Society has a mechanisms to repair soft violations of its norms—public shaming, political pushback, journalism, and transparency—and they largely work. Trump overwhelmed those mechanisms. Too many scandals emerged too quickly. The mechanisms that might have reinforced the norms of behavior for public servants were ineffective in the face of a candidate like Trump. Norms only work if there are consequences for violations, and society couldn’t keep pace with the onslaught. Trump was thereby able to push the boundaries in many directions all at once. And in many cases, it destroyed the underlying
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