how we felt when all of this was still new.
