As we say in the design field, which has lots of rules, "You've got to know the rules before you can break them."
10
Professor Kesler,
I don't have the degrees and book credits you do, but I am a reader of history. Putting Trump and FDR in the same sentence on its face suggests you have, despite all your credentials, failed to understand the meaning of some important history. Yes, FDR crashed through norms, and yes, he manipulated people, but in service of a grand ideal, not self-aggrandizement. When he created the CCC and the WPA, he created lasting benefits to the country and to millions of individuals; what has this small fraction of a man, Trump, done that can reasonably be compared with these accomplishments? Trump is about himself; FDR was about others, about economic justice and cementing, rather than ceding, America's leadership role in the world. Trump is about violating the law; FDR about extending its protections to people the GOP of the era was perfectly happy to see perish in squalor. I'm deeply sorry that, for all your accolades, you seem not actually to be a serious student of history or of governance. Sad.
44
Thank you, professor, for sharing your polite and glib observations. However, most of us have moved on from "norms" to dishonesty, immorality, and criminality. Thanks anyway.
41
Is lying daily also a debatable norm? Are the recent revelations of an apparent felony just about breaking a norm? The problem of this nation is not the current president, whose character was evident long before he was elected, but people like you who think of this grotesque political reality as just a different norm, and who still utter a false and dangerous expression as a goal worth pursuing. What is the real motivation behind your article?
32
Next time I break the law or do something completely unethical and/or detrimental to those around me, I’ll just say I’m “breaking norms.”
33
I have to blame my lack of digging into history for not knowing that there has been a two sided media thing going on in the political arena since the start of the country. Any piece that is even slightly positive on the president in this forum would always pull the haters into print. I don't think this a major change in NYT policy, but I do want to congratulate editorial staff for the innovative approach.
By the way, if you get the time try reading Grant by Chernow.
3
What Trump is doing is not merely "breaking norms". On some levels, like attacking the FBI, CIA and the general intelligence community, it is idiotic. There is no known rational basis for such attacks and, besides, he is the ultimate boss of these departments and agencies. If he wants change, he should do the hard work of figuring out how to do it and order it up.
Disruption can be good. So, too, can be a chief executive who acts without fear and, in the process, draws public support. To what end are Trump's actions? What would be accomplished if matters turned perfectly in his favor? 130,000 people would go back to work in life threateningly dangerous coal mines? Thousands more Americans would get lung disease from increased particulate matter in the air? The FBI would give up on ever aiding in an investigation of anyone in the executive branch and the president? What's going on? Nothing but constant battles fought for the sake of fighting constantly.
On the other end of the equation, Obama was too quiet. He and his administration operated through the rise of the internet coming into every home and on every smartphone, but they could not find a truly effective means to get his message through the hurricane of counter propaganda put out by Fox Noise and talk radio. Obama took to appearing on every television program that would have him, failing, in the process, to get his messages out. He was blamed for the G.W. Bush recession and got very little credit for ending it.
13
Kesler's out of touch article is an insult to Trump's critics. My personal experience is that critics focus on the Trump Administration's actual policies, not the "norms" of behavior that Kesler alludes to. Frankly, the fact that Trump might also be guilty of criminal activity and even treason are just additional ways this corrupt narcissist will distract America from the real issues of climate, economic inequality, healthcare reform, tax fairness, global cooperation and against terrorism, educational reform, criminal justice reform, and countless others that really concern fellow critics and real law-abiding, working people living real lives in support of the American way of life. Detached, armchair conservatives like Kesler are the real insult, making excuses for an ignorant and arrogant President who is just wasting our time and taxes with every day he and his administration remain in office.
26
Lying pathologically to cover-up wrongdoings is not a norm-- at least not a defensible one.
20
While I agree that not every norm Trump has violated has deserved the immense and immediate backlash it garnered, I do think this article makes a point to avoid some of his more important actions -- such as his willingness to work with a foreign power to install himself as our executive or his willingness to marginalize certain groups of people and blame them for the problems within our republic.
His brazen attacks on the norms that typically govern the executive branch have exposed a potentially fatal flaw built into our democracy. We have no good way to protect ourselves from our own executive so long as that executive is supported by a minority of the population (around 40% at this point) and no way to protect ourselves from the internal division and social strife that causes.
He has exposed this flaw both to those who can work to fix it as well as to those who would take advantage of it for themselves. My only hope is that we can find a way to strengthen our democracy, and perhaps write into law some of the unwritten norms that make it function, before another Trump comes along, with a knowledge of what few limits there are on executive power and a plan to put that to use.
6
I am not familiar with Mr Kesler. When I read the title of his piece "Breaking Norms Will Renew Democracy, Not Ruin It", I naively thought that perhaps it would be about how Trump's horrific norm-breaking behaviour would, in the long run, prompt a fresh appreciation of many norms and reaffirmation and strengthening of the most important of them (such as independence of the DOJ) perhaps codification.
'Lordy' was I wrong. But that is the constructive conversation about norms that Trump's vileness should prompt.
The only salutary thing in his article was the reminder that millions of people still support Trump . However the fiasco of 45 is dealt with, one of the top priorities has to be the effort to include as many of those people as possible.
5
The new norm is for everyone always to avoid the truth at all possible costs. Never the truth. And leave room open to vacillate between one lie and another so the "new truth" varies from day to day.
What fun! It would always be a challenge trying to work one's way through what really happens and what everyone says.
Or, does this new obsessive liar trait only apply to the President and not the rest of us?
What happened to a "nation of laws" as invoked by Conservatives and libertarians at every opportunity.
9
Trump is destroying our economy to benefit Russia. We are slowly going into a completely avoidable depression. Get rid of this guy. NOW!
1
When I was a student, Kesler supported the xenophobic troll Charles C. Johnson during his campaign of intimidation against other students and faculty. This is not unexpected.
11
Ha Ha! nice parody....
2
Wow. This article consistsof rank stupidity and lathetic apologyzing under coveror”modern” norms and such
Trump is 72! Not like hes some millenial who just doesn’t know what hes supposed to do or adopting technology that others cannot understand.
Hes a buffoon. Full stop.
7
yeah, but it is the norms of human decency that he violates That is what is so wrong I M O Wilson is an appropriate comparison he wasa racist too!!
4
Indeed, just like Hitler and Musso, real renewers of freedom and democracy.
Talk about whistling passed the graveyard.
This is probably what Mitch and Pauly have been telling themselves.
6
You are nothing but an apologist for a corrupt, illegitimate president. I'm fine with some norms being done away with, but he has committed crimes that any other politician would have to answer to.
8
Attacking free press is attacking the Constitution. Politicizing our intelligence and justice departments to protect oneself undermines our government. So get real. Attempting to destroy democracy through bogus voter fraud commissions or failing to enforce the law may not be unconstitutional, but sure is un-American.
The GOP has to stop supporting fascist, oligarchical policies, and Congress has to reverse the ones the GOP has instituted.
Impeach Putin's poison pill.
12
Mmm. Let me think about that.
No.
3
I am amazed that people consider this a simple academic debate over a difference of opinion. This is about a fascist President promoting racism and corruption.
I wouldn't bet fascism won't win.
10
I'm so tired of the hypocrisy. I took the liberty of revising Mr. Kesler's opinion piece, replacing Trump's name with Obama's. Mr. Kesler wouldn't agree with the piece written in this way. I don't have the room to publish the entire piece, but here are the first two paragraphs (with notations by dislikers):
Hardly a day goes by without President Obama being accused of breaking a presidential norm or two, doing something that no president has ever done — nor, it’s implied, ever ought to do.
He signed a lot of executive orders. He took a hands-off approach to foreign affairs, wanting to fight with words rather than weapons (Noah Townsend, “As a Conservative, What did you Dislike About Obama,” Quora.com). He supported the Congressional rule change for federal judicial appointments to occur by simple majority (instead of the long-standing precedent of 60%). He intentionally manipulated projections, estimates, and statistics to provide a wholly unrealistic expectation of how OBamaCare would pay for itself (Richard Knight, “As a Conservative, What did you Dislike About Obama,” Quora.com). Obamacare ended up being subsidized healthcare for the poor and sick by increasing costs for the rich and healthy (Matthew Haddick, “As a Conservative, What did you Dislike About Obama,” Quora.com). He engaged with oppressive and abusive foreign governments like Cuba and Iran. (Max Greenwood, “Erick Erickson—Obama Would Have Been Impeached for Kim Summit,” The Hill).
4
@Derry Smith Who cares about President Obama? Let him go scuba diving his life now. We’re in the age of Trump.
1
The President's behavior is simply abominable. A high school student who behaved this way would be in detention every day, if not already in the juvenile courts. We expect better, we deserve better, and we have always had better, even with Nixon. Basic dignity and decorum, a rate of lying statements well below 98%, you name it. We expect it from professional people that we interact with. How about the President of the United States. How can a professor talk such utter sophistry? Said P.G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster: "I don't mind if people talk rot in my presence, but it must not be utter rot."
7
Norms are what keep people from doing things that people generally dislike. A society can’t make a law for every awful thing someone can think up. Norms are what keep us civil when there are no legal consequences for incivility. You may like his policies, Professor Kessler, but there is no defending this president for his disgusting behavior and you shouldn’t try by pretending it doesn’t matter.
4
Using Kessler's argument as a starting point, adultry, sex with porn stars and prostitutes, racism, sexism, bribes, authoritarianism, despotism, dishonesty in public forums, making false declarations about political opponents, personally demeaning the parents of fallen soldiers, evading the draft, and money laundering, are ALL Ok.
This actually illustrates how totally morally bankrupt Kessler and his kind at at Claremont, Cato, American Enterprise, etc. really are.
We're a long way from God and Man at Yale. In fact, we are seeing Conservatives as group become the opposite.
6
Yeah, thanks but no thanks. Best practices are there for a reason. This reeks of the train of though in corporate America where "shaking things up" often means running things into the ground. Precedent and lessons learned are just that. If someone comes along and says they don't matter then its chaos for chaos's sake. Especially when we are talking about the rule of law.
2
You cannot be serious. After: Conspiring with our chief foe, Russia, to affect the election; A frenzied GOP convention that wanted to "Lock Her Up!"; Obstruction of justice; Inciting of mobs to near violence against the Press; Denunciation of the Press as "Enemies of the People"; and, not least, Racist targeting of minorities.
Not scary enough for C.R. Kesler. The examples Mr. Kesler cites are peccadilloes relative to Trump's real offenses.
Mr Kesler, I am afraid, made his task too easy.
9
I'd like to suggest un-breaking the norm that a president uses FOX instead of the National Security establishment for intelligence gathering. You know, doing things like accusing So Africa of genocide, saying crime is rampant, immigrants are the reason, etc, don't happen
3
How does one begin to approach Mr. Trump's behavior as merely "norm-breaking?" Lying, insulting people (especially those of different race, gender or ability), bullying, eroding the trust of those around you--these are offenses for which we suspend children from school! These do not serve humanity or our common good!
I can find a few things that I think maybe President Trump has accomplished or at least facilitated getting done. Why not talk about those, Professor Kesler, instead of trying to minimize his transgressions?
7
Ah, how generous of Mr. Kesler. So forgiving of all of DJT's "foibles". Hope he will be just as forgiving when it is a Democrat who is breaking norms. But, alas, he is a conservative, which means he is a hypocrite and has no ethical standards. If you doubt me, just insert the name "Clinton" in place of DJT, and see how sanguine he is.
6
It is strange that an educated man, even in an ivory tower of conservatism, cannot separate real threats to democracy from his idolatry for the president. Anyone who advocates racism, religious intolerance or gut feelings over logic is no more worthy of the office than Andrew Johnson. It was Johnson's failure to protect ex-slaves from masters who wanted to re enslave them that aroused the Northern Republicans. Yes, he wanted to violate the law of the land and practice racism. Maybe Kessler needs to review history from an objective not political perspective.
Possibly he would benefit from a visit to some horse stables to remember the smell of the offal of 'Noble Steeds.'
1
Mr. Profeesor Kessler, your article makes me believe you are are a very sane intellectual person in an ivory academic cocoon. Unfortunately, the sanest can be the most dangerous. We should be aware.
2
Maybe I spent to many years cocooned in academia. Whatever the reason, I can’t make heads or tails out of your post.
1
I especially like the norm of separating children from parents, losing track of them and trafficking children to his orphanage companies. Or taking the military's list of men and women serving our country that are not citizens and deporting them. so proud of these new norms.
2
Private Bone Spurs is a loose cannon. Changing norms is, and should be, a slow gradual process. At this point, anyone who tries to rationalize his actions over the past 21 months is a complete ostrich. Spurred by the process put in place almost 4 years ago by Mitch McConnell - Trumputin has received acquiessence. A huge and unforgiveable mistake. Time to net and chock the loose cannon, hand spike it back to the right direction. If it takes a run at the side railing - let it go overboard (impeach) - we are in 800 ft. of water. Country first, Party second.
2
Really, now Mr. Kesler knows that CIA and FBI spymasters are out to ruin Trump's Presidency? Since when? Where's the evidence?
I can respect some of Mr. Kesler's points, but can only hope that he sent his Op-Ed in a couple of days ago, before Trump's friends went down in court and pinned him with breaking campaign finance laws. Unless obeying the laws of our country are just another set of Presidential norms to be broken.
3
How is it that you have completely overlooked Trump's character? THAT is what we take issue with. His lies, betrayals, and inability to understand the details and nuances if the issues he's supposed to lead, and his laziness, his cruelty. We really don't mind his entertaining style of doing business. But government isn't business. It's service and leadership, and Trump doesn't know how to manage either skill. We don't mind his style. We mind the man, who is, by virtue of his shallow, cruel character, unworthy to lead the rest of us. Recommendation to you? Rewrite the essay, with the correct focus. Leave the ivory tower for awhile, and find out how the rest of us live.
5
Beautiful essay Mr. Kesler. Thank you for your eloquent assessment of our President and our times. Our country’s survived more chaos before. I rather like President Trumps lack of decorum. Wasn’t he elected to “drain the swamp”? And those he’s trying to drain are either Obama loyalists or spies trying to oust him.
It’s where we are now, and I agree....his dressing down European countries not paying their fair share had to be expressed. As Betty Davis once said, “ fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.” That can also be a ride we SHOULD be taking now in these times.
2
How much are you paying a month for health care ?
1
The biggest norm Trump broke is the one against brazen lying and fact-denial. How does breaking it "renew democracy"? You don't address this elephant in the room. And I can't move past that until I hear some answer.
2
It is strange to see an essay like this in the NY Times along with all the diatribes calling for Trump's impeachment.
I don't disagree with the author's thesis---breaking norms can indeed be a good thing.
Where I differ is that I find Trump to be incompetent.
I hoped that when he was elected he would hire a good cabinet that would help him flesh out views that were not all bad. He had found a blind spot in the liberal catechism. The US should uphold its own laws and stop illegal immigration, not undercut them by declaring various sanctuary cities.
But he doesn't know everything himself. He needs experts and he needs to take their advice. Had he appointed a respectable cabinet he might have avoided many of his mistakes.
And those mistakes are serious. Disregarding treaties forged by his predecessor. Claiming that global warming is a hoax. Getting into a shouting match with Kim Jung Il. America has lost stature in world affairs.
Somebody a bit more competent in economics should have warned Trump not to get into a war over tariffs.
And he hasn't really made significant progress on his signature issue, bringing illegal immigration to an end.
I don't think he colluded with Russia. His affair with Stormy Daniels is no worse than Clinton's dalliance with Monica Lewinsky. I would not vote to impeach except for one thing:
He is doing a terrible job as president. We need somebody with a less fragile ego who can actually lead the country.
1
"Most of President Trump’s alleged transgressions offend against the etiquette of modern liberal governance, not the Constitution."
Nonsense. Mr. Trump's transgressions have nothing to do with "liberal governance" or "etiquette" or "customs" or "habits." We are learning--the hard way--from Trump that our very democracy depends on a number of vital democratic traditions and institutions that are not spelled out in the Constitution or codified in law. If in November we do not elect a Democratic majority for the House, then Trump and his Republican lapdogs will almost certainly do irreparable damage to our democracy. Mr. Kesler is just telling us once again--as the Trump Republicans have time and again--that we don't like Trump because he is a bit rough around the edges.
2
Most of the things or norms the author writes about Trump breaking as if it were a refreshing and bracing breeze through Washington, D.C., are fine on the surface. These things aren't likely to hurt democray. And I'm sure many Republicans and wealthy donors who are most benefiting from the economy probably agree. And while I do believe it's prudent for Democrats not to focus on impeachment this election cycle, there is the matter of "That Russia thing". Mr Mueller is being the professional that he is by not disclosing anything about his case before its time. He is being very careful to thoroughly investigate his case and most bets are leading to some criminal behavior on the part of President Trump that helped him to win the White House. That would be far more serious than anything President Bill Clinton did.
1
Well stated, Mr. Kesler, well stated.
Since post-WW II the US has been slowly atrophying into a kabuki theater of the absurd where Congress, the President (and the Executive Branch) and the Judiciary all adhere to strictly proscribed roles and movements. DJT has been a breath of - ahem - fresh air.
Other norms that need to be questioned:
Why has the House of Representatives been ossified at 435 members? This is hardly representative of the people, especially in our internet age where Representatives can work and communicate from their home districts.
Why is the central government so firmly established in Washington DC? Again, in our internet age, when not in their home district/state, Congress can be a traveling road show (circus?) moving from city to town to country for in person session a couple months of the year. Likewise, sclerotic executive bureaucracies might better serve -and understand - the people if they were not all centralized in Washington DC.
Why do we have departments of Education, Labor and various other extraneous oversights? People, we are well out of the progressive era of the turn of the century. Child labor abuse is hardly the scourge of the US. Education does nothing to help at the local level. Many Federal duties would be better placed - for good and bad - at the State level.
There is so much more room for reform by DJT. And if not effectuated at some point, there is a higher probability of revolution by a frustrated and detached citizenry.
1
I understand Mr. Kesler's enthusiasm for challenging norms. Here are some norms that I'll be excited to see end:
The norm that SCOTUS has 9 justices with a permanent conservative majority. The norm that Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico do not have voting members in the US House and Senate. The norm of gerrymandering. The norm of the electoral college. And the norm that a criminal ex-president is pardoned for the good of the country.
5
"But if he is to make America great again, President Trump will have to cherish his legacy as a norm-builder, too."
God help us if his norms are the ones he builds.
6
Thank you, Mr. Kesler, for a brilliant analysis. Thank you, too, New York Times, for presenting a point of view that is, I am sure, utterly aliens to your reporters and readers.
3
What did I just read? I think it had something to do with normalizing behavior that any 3rd grade teacher would label atrocious, because it creates new and fantastic norms for our democracy. Thanks Professor! I feel much better about the Republic now.
9
Prof Kesler,
Allowing press of a sworn enemy (TASS) in the White House while banning all American press from the event is not just norm-breaking - it is treasonous.
Saying that he believes Putin (head of state who has many nuclear weapons on the ready for US) instead of his own intelligence (including the ones he chose - like Dan Coats) is not just norm-breaking - it is treasonous.
Trying to glorify his own name at the expense of fallen soldiers in service of the country, is not norm-breaking - it is low life.
15
"Breaking norms, not blessing new ones"? Repealing, but not replacing? Ending pacts and treaties, but not signing new ones? Destroying valued institutions and traditions, not establishing new ones?
Our so-called president is our nation's drunk uncle -- hell-bent on undoing what others did, but unable or unwilling to create anything better. His core belief is that our future is yesterday.
America is not seeing "creative destruction" with Trump; what we are seeing is the rage, the hostility and the despair of a man who does not want a diverse and equal society to come into being.
11
Readers, go back and catch Mark Lilla's review of the essayist's "I Am the Change" from 2012. It's a fun read. Kesler is a political hack in professor's clothing.
8
@Laura H -- Lilla's book is "The Shipwrecked Mind."
I'm not sure, but perhaps you are referring to this review in the New Yorker, of it? The tail end is about Kesler:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/24/rise-of-the-reactionary
1
This is satire, right?
18
‘The etiquette of modern liberal governance?’
By that do you mean the ‘convention’ that the President of the United States and Commander in Chief of a military that has over $700 billion a year at its disposal should not conduct himself like a five year old boy with grave behavioral problems, who likes to swear, throw violent tantrums, lie, start fires and torture small animals, largely to impress his similarly demented playmates?
Give me a break.
7
He is guilty of offending sensibilities of those on the other side. But the reality is that our culture coarsened years ago with the internet, reality shows and candidate Trump was endemic of that unlike anything we had ever seen before. But then, is that a crime, or an indictment against all of us?
Don’t over dramatize NYTimes. It’s become your modus operandi. Every headline, a screaming hissy fit about TRUMP. TRUMP, TRUMP. With impeachment....I mean isn’t that your goal? It’s ridiculous and is tearing our country apart. Not the President, but your whip-the-crowd into a frenzy mode. I’m disgusted with how you go after Mrs. Trump as well. They’ve got my vote again. Not yours.
4
If Mr. Kesler’s opinion is that Donald J. Trump might represent a ‘new norm’ for the presidency of the United States then that country is in far greater peril from him then from any current issue that Donald J. Trump is claiming to address.
10
Please. I think almost everyone would agree that the daily chaos created by President Trump is the last thing everyone in the country, from new-born infant to Coca-Cola needs.
2
Mr. Kessler leaves to his last, short paragraph President Trump's major weakness and incompetence - his failure to replace the "norms" he is smashing with anything! If this is the point of his article - a word count would certainly not revel it!
2
What Democratic plans to pack the court?
Would Mr. Kesler like future presidents to keep Trump's new norm of lying on a daily basis.
8
Let's break the norm of not indicting a sitting president.
15
Conducting a criminal enterprise of a campaign and then continuing that from the White House goes beyond norm-busting.
5
This is just preposterous. Who would be so gullible to send their children to be taught by someone who's arguments are at best well orchestrated confusion. This is like an audition tape for right wing fringe media.
7
Over the top hateful language? Really? The comments I've read are well thought out and supported by examples. In truth, there may be no way to persuade Trump's followers of his incompetence and corruptness. When I've seen them interviewed on camera they simply dismiss any and all of his behaviors with a shrug. One wonders if they'd have been as dismissive of the same transgressions attributed to President Obama.
8
Breaking norms is one thing.
Breaking the law is another.
4
It's fair and accurate to say that breaking norms is not a bad thing in itself. In fact, many norms in our political climate should be broken (can we kill off the lobbying industry, to start with?)
The problems with Trump, however, run far deeper than "norms": Deliberate manipulation of the truth, laying to the worst aspects of human nature to fire up his "base", and many more.
Remember, this is the man who made his entrance onto the national political scene by stoking racist, xenophobic fears that our nation's first African-American president was a foreign-born Muslim.
Please, tell us how stoking racism and xenophobia is
a harmless defiance of silly norms. Or don't, because anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that it's not.
7
I wish “so-called professor” Kesler (new norm, right?) had set forth exactly what he would like to see the president build after the destroying is done, and had the space to specify exactly what Making America Grate Again means to him.
Who doesn’t pick and choose examples bolstering a given position and eliminating a maximum of gray areas for the sake of intellectual comfort? Here, mostly random aspects of governance throughout history: fascinating indeed, but…
Norms fall into the immense middle ground between law and complex individual character (here: the Constitution and… Trump). Everyone invokes the Constitution. And how many would readily point to Trump as a model to be emulated? All présidents lie; they have to. Virtually everyone does at some point. However, how can lying by default, gratuitous insults or tantrums in lieu of policy and trashing the free press, among other Trump norms, be rationalized as viable in a democracy? A rich life of conceit and nerve gave him the training to hijack a derelict former party, now the latest edifice to bear his name.
Is two-party system thus doomed?
The norms millions are sickened to see annihilated with childish vengefulness include simple human values: respect, decency, genuine creativity, moral integrity, mental balance… At some point, between the rock of the Constitution (last-resort, disastrous impeachment) and Trump’s dazzling personal faults (elections at least allow damage control), is the 25th Amendment a realistic option?
2
This is just ludicrous. Norms of civility, truthfulness, dignity befitting the office, and respect for others are not hidebound traditions that need to be shaken up; and those are the norms Trump breaks on a daily basis. This is a pathetic attempt to drag the conversation off on a tangent about "norm-breaking" when what we are talking about is criminality.
5
That's cute. Much like i don't read the Bible literally (or in Latin) I prefer concerning myself with how our constitution, legal code, and governmental policies interact now, rather than taking a retrograde and literal approach. Thanks for your thoughts, and if you have any opinions on stoning people or slave ownership, I'm sure that would be enlightening as well.
4
You do not renew democracy by paying hush money to former bed partners with whom you had liaisons while your wife was home with the newborn to make certain their stories do not impact your election. It's a con.
You cannot renew democracy by publishing a private communication from the FBI director and use it to stampede voters to or away from the polls. It's a con.
You cannot renew democracy by asking for and getting aid from a foreign powers intelligence service to 'get dirt' on your opponent in order to get you elected. It's worse than a con. It's treason.
All of these things can't happen in a free and fair election and without a free and fair election valid authority to govern cannot be conveyed from one administration to the next.
I really would rather not live in a country where Donald Trump has any say at all about the norms. He doesn't follow the rule of law.
3
Wow, interesting in concept but really missing the point with this particular President.
I think most people outside the Beltway who are concerned about this presidency are concerned with Trump's abnormal personality and behavior, not the transgressions that you have described. The 'norm' that Trump has broken is that of being a decent human being. I don't believe that we should accept having a raging liar, bully, fraud and cheat for a President as a 'new normal'.
3
By calling the president's various undemocratic rantings and acts "norms," the author makes it all seem quite harmless. Just breaking some "norms." But many of the things Trump has done (calling the press the enemy of America, for example) undermines democracy, as every strongman and dictator knows. Mr. Kesler is wearing blinders.
6
I'm sure Dr. Kesler recognizes these lines
"The foundation (The Bradley Foundation) supports limited government, conceived of as a dynamic marketplace where economic, intellectual, and cultural activity can flourish. It states that it defends American ideas and institutions. Next to that it recognizes that responsible self-government depends on informing citizens and creating a well informed public opinion". What part of the well informed public opinion have you forgotten Dr. Kesler? A well informed public depends on a responsible free press. Not labeled as "Enemy of the People". What of the defense of American Ideas Dr. Kesler? Where are you on that topic? How can anyone defend Trumps version of the American Ideal? Is that the Ideal of lying, of bulling and cheating? Is this your transition to your version of the New American Ideal. Your morality does not play in a "Liberalized democracy. It's perfectly acceptable in Republican sphere? I suppose you feel very at home with Bradley Winners such as yourself and Rodger Ailes. My, my what fine company you keep.
5
Mr. Kesler shares a few of President Trump's more innocuous transgressions but fails to mention many, many more disturbing acts. How about fostering distrust of any media that is not far right? What about implicitly (if not explicitly) condoning white nationalist / racist views? Painting undocumented immigrants as rapists and murderers and forcibly separating children from parents?
2
From Wikipedia: "A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps or gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization. Shills can carry out their operations in the areas of media, journalism, marketing, confidence games, or other business areas."
If the shoe fits, Mr. Kesler, wear it.
4
Yes, there is nothing wrong with breaking norms. There is nothing right about it either. As usual, the devil is in the details. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence "Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes"and norms shouldn't either. It is the reasons why this President breaks norms that is the issue, in many instances there seem to be no reason whatsoever, in other they seem petty or "light and transient".
It is also amusing to see a conservative advocating for change just for the fun of it. Strange times.
3
i hope that Mr. Kesler has the opportunity for the rest of his life to have to deal with people like trump in every sphere. he deserves what he would get.
7
I am so tired of Trump defenders framing an argument by trying to tell me what I and others think. Liberal concerns regarding Trump's breaking of norms is not what concerns me. I am far more concerned that this president has more than likely broken quite a few laws.
7
No former "spymaster" is using his security clearance for any purpose other than consulting with a current "spymaster" who has requested her/his advice. Breaking a norm that makes us safer is hardly a merely harmless change, especially when it makes us less safe.
5
The author gives no required context to the norms that Trump has recklessly, dangerously trampled upon. For one, he has relentlessly attacked our N.A.T.O. allies in a perilous time when Putin’s Russia seeks to divide that vital security alliance, while also interfering in the electoral processes of Europe and our own country. I could go on. This glaring deficiency in Mr. Kesler’s piece makes one question his academic chops or wonder whether he is simply an unstated, partisan Trump apologist/supporter.
6
Let's continue with what was left out of this piece. He disparages women, African Americans, people from Latin America. He refers to the countries of Africa as SHole, he supports white supremacists, and makes horrid remarks and assumptions of immigrants. He degrades the office of the presidency and makes a mockery of our democracy daily.
Just something that is not normal for a president and so profoundly wrong.
9
Does Professor Kessler think a President who lies continually, talks about other politicians in a demeaning manner, and composes illiterate and vindictive tweets every morning is simply adjusting the norms? Moreover, the notion that Trump, a man with no settled political views, is attacking liberal conventions, is absurd. I suppose Mr. Kessler would argue that the President's oddly positive view of Putin is another case of adjusting the norms.
Professor Kessler has his head in the sand.
8
I don't know what to say to this: "Most of Mr. Trump’s alleged transgressions, measured by those standards, seem picayune. They offend against the etiquette of modern liberalism and modern liberal governance, not the Constitution. "
Yes, I do know what to say! Regardless of Washington's "culture," lying while in office offends against the Constitution. Obstruction of justice offends against it. Placing quotation marks on the term "Justice" as in DOJ offends against it.
And that's just a short list. No more defending the indefensible, please.
6
Interesting that this writer is from the same think tank implicated in white supremacy justification. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/23/trump-think-tank-racism-clarem...
8
Is it an outdated "norm" to expect our President not to lie to the nation over 4000 times in the first couple years in office?
Is it an outdated norm to expect that he, his family and his campaign staffers not break the law and conspire with hostile foreign powers to get him elected?
Oh, of course, now that he's elected (and "norms" say, can't be indicted), Russia is suddenly not hostile, and truth isn't truth. Those are the new norms. I get it.
What a load of blather.
8
The norm of not accepting help from a foreign power to become an American president is a pretty fundamental one. The norm of not doing that foreign power's bidding after being installed also seems like one that presidents shouldn't trifle with. There's also the norm of not receiving emoluments while in office. That norm is enshrined in the Constitution! True, if we limit the discussion to Trump's small transgressions, you might have point.
215
@gretchen Cumulative transgressions - small and large - too numerous to list -- no doubt we have been subjected to the actions of a childish, petulant, unqualified Supreme Narcissist. A bad and nightmarish experience. Kick him overboard. Then get back to restoring the severely damaged nation that he has brought. A valuable lesson has been learned. Never again!!
My dear sir,
If you are asserting that diminishing the office of the presidency by destroying trustworthiness, respect, and dignity is an expected exercise in norm breaking, then I must strongly disagree. It is of no benefit to the country to lie, cheat and steal. It is of no benefit to civil discourse to verbally abuse and impune the character of those who disagree with you. It is of no benefit to the rights of our citizens to be stifled by acts of intimidation or riddicule. As Trump has engaged in all of this, it is simply unacceptable behavior to be displayed by any adult, let alone the president of the United State of America.
4
As a self-professed "Straussian" Kesler must have some inkling of the metaphysical nihilism which underlies the world-view of Donald Trump. Trump increasing reveals that for him, the fundamental truth of the relation between individual selve and the selves of others is a constant state of war of all against all. While there may well be temporary alliances in this Hobbesian state, those attachments between the individual mortal self and others are fleeting and without foundation other than temporarily shared interests in the conduct of the battle. There is no permanent foundation in the Trumpworld imagination which sustains any connection with others; the connections are nothing more than transactional, and cover over the reality of universal hostility generated by aggressive selfishness. Trump's attachments are not supported by any transcendent strivings for universal harmony either spiritual, religious, or (god forbid) intellectual.
Anyone with even a fleeting acquaintance with the classical texts(Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle) should not fail to recognize that it is a lonely and frightened life; one which is destructive of the health of the community.
6
Lying is great. Truth? Break that norm. Lying will renew democracy. If it isn't obvious to you by now, you haven't been paying attention.
1
Mr. Kesler's attempt to paint a miscreant like Trump as normal
is risible.
6
Mr. Kesler, with all due respect, your political views have overcome your ability to see and hear and think clearly where Trump is concerned. Would you be saying the exact same things if this behaviour had been President Obama's. I think not. Each and every argument here is patent nonsense skewed to excuse the transgressions of an ignorant, narcissistic meglomaniac who knows nothing about governance, diplomacy, domestic and foreign policy, and every other subject requisite to the position he occupies. To add to this he is intellectually incurious, lazy, and has enriched himself at the cost of the public in numerous ways. His moral bankruptcy has no bounds. What other POTUS lies about seven times a day and has done so more than four thousand times since his inauguration. Indeed, what other one has prompted a respected newspaper to count his lies?
To use one of his favourite words, he is a disgrace and there is no universe where he would be anything else despite your panegyric.
5
Does Professor Kesler not realize that there is a difference between breaking norms and what the copremetic Russian agent in the White House does?
1
President Trump has ruined our country.
1
Really? I am more than a bit surprised that The Times sees fit to print this bizarre push back against President Trump's ever-widening circle of critics. Certainly there is room to disagree over his level of ineptitude and when or if he is headed for a fall, but innocuous norm-breaker? On his way to leaving a legacy of independence and "norm-building" attributable to presidents such as F.D.R.? How utterly ridiculous. Balance is a worthy goal; print something worthy of debate.
E. Drangel, Kew Gardens NY
3
You must be kidding. Rational comparisons require a normative basis. The logical flaws in Professor Kesslers rationale for supporting Trump’s conduct won’t be missed by a political science freshman. The Claremont Colleges are very conservative institutions and I would venture a guess that a very high percentage of the funding for the Professors position comes from far right Republicans.
2
This essay does not deserve comment. Therefore, I refrain from saying a word.
1
As political satire, this is brilliant. As a serious opinion piece, it is garbage. Funny how different something can seem depending upon your point of view.
7
By all means have a leader who challenges some norms, there clearly was a desire for such things in the electorate (and not just in the "base" as it's so often imagined). But was this the best you could do? In country with so many wonderful minds, so many incredible resources and talented people was it not possible to find somebody who was both outside the mainstream of politics but decent, experienced in business but not corrupt, open minded but not willfully ignoring of the facts, impassioned but not brutal?
1
Mr. Kesler, are you serious? The nature of our ambiguous Constitution requires that norms establish the limits of what should and should not be acceptable. Without them, we can fully expect an on-going series of Constitutional crises. Can the President pardon himself? Is the President subject to the laws he administers? It is the questioning of the norms that is the path to dictatorship because if you control the branches of government that supposedly balance your power, there is no break at all on the power of the executive except the norms the President should not change. When Andrew Jackson said "the Supreme Court has made a decision, now let them enforce it" he basically was saying, I can do whatever I want so long as I have the political power to do so. Is that the future of our democracy? Say hello to one man, one vote, one time.
2
The 1st amendment is not a "norm". Undermining the press as "the enemy of the people" is more than hyperbole.
2
Is the Times trying to beat out the Washington Post for this year's "best straw man essay award"?
NATO allies know we are not downsizing our military to the point that Europe would be on its own. All of this talk of leverage or "getting tough" with them is approximately hot air, and everyone knows it.
Breaking some norms is likely fine for a president who knows what they are doing and who acts, in their view, in the interest of the country. Such steps can indeed modernize and recharge our democracy. Breaking most norms, however, is likely a sign of very serious problems, breaking laws is definitely such a sign.
4
Mr. Kesler's argument is severely flawed. I can accept that the norms Mr. Trump is breaking with are not "Constitutional norms"; of course they aren't since our founders didn't think they needed to define what norms constitute good leadership that 2,000+ years of history had already defined.
Across cultures and history, societies have learned: Good leaders unite people, they do not divide them. Good leaders are truthful and don't lie. Good leaders are not petty. Good leaders do not bully. These are the norms Mr. Trump violates daily. History is littered with the results of when leaders have violated these norms; sadly we'll incur the similar consequences.
5
Nothing wrong with breaking a norm if it comes as the result of careful consideration of that norms history and the full consequences of breaking it. Problem with Trumps norm-breaking is that it has no rationale or thought process behind it. It is pathetically childish, emotional and ignorant.
12
American citizens distrust our president not because he tweets
a lot and breaks a lot of norms, as truly and cogently presented
in this article. They no longer trust our president because of
the nature of his tweets and norm breaking. They are tired of
his racist-tinged attacks on individuals who have stood up to
him. They are tired of his threatening and intimidating behavior.
They are tired of his constant lies. They are tired of what may
well be cover ups of criminal behavior. In short, people have had it with the whole package.
5
Professor Kesler talks about norms, and sure, this President is breaking many of them through is ad-hominem attacks, brashness, and daily lies. That itself may not be breaking any laws and may even be healthy in some circumstances, but mostly it harms the political discourse, effective governing, and sharpens partisan divisions. What this article completely omits -- intentionally, I presume, as it helps to shift the narrative about Trump's presidency into the banal -- is the sheer amount of corruption, lack of moral compass, cronyism, racism and misogyny exhibited by Mr. Trump on many occasions. He is a wanna-be autocrat, one who would like to shape the policies, laws and beliefs of this country to reflect his world view at the whim of a tweet. (Case in point is the systematic undermining of science in policymaking, be it on climate change, public health, or energy markets.) In this pursuit he may well not only have broken norms but laws and that's where this country's democracy and constitution are at risk. Thus far, the intellectual right represented by Prof. Kesler is standing by and watching as Trump is doing their bidding. It will be interesting to see if they remain loyal as he continues to turn conservatism into Trumpism and thus implicates them in destroying democracy, constitutional values and lawfulness in this country.
5
Dismissing a couple "alleged transgressions" as "picayune" is boilerplate for Trump apologists. But this article promised more than that: a positive defense of norm-busting itself as beneficial to American democracy. Like Trump, Kesler promises the impossible and fails to deliver.
How exactly is democracy strengthened by breaking these specific norms?
Kesler is utterly silent on that central question. Then again, perhaps it's to his credit that Kesler hides behind intellectual pretensions rather than offer a direct defense of Trump's indefensible actions -- it's less degrading than what most of Trump's lackeys do.
6
I have one more "Presidential Norm" to adjust that is not contained in the Constitution - indict the current sitting President!
7
Oh, Lordy, if Barrack Obama had broken these o so insignificant norms, my wild guess is that Kessler would have written a very different column, one that excoriated mercilessly that nonwhite man’s deviations from the decorum so painstakingly evolved through more than 40 presidencies.
I recall the state of apoplexy that seized all conservative media when Obama failed to wear a tie in the Oval Office, when he put his feet on the desk, when he was photographed shirtless on vacation at the beach, even when he sported a tan suit.
Please, NYT, take down this ridiculous article without further ado. For heavens sake!
4
I have read the opinion piece and the comments, and I like that the opinion challenges me to think differently, as do the comments. I thank the Times and those that made comments for giving me a thoughtful morning. I get so tired of discourse that is not helpful or intelligent.
Bravo!
36
@Amy Is it really intelligent or this a case of trying to justify the unjustifiable? This president is not doing away with norms because the norms are bad. He is doing so because he thinks his unsupported opinions are worthy than those of people who are actually knowledgeable.
@Haz
Hi,
You misunderstand me. I am saying Trump's breaking of norms is intelligent. I thought the debate as a whole was intelligent and thought-provoking. I thought the opinion piece had fair points.
Too bad that Kesler prepared his op-ed piece before the so-called President was named, under oath, as having been part of a conspiracy to hush a woman's story by bribing her.
He should have had it published before Cohen pleaded guilty and Manafort was found guilty.
1
That's really darling, treating trump as if h e were just another of a long line of similar persons doing more or less what they have done before.
Ha! Nothing to see here, just some convictions, ordinary political lies, itty-bitty treasons.
Crawl back in your FOXhole, Mr. Kesler, as the gold painted tin 'trump' emblem comes crashing down, enablers such as yourself are in some danger of being crushed.
Far better you should survive to endure the deserved public shaming due all those who defend and empower this vile administration.
Go sell your poison candy elsewhere, till judgment catches up
1
@mlbex As then Representative Lindsey Graham said when he was prosecuting the trial of Bill Clinton,
"What’s a high crime? How about if an important person hurts somebody of low means? It’s not very scholarly. But I think it’s the truth. I think that’s what they meant by high crime. DOESN'T EVEN HAVE TO BE A CRIME. [my emphasis]. It’s just when you start using your office and you’re acting in a way that hurts people, you have committed a high crime."
"What did our president do? He tried to say, you can’t sue me because I’m president. Well, he participated in that lawsuit because he was told to. And I would argue, ladies and gentlemen, that we all assumed he would play fair."
"Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, what if he had not shown up? What he had refused to answer any court order? What if he had said, “I’m not going to play, that’s it; I’m not going to listen to you, judicial branch”? You know the remedy we have to resolve problems like that, when presidential conduct gets out of bounds? You know where that remedy lies? It lies with us, the United States Congress."
"Don’t cheat in a lawsuit by manipulating the testimony of others. Don’t sent public officials and friends to tell your lies before a federal grand jury to avoid your legal responsibilities. Don’t put your legal and political interests ahead of the rule of law and common decency."
Today, all Lindsay Graham will say is IOKIYAAR (It's OK if you are a Republican).
1
"But if he is to make America great again, President Trump will have to cherish his legacy as a norm-builder, too."
Yah, like normalizing racism, misogyny, and corruption.
Where do these hack come from???
1
The word "regrettable" utilized in this piece is the operative word to describe the bulk of Mr. Trump's presidency thus far. Breaking norms in specific areas can be helpful in improvement of our government, but a toddler in a China shop left to wander and destruct without supervision and control (Congress) is tantamount to a National disaster.
2
How about these norms, Professor:
1. Constant lying
2. Ignoring facts and reality, you know, with'alternate facts'' and gems like 'truth isn't truth'
3. Threatening and insulting the media
4. Retaining direct control of your business, profiting off your position as the President.
...
I could go on, but you probably get the drift.
1
Many of the "Times Pick" comments echo my sentiments about the utter ridiculousness of this op-ed so I don't believe I have anything to add except to say that this piece should be Exhibit A for why conservative thought does not get much traction on college campuses. Pure rubbish.
6
How about the Liar-in-Chief's (and now un-indicted co-conspirator's) cabinet or a cadre of the handful of actual patriots in Congress "break a norm," invoke the 25th amendment and remove him from office? It's within their power, after all.
2
Is Professor Kesler seriously trying to argue that the public should not get worked up about the fact that an un- indicted coconspirator to a federal election crime is now in charge of deciding who gets to serve as a federal judge?
211
The presidency of Donald Trump has been a daily assault on the foundations of our democracy, which, in the end, is based on a fundamental sense of decency. Trump will not bring about any renewal of democracy; more likely, he will bring about its ruin, by eroding the very meaning of decency and truth.
3
This is just about the worst case of a waste of an education to play mental gymnastics ever!
Abraham Lincoln famously said in the Gettysburg Address "that government of the people, by the people, for the people" as a reminder of The Preamble to the U.S. Constitutions, beginning with "We the people" and ending with "to form a more perfect Union." It is not some showy rhetoric but a reminder of the duties of an U.S. President.
Trump only not has failed to strive to achieve a more perfect union but quite on the contrary purposefully sows discord and strife among her peoples. That alone is an impeachable offense
2
Normalizing Trump’s behavior is dangerous. It’s one thing to choose, for example, not to deliver a State of the Union address. Traditions can be revised as time passes. However, it literally threatens our democracy when the president blatantly lies, promulgates hate and tries to delegitimize the free press, all to appeal to his base.
Along these same lines, the president’s dubious assertions that his behavior is technically legal misses this important point: a president strengthens the integrity of our nation when he models the values to which we should all aspire. Trump is woefully deficient in this regard. His mendacity and mean-spiritedness have damaged our nation in ways I only hope we can repair after he’s gone.
4
People, such as the author, defend Trump by saying he is certified because he won or because he is not liked. Since Democrats have lost many elections before and we know that merely loosing an election is something they can live with.
People, such as the author, want us to ignore transgressions because they don't feel they are important.
My analogy is that you spouse invites someone to your house that you aren't fond of. You witness this guest stealing your things and kicking the dog and stepping on the cat's tail. Your spouse sees the same but laughs at it.
Are you supposed to ignore the theft and animal abuse and not ask the guest to leave simply because they were an invited to your home and your spouse thinks their actions cute. Maybe it was just your things the guest was taking so it was no big deal to your spouse and animals were underfoot anyway your spouse says.
No, the guest is misbehaving and stealing.
2
I generally appreciate when the Times offers pieces from another perspective, but I'm honestly a bit surprised that the editorial staff bothered with this empty piece of writing.
The thesis of the piece, in a magnificently generic claim, is that "breaking norms is (and always was) the norm in presidency."
Implicitly, anything is justifiable – because breaking the norms is the democratic norm, that is, and because we all know how norms provide historical substance to a position. Indeed, on these terms what Trump does (no matter what, as far as Prof. Kesler has indicated) is not only justifiable, but requires no justification at all: It is already just!
The paper then ends – just a parting thought, really – by observing that the president might also need to construct something, at some point.
... Oh? But then perhaps "breaking norms," as the headline indicates, will not in fact "renew democracy." Rather, and contra the empty thesis that breaking norms is a democratic norm, norms are something to be produced and justified to others. Which Trump will have had to have done – this public justification and trust-building as an engagement with citizens whom he respects as such – in order to make America great again. And which he hasn't yet done.
Summary: Prof. Kesler offers a vacuous nothing over the course of about 700 wds., and proceeds to undermine this nothing in about 20 wds.
*applause*
5
Clearly there will always be room for counter-arguments to whatever the prevailing opinion is in public discourse.
Obviously Professor Kesler would like us all to at least TRY to give our president the "benefit of the doubt" as he moves forward to destroy our Environmental Protection Agency's effectiveness, punishes the FBI for his perception of their "lack of loyalty", takes immigrant children from their mothers & loses them in the "system".
I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt, if I had any doubt left. Two years into his dreadful reign as president, he is destroying everything he thinks Barack Obama did during his rather-more-effective terms as our President.
Donald Trump operates viscerally - he's taking actions that affect the health of our nation and the well-being of our people, as he pursues a vendetta against Barack Obama. This is how a malignant narcissist responds to an offense to his pride. He takes revenge. At Obama's publicized dinner meeting, he singled out Donald Trump and joked about the way Trump pursued his accusation that Obama wasn't a US Citizen--Trump's birther scandal. I saw the look on Trump's face when Obama was panning him--the disdain, the hatred and the decision as he made it--to "get even'--clearly on his face! This is what our president has been doing this year--enacting his vengeance on Obama - destroying his works as President.
5
Professor Kesler's article strikes me as an application for a position in the Trump administration perhaps alongside that nasty act called Stephen Miller. Does exploiting the deep divisions in this country seem like a norm? Are crude personal attacks on individuals who have had the temerity to cross the president another norm? And has the coarseness of the president's rhetoric set a standard for all Americans, including children, become another norm? If so, this country for which many of us defended is now on the brink of dissolution.
4
And who really cares if the president eats his peas one at a time? Honestly, all this uproar over how Trump eats his peas has nothing to do with the constitution, which is silent on the matter of how the president eats his peas! Norm-busting is part of the presidency, even if the stuffed-shirt coastal elites insist that peas must be scooped onto the fork in bunches.
Ok, I would like to take this chance for all of us to hit the breaks for few minutes and assess what just happened here.
Let's forget for just a brief (though I'll admit sweet) moment that Mr. Kesler has basically committed apostasy by writing an essay supporting and rationalizing the behavior of a man whose every action seem to run contrary to the virtues that academia holds dearest (truth, impartiality, honesty, accountability, the pursuit of knowledge).
The fact is that the New York Times, an institution that is often equated with truthfulness and uncompromising honesty, has given a platform to this man to spread a cherry-picked, convoluted, and frankly pathetic opinion that serves absolutely no one but himself, Mr. Trump and the NYT itself by generating traffic and sales.
This is a new low not only for Mr. Kesler, but also for this paper if this is your idea of presenting "both sides" of an argument.
That is, if lies are to be expected to be given the same value as truth when it comes to an argument; stranger things have happened in the past 18 months anyway.
5
@Adrian,
I do agree with you but have a conflicting opinion on one thing: Although you correct to criticize the Times habit of presenting "both sides" of an argument as if both sides always have equal merit, here I think it's actually useful to us that they have published this piece.
It's important that we are aware of all angles of right-wing destruction of democracy and democratic norms, not just the current Trumpian strain. To this end, publishing this essay reveals the attempted faux-intellectual underpinnings that the arch-conservatives who have taken over the GOP have long sought to promote - the Koch and Steve Bannon variety who have merely latched on to Trump as their vehicle due to political expediency. They are using him and will continue to use him, as this essay makes quite clear. But they have their own agenda and we should be aware of that.
It's really important to keep in mind that the danger to our society comes from more right-wing directions than just Trump.
These people like Professor Kesler - and their universities and think tanks like Claremont Institute, the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and so on - will still be around seeking to overthrow democracy, revise our history and our political terms (and norms), manipulate Americans and redefine reality to their fascistic liking long after Trump leaves the stage.
It's better that we read and know their arguments. Better to defend ourselves against them that way.
6
@Pamela Tank you for your reply and I am glad to read that we are like-minded, even gladder that we have something to disagree on and be civil about.
I agree that the true danger to American society and the world in general is not only Trump or thugs like him around the world but the puppet masters and shadow lurkers behind them, riding on their coattails and using them as beasts of burden to plow the field so they may sow their poisonous ideas in the hearts and minds of the masses.
This piece, however, in my opinion far from shedding light into the insights of the far-right's intellectual wing (notice the oxymoron), legitimizes such ideas by letting them share space with relevant op-eds grounded in facts instead of saying "So, he is a bully. Who cares?".
I understand the importance of being informed about the points of view of all people involved in a particular issue, but I also understand the difference between informing the public and click-baiting; the right to free speech and editorial sense and sensibility.
Most importantly, I understand the responsibility you have for words; not only those you say but those you help propagate, and that is a point I believe has eluded this paper for a time now. I sincerely hope it once again understands it.
Whole lotta nothin' trying to excuse the actions of a man intent on destroying our democracy. I'm not going to waste any more words trying to counter this nonsense.
Wow. I can’t even think of where to begin in comment to your opinion piece Mr. Kesler, except with a question: would you accept specious arguments such as these, without facts and or evidence to support from your students or peers?
4
This commentary is completely missing the concern that Americans have about this president. we don’t really care if he is “breaking the norms” it is that he is breaking norms in order to bully and ultimately hide his corruption, incompetence and ignorance. We are like rubber necking gawkers at an accident, we can’t stop looking at the chaos of our current government and are distracted by this completely unacceptable behavior which is going to be the ruin of us all.
6
I wonder when Professor Kesler wrote this piece -- before or after Michael Cohen implicated Trump on Tuesday for campaign finance violations and the likelihood that the election was a fraud? For his sake I would hope he did not know about this crime while he sat at his computer apologizing for the death of our civil discourse.
2
Keller conveniently left out DT's lying. His deliberate, constant lying is what diminishes the presidency, and the rule of law, which is essential to democracy.
7
Kesler-- typo'd the authors name.
Reading through these comments is a useful and enlightening exercise. What is revealed is what seems a rather frightening uniformity of views regarding the professor's essay and President Trump. I would suggest to the commenters that they need to ponder this reality: Just about half the country feels the opposite to the way you do. Now, we always have the option of dismissing the other side and its arguments as deplorable, insane, bigoted, or simply stupid. If we do, where does that leave us? If half the country feels positively toward this president and his policies, how do you go about changing its collective mind? I remember being shocked as a young person when Humphrey lost to Nixon. Later on I realized I didn't really know anyone who liked "Tricky Dick." But millions did.
If there are millions who like this president, how do those who don't like him persuade his adherents to vote otherwise? I submit that this kind of over-the-top hateful language is not going to convert Trump voters to abandon him. We have elections in this country. We can -- and sometimes do -- throw the scoundrels out. But the other side has to offer more than invective and hysteria as an alternative.
American politics is binary. Offer a better alternative. The millions who like this president are not going to be dissuaded by your hatred. They are going to be energized in their current affections.
65
@Michael Popular sentiment does not mean that a political program is wise, moral or good. Democracy churns out horrors regularly. A large majority of people believing in deplorable, insane and, yes, bigoted ideas should not prevent others from calling them what they are. In fact, it calls for just the opposite. Soft selling the obvious is not going to change minds.
3
@Michael Facts matter. Half the country is more than twice the number of registered Republicans (only 24% of eligible voters are Republicans). Less than one quarter of the country supports President Trump, not half. Over 40% of Americans are Independents, many of whom did not vote in the last election. We do not need to persuade 24% of Americans to change their minds. We need to persuade 42% of Americans that their votes matter.
2
@Michael
"I would suggest to the commenters that they need to ponder this reality: Just about half the country feels the opposite to the way that you do"
I believe it is more like thirty or so per cent.
2
I am reminded of the last time norms were broken in a serious way in America. It was that little set-to called the Civil War by some and the War Between the States by others. Of course, it wasn't the President who broke them, at least not at the start of things.
Well, this time we're not worrying over trivia like the right to own other people, people who aren't really people when you get down to it, don't have the right genes, and...
Wait a minute.
2
I grazed over this in about one minute. I mean, I get the point. By breaking norms and challenging the rules, Trump is troubleshooting the status quo. It needs to get troubleshot. We need to strengthen restraints on the presidency.
Secondly, which I don't think this author covered, Trump is pointing out clearly the corruption that the GOP represents. I've been aware of it for decades, but a ton of Americans need their eyes opened. I'm not saying the Dems are great, just that the Repubs are really really bad AND it has been "republicanism" more than anything else that America has been living under for decades now. I could expand greatly on this (jailing, waring, environment destroying, weapons proliferation, idolatrous Christianity, and now regressive taxes in every state as well as the federal government).
4
This can't be serious. Did this really just compare the President's cyber-bullying bullying, his disparaging of the agencies he is supposed to be running, and his complimenting authoritarian, anti-American despots ... with Thomas Jefferson's decision to issue a written state of the union address?
Unbelievable.
As this is what passes now for American conservative logic, you can absolutely believe that I long for a return to "modern liberal governance."
5
Simply said, what a load of rubbish!
5
I’ve often heard the term ‘disruptive’ with trump, as if it was a badge of honor and inherently positive. Now we get the term ‘norm’ with no distinction of good or bad.
Just for distinction ... hurricane Harvey was a norm breaker - more than 50” of rain in some places - with many lives disrupted or destroyed. Would the author call this a positive thing?
3
”Spymasters...wield these as licenses”. Funny how one wrong note can ruin an otherwise fairly thoughtful and instructive piece.
I’ve heard this claim elsewhere from the administration and its defenders, but have never seen anyone actually use the fact of having a security clearance in such a manner. O
Decades spent working in a complicated and subtle field brings some credibility and perhaps also a security clearance. But the clearance itself is inconsequential.
If the administration’s supporters wish to make the revocation of clearances appear as something more than petty political reprisal, they would do better to focus on its symbolic value than on some supposed offense which exists only in their imaginations.
1
How about the norm of not using the highest office in the land for the benefit of his own business interests, which is at best blatant conflict of interest and at worst outright corruption? Funny how that one wasn't mentioned.
11
There are 'norms' that can reasonably be broken, of course. Some norms act only to inhibit progress. But the norms that the president will comply with the law, will support (even while, perhaps, reforming) law enforcement, and will be loyal to the country are norms that we must never waiver on.
This president has violated all of them. The level of sophistry propounded by the good professor is shocking.
8
Dear Professor Kesler,
I am giving you the benefit of the doubt and trying to read your article as though it is meant ironically. But it doesn't work. Neither as irony nor as satire and certainly not as logical argument. What a waste of pixels!
7
So Charles R. Kesler of the Claremont Institute (a tea party supporting and alt right populist orientated conservative think tank) thinks that Trumps norm breaking and generally boorish behavior is good for democracy and seeks to promote that view with this opinion piece. Fascinating, does that include Trumps other behaviors? Is possible collusion with the Russians in the 2016 elections part of those norms breaking Mr. Kesler finds so admirable? Or engaging in criminal conduct with his personal lawyer and fixer to hide embarrassing revelations about his numerous sexual dalliances? Inquiring minds would like to know (just don't look in the National Inquirer for answers) Then there's Trumps norm breaking range of personal invective, dishonesty and financial corruption to consider. Hows Mr. Kesler and the Claremont Institute's take on those norms that Trump gleefully breaks. You won't find any answers here or on their website, you will on the other hand find Trump apologists galore just like that other Trump whisperer and proxy from American Greatness, Chris Buskirk. You can say one thing about the NYT that you can't say about either the Claremont Institute or American Greatness websites. You will find opposing points of view including the shallow dreck that passes for conservative thought courtesy of Mr's Kesler and Burskirk. Sad
4
In analyzing Mr. Kesler's piece, one should at least glance at this article about his own preferred academic milieu: https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Academic-Home-of-Trumpism/239495 ("The Academic Home of Trumpism," The Chronicle of Higher Education," posted 17 March 2017).
Thanks. I hadn't run into this Kessler guy before, probably because I got out of grad school at a time nobody cared much about the Straussians.
That's a good article, and it confirms my suspicion that Kessler's being, ah, disingenuous when he pretends to approve of shattering norms. What he means is, "I want a set of norms that support my belief in returning to my versions of original values and the Bible." What I'd add is that he doesn't seem to want to get that Trump's values, speech, and actions aren't norm-breaking at all.
They're perfectly in synch with the norms of the know-nothings, the Klan, the fascists, and the wealthiest.
6
Professor Kesler, are you tone deaf? Breaking norms is quaint in academia and may be considered as a sign of creativity. Mr. Trump does not just break norms. He is allergic to Truth. As an academic, you must know that Truth is paramount. In the setting of a civil society, without Truth, there is no justice. Without justice, society unravels. Mr. Trump thinks that he can bend Truth and subvert justice. However, Truth does not bend and it appears that justice is finally catching up with him. Mr. Trump is not a norm breaker; his accomplice has just exposed him as a law breaker. A felon has no place in the White House.
5
The new "norm" = President as criminal
I was looking for a nugget of common-sense, but all I found was Mr. Kesler's desire for Trump "to cherish his legacy as a norm-builder."
God save the United States of America...
5
Lying, cheating, covering up and verbally assaulting is now considered, “...breaking norms?” You, sir, have become blind by ambition and arrogance and don’t see the destruction this man is having on our nation, environment and the world economy.
7
What a bright, breezy, thoroughly engaging history lesson that effortlessly papers over the president's 'regrettable' actions and callously ignores the lasting damage he has already and will continue to inflict on our country, not to mention the world. Leaving criminality aside, surely you must realize that it's not 'norm breaking' per se that rankles, but the evident disdain he has for the basic tenets of our society...truth, civility, compassion. At the root of his aberrant behavior lies a deep antipathy of so many things we hold dear...the environment, Those-Different-Than-Us and common decency, etc. He is not the benign, consequences-free, agitator you describe.
4
have always thought that the norm of disclosing tax returns was largely to show that a President has conducted financial affairs lawfully. Abandonment of that norm clearly indicates that Trump could care less about obeying our laws. Trump's praise of the lawbreaking done by now convicted felon Paul Manafort remind all of us of his disdain for our laws. By his own words, Trump has proven himself the most corrupt person to ever hold the office of the presidency.
9
It is time to make some norms law. For example, disclosure of tax returns for candidates for federal office ought to be a law. National security personnel ought to be able to keep their security clearance except in the case of unauthorized disclosures by law.
Trump is a disrespectful, lying, sexual predator, bigot, birther, Russian asset, un-indicted co-conspirator, slob. It is up to We the People to give control of Congress to the Democrats in order to put a check on his lying crazy. Then it is our duty to vote him out of office in 2020.
3
I’d imagine that it is a “norm” that a president doesn’t denigrate women, make fun of handicapped reporters, nor stir up racist discontent. I imagine subway rats have more ethics and morals, and care more about the world around them.
Ugh.
1
I could maybe buy some of this argument, if it wasn't for the incessant lying.
4
Another excellent example of the cognitive dissonance necessary to be a part of the Trumpist GOP – chastise progressives for not being "civil" while suggesting that Trump's own incivility and norm-smashing are good for the country. Of course, Trump serves Trump, and whatever damage he does to the country is not the result of a master plan or a populist uprising, so much as the side effect of electing a tantrum-throwing man-toddler President.
5
I saw the headline on this op ed piece and was looking forward to a tongue in cheek piece. I quickly discovered to my amazement that it was not.
Norms can be placed on a continuum; norm breaking can have consequences some of which may be significantly deleterious in the short term, long term or permanently.
I hardly think that Wilson's decision to go to Paris or Roosevelt's decision to appear in person to accept the nomination registers in the same range on the norm continuum as Trump's norm breaking. Ditto to the other "broken norms" he cites. To equate those claimed breaks in norms to those that Trump has trashed and tossed into the dumpster is so disingenuous that the comparison raises questions as to the professor's own moral compass.
And by the way, arguing that post Trump leaders are free to return to Trump trashed norms is no justification for his conduct.
1
This is the weirdest idea I ever heard. Mr. Kesler wants to say that black is white or day is night. But the professor is right about Trump that he is breaking all the norms and the laws. Trump was never a normal person . He always breaks the laws or manipulate. He was never a honest person. Knowing fully well, we (the electoral college) elected him president of our country. This abnormal person has zero experience in government. Now he thinks himself as an Emperor. America is the only super power and the richest democratic country. Now we are on the verge of loosing democracy . The whole world is in headache. We have become a laughing stock in the world. The congress is useless . We are almost an autocratic country. Trump will ruin Democracy . He is dangerous for us and the world.
3
"Most of Mr. Trump’s alleged transgressions, measured by those standards, seem picayune."
On December 14, 2012, in Newtown, CT, 20 first-graders and six adult staff members of Sandy Hook Elementary School were murdered. Conspiracy theorist and arch-Trump supporter Alex Jones called it a "hoax", and repeatedly stated that "no-one died". Parents of those murdered children have been repeatedly harassed and threatened, often by people who believe what Jones said.
None of this can be laid at the door of Donald Trump, who was of course not president when these events happened. Three years later, however, he publicly stated of Jones that “your reputation is amazing", and "I will not let you down". Nor has he. Requests to Mr Trump to distance himself from those views went unanswered, and (to my knowledge) remain so.
If the President of the United States refuses to condemn the views of a man who used his considerable public platform to deny the murder of 26 children and their carers, or to speak out against the threats made against the bereaved families, is that one of the 'high crimes and misdemeanours'? Perhaps not. (Mr. Kesler may wish to judge whether it falls into his "so what?" category.) But while in my view, at least, it is beyond egregious, it is also what one has come to expect from Mr. Trump. It is so typical of the man that no-one is surprised.
And that's just one example out of many, from someone who holds the office of highest dignity in the land.
5
He isn’t breaking norms, sir. He is breaking laws.
6
George Washington was very careful about his every action, knowing that he was setting a precedent with each of them. Established norms of a great nation should be changed with equal consideration, not in a fit of pique.
5
Charles, I agree wholeheartedly with your general focus --- and specifically with the anachronistic and very dangerous factor of the power (for good or evil) of unlimited 'presidential pardons' being in the hands of Emperor Trump --- which could well have been a problem even earlier, in any such hands.
IMHO, Emperor Trump's greatest value is in raising the question of how smart it is (or isn't) in so highly honoring any written document, over time, whether it is the U.S. Constitution or the Bible as infallible as "the word" in a world over centuries --- when the conditions not only of the world, but of the 'free-will' that was freely given to men (and women) does not allow that 'free-will' to be freely exercised to fit 'real world' conditions --- particularly when we believe 'we the people' are the agents of our own self-government in a supposedly 'functional democracy'.
As I said on "Washington Journal" this morning on the topic of Trump's Pardon Power, this raises to the level above legalistic arguing on the head of a pin by others, but can, and should be solved by 'we the people' recognizing that when we have a president who acts like an insane Roman Emperor or a virtual Emperor (like King George), the people themselves simply need to fire a loud, public, sustain, 'in the streets', but totally non-violent, "Shout (not shot) heard round the world" to continue and complete our 'perfection' of our 'experiment in democracy'.
2
But it's not just norms, it's laws...
And just because is OK, in your opinion, to break norms, it is not OK to break laws. He has violated the Constitution. And the Republicans in Congress are too weak to conduct themselves as the Constitution requires them to do.
1
Yes, but ... one can break norms in order to create, or one break norms to sow chaos and render an institution impotent.
Norms have been breaking since the 1970s and have been done in the latter sense, creating the poisonous partisanship that has resulted in a government incapable of addressing the problems that face the nation (e.g. health care, climate, etc.). Instead we have these demagogic cliques of who, when they get power, act in their own interest by modifying targeted regulations, incentives to achieve wealth.
1
Changing norms is not the issue here. It is the norms he is changing, or rather destroying, and for what reasons and to what ends? If he delivered his state of the union in written form to the congress it would not be a crisis. But denouncing and disparaging the entire justice department? That is not just breaking a norm, it is dangerous. Bashing our allies? Of course they are open for criticism. But doing so and praising our adversaries? Dangerous! It's not just the norms he's ignoring, it's what he's doing in their place that any clear thinking person understands threatens not just norms but our democracy as well.
1
Forgot a couple Mr. Kesler:
1. Advocate the imprisonment of political opponents,
2. Solicit the help of foreign powers to intervene in the American election,
3. Publicly envy and praise the unilateral authority of foreign despots,
4. Use every instrument of state power to punish critics and intervene against both private citizens and public figures.
These are the actions of a violator of basic democratic principles and the rule of law, not a principled transgressor of "mere" norms.
1
I’m all for breaking norms and certainly the norms of government need breaking. I would love a leaner, more approachable, more transparent, more answerable government. One that truly cares about humanity. And I’m willing to pay extra for it.
And one can argue that Trump is doing that. Breaking things down so they can be built back up.
But for who’s benefit? It certainly isn’t the people’s good. It’s not to “make America great again”.
I, like more than 50% of the country, believe it’s being done to line his own pockets, to advance his own interests, to wreak vengeance in his enemies, to create the drama that demands attention. The man is not good, or honorable, or altruistic, or philanthropic. And neither are any of his intentions.
We need a return to the greater good in government. A lot has to be done to fix what is broken. Trump is not the man to for the job. Never was and never will be. He’s a 10 cent schill in a $40,000 suit, meant to mask his unhealthy bloat. If that’s not a metaphor for the current government, I don’t know what is.
1
Shedding norms that "no longer serve the public good"? The norms of our democracy, formed over the centuries, have served this nation well. They exist to enforce civility, common decency, basic respect for those with whom we disagree, and the foundational notion that government serves all the people, not just the President and his supporters. They are what have made our founding documents real rather than abstract.
To trash them wholesale leaves us open to government by tribalism and raw, if temporary, power. They have, so far, protected us from those who declare their political opponents "enemies of the people", substitute vituperation for debate, and use electoral victory as a green light for retaliation and tyranny.
Trash our norms and we are just Venezuela written large.
2
Nice try, Charles. Those unequal norms are what distinguish this country from kleptocracies and other failing states.
Donald is a cartoon character with a fictional image of how things work. For all of his life, he never met a problem he couldn't fix with money. That is not this.
He didn't want the job. He doesn't understand the job. And he wasn't prepared to do it. We can't now argue that his bumbling and desultory path through this administration is good for our character.
But maybe voters will understand next time not to elect a blustery celebrity with no experience to high office.
1
It must make Trump and the GOP happy to read here that Charles Kesler says, "So what?" to the endless parade of Trump offenses.
Kessler is clearly confused, or in great denial. Yes, previous Presidents have altered or created political norms of the executive office, but they were formalized and carried out with at least the pretense of professional integrity.
Kesler suggests that the Trump norms that include caging children, trade wars, dissolving our fight against Climate Change, bullying, threatening, punishing and lying are good for a Democracy. He thinks it energizes us! He's wrong. Just look at the GOP. No energy at all. As Chuck Schumer pointed out, the GOP Congressmen and women have become ostriches with their heads in the sand.
The most disagree able aspect of Kessler's piece is his reliance on two of the three prominent Trump tactics: Playing Victim, Projecting Blame, and Bullying.
Kessler makes Trump the victim of "frustrations that no previous President has had to face," when Trump is held accountable for his so-called norm-breaki g behavior.
Kessler also relies on Trump's second tactic, projecting blame--this time, blaming the"previous administration" and the "etiquette of modern liberalism".
At least Kessler isn't bullying anyone.
To Kessler I say, Get Your Head Out of the Sand.
5
Trump has the wrong personality for the job he is in. His voters would like to overturn the "system" and help themselves. But destroying a system is nothing new. Robespierre tried this. It took France 20 plus years to recover. How long will it take the US to recover from Trump? Will the US ever recover from Trump?
2
Anybody who calls for the breaking of norms is by definition not a conservative. Anybody who does so without any idea how the norm-breaking will change society is often called a radical.
Mr. Trump has eroded the goodwill built by over a dozen presidents since the US gained its current prominence in the world. He has done so while inexplicably cozying up to Russia even after their leader admitted to helping him win his office.
Mr. Trump has never been known to build constructive norms. I do not know why you would expect him to start doing so now when he's still too busy insulting at least two thirds of all Americans and much of the rest of the world.
2
"Most of Mr. Trump’s alleged transgressions, measured by those standards, seem picayune."
Sure, I mean the liberal press is just overwrought about the level of mendacity, narcissism, misogyny, bigotry, and lack of analytical reading skills. We'll leave off the notion of emoluments (as defined in the early republic) for a later date
We should all analyze culture norms from the standpoint of the early republic.
1
Mr. Kesler's op-ed misses the most obvious elephants in the room: the biggest "norms" President Trump violates are his continual lying, his dismissal of basic facts and truths, his embrace of authoritarianism (and leaders like Putin), and his embrace of personal loyalty over the rule of law, among many others.
Mr. Kesler focuses on the historical matter of "norm breaking" - obviously, there's nothing inherently wrong with it (or in being "unprecedented"), nor, as he points out, is there anything particularly new in it. But he is dead wrong in his assertion that "Mr. Trump's alleged transgressions...seem picayune."
Despite other president's questionable norm-breaking, we had never had a president who has such obvious contempt for democracy itself. Mr. Kesler's views completely overlook this context, while focusing on narrow historical definitions.
1
Let's get one thing straight. The reason why Donald Trump is accused of breaking a presidential norm is because he is, and up until now he has largely gotten away with it.
And this has nothing to do with Democracy...not unless one considers taking favors from an adversarial country, while enriching the upper 1% of this nation perfectly normal.
It is time to stop normalizing this president's behaviour, because not only is there nothing normal about it -- but as we all know by now his predecessor wouldn't have been able to get away with one-tenth of it.
Within his short tenure in office, Mr. Trump has managed to insult and alienate all of this country's allies and over half the U.S. population.
And if anyone thinks this is going to make America great again, they are just as delusional as he is. SAD.
13
Anyone who has children and has made any effort to raise them as decent human beings immediately knows the great value of norms, both codified and uncodified. They are what make civilization possible and what keep us from becoming truly odious examples of humanity.
They are the glue of society and order. Break enough of them and we no longer have a democracy or a republic.
But none of that matters to the president's apologists.
1
Mr. Kesler's remarks are predicated on the false equivalence of Trump's bad behaviour being no different from other Presidents changing their practices/norms, notwithstanding that Kesler acknowledges "All norms are not created equal." It is one thing for a President to decide to render the State of the Union Address verbally or in writing or to travel abroad or not travel abroad to meet other leaders as Kesler notes and a completely different thing for a President to economically profit from the Office, aggressively attack and punish government employees, political opponents and the media and undermine international alliances upon which peace and prosperity has depended for the past 70 years, for example.
Kesler goes on to dismiss Trump's "alleged transgressions . . . as picayune" and implies liberals are to blame because they are biased against Trump. If being liberalism means having respect for other's, treating them fairly and not being corrupt, unlike Trump and his republican/conservative supporters seem to be, then I believe liberals are obligated to call the right out for their mendacity, racism and destructiveness.
A fair appraisal of Trump's behaviour would not conflate changing norms of other Presidents with what Trump does today. There is no equivalence.
1
Interesting how, in listing all the ways the current president is breaking established presidential norms, the author omits the one about overtly and repeatedly attacking the press, its legitimacy, and, as a consequence, the essential role it plays in the safekeeping of democracy. Pray tell, Prof. Kessler, how is that going to MAGA?
1
Prof Kesler - you didn't mention lying and demonizing the press. These are not "so whats". Presidents who tell the truth and a free press are not "norms" to be adjusted and reinterpreted - they are foundations of our democracy.
1
Spoken like a True Trump Believer whose advocacy of this president's behaviour will only crumble if he "shoots someone on Fifth Avenue."
I'm not sure what the "etiquette of modern liberalism and modern liberal government" is supposed to be. Neither liberals, moderates, or conservatives lay claim to perpetual residence on the moral high ground.
Yes, historically bad, and even illegal, behaviour has frequently been a norm in Congress and in the Presidency and that behaviour has rarely crossed the bridge to unconstitutionality.
But this president, with great pride, thrives on destruction of values that matter, e.g. civil discourse, stewardship of the planet, economic and social equality.
The non-specious statement in the article comes at the end, gently suggesting that Trump do a little norm-building.
And he is and it ain't pretty. We see these norms everyday in hate-mongering, deliberate ignorance, bullying, exacerbated corporate greed, deprivation of civil liberties...and the list goes on.
5
I heard this form of excuse from another apologist and recognized it as the current attempt at normalizing a dangerously behavioral disordered person. The idea of Trump's "doing business" and "deal-making" alternative to traditional politics, given Trump's history of such, of course completely (conveniently?) overlooks his pathological lying and repeated (ad nauseam) crooked dealing, bankruptcies, seemingly endless stream of litigation against him, etc. Here is sophistry, let alone rationalization, at its most egregious. There is still free speech, for now, so opinions such as these may be given a chance at expression, but they don't have to be accepted by people who consider ourselves moral and critical thinkers.
3
So this is what passes for "thought" on the right these days. This piece is wrong in so many ways I don't know where to begin.
Norms are not arbitrary. They are rules that serve a purpose. Think of sports. All sports have rules. But suppose one or both sides starts ignoring those rules and the referees can't or won't enforce them? What if players and coaches got to decide which rules are "important" and which rules aren't. No more games.
Self restraint is essential. If the rules of civilized social and political behavior can be violated at will without consequnces, then there will be no more civilized social and political behavior. We will have anarchy. But a real conservative would recognize that.
Kesler ridiculously minimizes the importance of the norms Trump is breaking. But worse, he seems to think that he can pick & choose which norms are ok to violate (the ones that restrain the Republicans, of course). So it's ok to rig the selection of a Supreme Court justice but not to pack the court by adding justices. But court-packing is perfectly legal under the Constitution. I hope the next Democratic president does it.
Finally, Kesler fails to note the complete illogic of his hope that Trump will be a norm-builder as well as a norm-breaker. Trump is breaking unenforceable norms at will because he doesn't believe in rules, at least not those that apply to him. So even if Trump's norms were worth following, why should anybody feel bound by them?
1
Much of the support for Donald Trump is a result of the norm-busting existence of Barack Obama in the White House. For eight years.
As far as many of his supporters are concerned, Trump's norm-busting crucifixion of the English language, his schoolyard threats and epithets and...and...a dozen other shocking (to civilized people) improprieties are meaningless trivialities, as long as the country reverts back to the 'normal' USA. Of Wilson. Of Jackson.
That there are millions of people who support Trump is a revelation that has shattered my 'normal' vision of the USA. My guess is that there are millions like me. To heap scorn (for good and righteous reason) on a man who is deified for the conventions he smashes and the beliefs he personifies and practices will do nothing to sway the impervious; the vote is the effective voice. But in a world where facts are kicked to the curbside and washed down the gutter, it helps each of us to know -after reading what others have written or have said - that we are (sigh of relief) normal. And while his supporters couldn't care less about what the rest of the world thinks, we - the opposition - do. We wish to let them know we would like to be counted as one of the normal civilized nations of the world. Our slow motion rebound to at least surface appearance of that status begins in November. Great again? Let's just be happy with Accepted Again.
1
I contend that Trumps slash and burn, reality show host brand of politics is just a cover for his lack of class and civility.
America is on the same course as it has been for the last 40 or so years, the only thing different with Trump is he has every branch of government with him.
He can say and do all these things with impunity because Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan are invisible and silent. I guess they got hoarse from screaming so loud during the last administration.
The Supreme court is his. He gave Wall Street a huge Tax cut. He deregulated all the big banks. Why would they oppose him? He gave the military 720 billion, they love him. Gas prices where I live went from 1.80 a gallon to 2.85. The big oil company’s love him.
Would you call these policies a break from the norm?
And it’s not just about the constitution.
Our government began life as a revolution against Great Britain, monarchy and inequality.
Trumps first foreign trip abroad was to Saudi Arabia to bow before their monarchs.
Just recently he was in England checking in with the Queen.
His top adviser Rudy Giuliani is a British knight.
He’s acts the way he does because that’s way he is and is allowed to get away with it by the powers that be.
4
If this is the best intellectual argument in favor of Trump's behavior, then we know how bad things have gotten.
2
I don't consider crony capitalism and other forms of corruption "norms". And the emoluments clause is pretty explicit. Trump has done far more than twiddle with "norms".
4
Yes, Mr, Kesler, allow Trump to break all the norms(and laws)while he and his Republican cronies create a total Oligarchy, eliminate ethics, start to destroy the environment and those institutions that keep government in check, divide the country while systematically emptying the treasury in favor of his wealthy friends and donors at the expense of everyone else.
Yes, he is certainly breaking the norms alright.
1
This is fundamaentally a fallacious argument. Certainly norms of behavior, like customary law, evolve and adapt to changed circumstances over time. It does not follow, however, that to violate a norm in a flagrant and public way is an innocuous act. On the contrary, it is a way of repudiating the community that is defined by observance of the violated norm. To repudiate a community’s norms is a hostile act, often intended as such by the violator, and usually perceived as such by those who are invested in the community. Further, to violate a norm is not the same thing as to establish a new norm. Let us hope that Trump and his enablers remain a minority, preferably an ever shrinking one, in the democratic community that is the United States of America.
1
Breaking norms is one thing but breaking the law and not following the rule of law does not make democracies stronger only more corrupt.
1
The author's words "the etiquette of modern liberalism and modern liberal governance" is just a euphemism for the odious term "political correctness" which is the high sacrament of the Democratic party. And we have absolutely no problem if Trump crushes its head, hopefully never to return.
@Benjamin Campbell
I respect your right to be incorrect and I am sorry you are so angry about being polite and respectful towards your fellow travelers. We are all in this together.
3
"Must (Trump) acquiesce in the permanent security clearances of the previous administration’s spymasters, when they seek to wield these as licenses to kill his foreign policy and his whole presidency? "
The answer, in short, is Yes. He must. Mr Brennan was attempting to "kill" the Trump Presidency by expressing his opinions in the hope of swaying public opinion. His right to do so without punishment is enshrined in the first amendment. The marketplace of ideas is the fundamental cornerstone of our democracy. If the President can use his vast powers to punish critics and silence opposition then the First Amendment is meaningless.
Freedom of speech is not an "etiquette of modern liberal governance" it is our most fundamental freedom without which true democracy cannot exist. Trump is not rejecting norms, he is rejecting all constitutional limits on his power. Mr. Kesler knows this.
12
The author refers to changes in process: giving SOTU before Congress v. Sending it over; personal diplomacy v. Sending representatives. Trump breaks norms that have made us an example of civility and compromise and competence around the world. His behavior and demeanor have debased our democratic system. He’s a disgrace to America. Let’s hope that when he’s gone, the US can regain its stature and be seen as country to emulate not ridicule.
1
"We elect presidents partly to separate the wheat from the chaff: to energize government by shedding or retiring norms that no longer serve the public good, and by adopting fresh ones that do."
Please tell us Mr. Kesler how immoral behavior needs to become the norm because it that no longer serves the public good?
1
The other norm he is breaking is the tradition, or at least the expectation, that presidents act in the interest of the country.
8
What the 45th president has taught us is that much of what we had believed to be law is, in fact, norms. Much of his behavior may be immoral and unethical, but not illegal. Laws cannot be written in anticipation of every conceivable wrong, and so some bad behavior may go unchecked.
If you consider minor breaks of convention, like tweeting or phoning into Fox News, American democracy will not necessarily be harmed and the ensuing debate might actually help engage voters more.
But tweeting isn't all that is going on. There's Trump businesses' possible violation of the emoluents clause, the appointment of cabinet heads whose common chief qualification is their desire to destroy their cabinets from within, Trump administration ties to Russia, Trump's non tax disclosure that could be hiding conflicts of interest, the abhorrent separation of migrant families . This is not a benign administration.
There are several ways Trump erodes American democracy: 1) He discredits well researched journalism as fake. 2) He has made no attempt to unify the country, has sought to suppress minority vote, and shown a pro-white bias. 3) Like other presidents before him, he has sought to increase the powers of his office. Congress has become weaker. The Supreme Court generally defers to the president. This power imbalance could put us on a path toward tyranny. So much for draining the swamp.
1
I don't pretend to speak for everyone, but I have no trouble with Trump taking political positions contrary to mine; tweeting per se; insulting those he disagrees with, even if those attacks are personal and not based on policy differences; or questioning the motives of federal law enforcement personnel, even while discrediting the motives of mostly black athletes protesting local law enforcement of Africa-American suspects. None of these actions threaten the republic or its form of government.
However, I, and I hope the vast majority of Americans, take strong exception to his apparent virulent racism and sexism; his incessant lying; his seeming disregard for and breaking of the law, together with its concomitant, his attitude that he and his kind are above the law; his placing his children in key governmental positions; his use of his position to self-aggrandize himself, his family and his friends; his surrounding himself with the venal, the incompetent and/or the corrupt; and, as suggested by a growing body of evidence, his likely having rigged his own election. All of these do undermine the health of the body politic and whatever is left of American democracy.
1
Mr. Kesler is shining his shoes for a position in the Trump Administration.This is the kind of "deep" thinking needed in the halls of power right now. Especially when everyone else is being subpoenaed or convicted or quitting out of disgust and/or desperation. Kesler will make a fine mouthpiece for how this renegade ego-bomb is remaking democracy in his own image. Thanks, NYT, for printing this treatise on toadyism!
1
Mr. Kesler's remarks are predicated on the false equivalence of Trump's bad behaviour being no different from other Presidents changing their practices/norms, notwithstanding that Kesler acknowledges "All norms are not created equal." It is one thing for a President to decide to render the State of the Union Address verbally or in writing or to travel abroad or not travel abroad to meet other leaders as Kesler notes and a completely different thing for a President to economically profit from the Office, aggressively attack and punish government employees, political opponents and the media and undermine international alliances upon which peace and prosperity has depended for the past 70 years, for example.
Kesler goes on to dismiss Trump's "alleged transgressions . . . as picayune" and implies liberals are to blame because they are biased against Trump. If liberalism means having respect for other's, treating them fairly and not being corrupt, unlike Trump and his republican/conservative supporters seem to be, then I believe liberals are obligated to call the right out for their mendacity, racism and destructiveness.
A fair appraisal of Trump's behaviour would not conflate changing norms of other Presidents with what Trump does today. There is no equivalence. This behaviour, in and of itself, will not renew democracy. In contradiction with Kesler's assertion, however, it can ruin democracy.
5
“Most of Mr. Trump’s alleged transgressions, measured by those standards, seem picayune.” Is asking Russia to subvert our electoral process picayune? Is preventing asylum seekers the right to seek asylum and then separating kids from their parents picayune? Is condemning our allies and kissing up to our adversaries picayune? Is telling police officers to rough up those they arrest in violation of their Constitutional rights picayune? Is calling the press “the enemy of the people” picayune? No sir, these are not picayune transgressions. Even an entry U.S. government worker knows these are violations of the Constitution, the Constitution they have pledged to defend.
1
Nixon also broke norms which lead to Watergate. Is that OK?
1
If Trump had a stable personality, morals, and policy direction I might agree with his breaking norms. As he possesses none of these, I hardly think he deserves any recognition for the after effects of his narcissistic behavior.
1
How about the "norm" of telling the truth? Too antiquated?
1
The problem is not so much President Trump's apparent penchant for "breaking norms". It is his ever more apparent penchant for "breaking laws."
1
Read Kesler's opinion piece: "Thinking About Trump", and you will see he is a staunch supporter of Trump. He excuses Trump's "bad behavior" by citing other presidents (and MLK) who were womanizers, who drank to much (Grant), and even one who killed in a duel. He extols the successes of Trump's businesses, while ignoring his massive bankruptcies and failures, as well as the out and out fraud of "Trump University". He approves of Trump's disdain for experts, and his penchant for acting impulsively.
In this article, Kesler cites norms Trump has broken, but refrains from mentioning the support of a convicted felon, the seeking of information from Russians, the extolling of actions contrary to our Constitution ("lock her up"), the ridiculing of people (making fun of a handicapped man), the vilification of Mexicans, the reliance on Fox News and not briefings, the pronouncements based on ignorance, lying, the vilification of the press, the disparaging of the intelligence community, requesting loyalty from the director of the FBI, the expectation that Sessions would shield him from investigation. These are norms that a president, a world leader, ought not to violate.
Kesler is a true Trump supporter, and saying that Trump's "transgressions" are simply violations of "modern liberal governance" is misleading.
1
Trump defames the constitution, the norms of liberals only to the degree that those norms fail to conform to the letter and spirit of the constitution. Mr. Kesler bends over backwards, and wrongly, to minimize how corrupt is the man Trump and his methods. I am an independent and will have none of it. I stand with the constitution. Please cease the obfuscation.
If personal and professional dishonesty are the new norm for the American executive, if narcissism and graft are the new norm for public figures, and if the transition to historical ignorance, personal profit and toadyism is where we're headed, then we're witnessing the end of the American Century.
If we aspire to the ideals of honesty, trust, duty, honor, country, then we'll throw these indecent grifters out, one by one. Professor Keslers' equivocation piece notwithstanding.
As a believer in the importance of norms and institutions as guardrails of democracy (call me an elitist), I read the author's article anticipating insights that I may not have considered. I was sorely disappointed. Instead, I read a moronic defense of destructive and boorish behavior. Pushing back on PC is one thing. Defending conspiracy theories, locking up political opponents, aggravating racial division, and serial lying aren't mere tests of the boundaries of constructive discourse. I'm surprised that the NYT published this, not because I disagree with the author, but because the pieve is so lacking in seriousness.
Apparently, having spent far too much time in his ivory tower, Professor Kesler is conveniently not familiar with the fact that Donald Trump, for most of his adult life has behaved like the crime family boss which he clearly is. It certainly doesn't take a genius to see that he is running a crime syndicate out of the White House which he has populated with morally questionable sycophants and is supported by a GOP which has gone off the rails, but hey, they got their tax cuts and their wealthy donors are happy. End of story.
3
Espousing racist views isn’t breaking norms.
It is wrong.
Engaging in illegal activities is not breaking norms
It is wrong
Having no principals beyond “winning” is not breaking norms
It is wrong.
If Mr Kessler can’t tell the difference between right and wrong he too needs to spend a little more time developing principals.
1
If most of his transgressions do not offend the constitution that necessarily leads to the conclusion that some of them do. Mr. Kessler thank you for confirming that Mr. Trump has acted in an unconstitutional manner. In your next article you may confirm that he is a Moscowian Candidate.
Kessler has omitted the very pertinent fact that Trump is alleged to have conspired with Russia to win the presidential election. How about that broken norm? Argue "it's no big deal" ...
1
This is an important essay. Those of us who see Donald Trump for the corrupt fraud he really is are often tempted to believe that Trump's supporters are lacking in intelligence. Mr. Kesler's essay demonstrates, however, that highly educated individuals can also be gulled by a talented grifter.
A disappointingly shallow analysis from a professor of government. If Trump is breaking norms then it should serve some greater purpose other than being boorish and self-serving.
As far as it not being illegal or unconstitutional we are getting closer to that point every day. Kidnapping children may be legal but is is most certainly immoral and inhuman and a stain on the reputation of America.
There’s an old adage that advises that one should listen to their enemies, for they will happily point out your weaknesses to you. It seems to me that Trump is clearly an enemy of American democracy, but he has certainly highlighted its weaknesses, something which I hope Americans deal with someday in a post-Trump America.
It's not always bad to break norms, therefore Trump's norm-breaking is good.
The shoddiest of logic-chopping, dressed up in a decent prose style and some pseudo-scholarly arm-waving. That's your conservative intellectual in 2018.
1
What Kesler is doing here is normalizing the kinds of norm-breaking that Trump is actually doing: the norms of decency including matrimonial integrity, respect and courtesy for others, self-control, placing the interests of the country above one's own in such a position of responsibility, etc. Kesler's is the same kind of corrupt disingenuousness that Trump spokesman Sanders displays daily, but worse as it is gussied up by the language of the intellectual.
1
I agree. The president should be allowed to lie to the American people whenever he likes. The ability to pull the wool over everyone's eyes is a presidential virtue. Furthermore, he should be able to use his office to increase the profits of his personal business. He's responsible to his shareholders, first and foremost, isn't he? And if he's rich, he should advocate for the rich. They're his peeps. Moreover, he should be able to hide any malefaction he has committed, in business or politics. Paying off those who might tarnish his reputation should be normal presidential protocol. What are campaign funds for, anyway? What's more, we should laud a president who invites foreign powers to instigate in our elections. Those foreigners, regardless of their hostility, deserve freedom of speech, just like us. Finally, the president is well within his rights to scapegoat whomever he pleases, in whatever language he pleases--even adolescent name-calling. He should vilify the press and declare--100% of the time--that negative articles are fake. How else can he keep his honor intact? He should undermine our fundamental belief in truth. He should make truth lies, and lies truth. Even if he's talking to the Boy Scouts... We need a new kind of president. One who breaks the law, doesn't bother himself about civic responsibility, talks like a racist, evades taxes, and believes that you're only guilty if you get caught.
We've been drifting for some time toward a presidency that Dick Cheney and other conservatives call a "unitary executive". In reality, a dictator. If anything good can come of Trump's presidency, maybe it shows us where that drift leads.
2
Before the pejorative "political correctness" became a cudgel to attack those who practice the universal virtues of courtesy and kindness, we didn't have a president who used his own media channel to wallow in the gutter of adolescent insult against individual citizens.
I guess we COULD go back to letting members of Congress cane one another on the House floor....
1
Wow, what a breathtakingly banal observation. OBVIOUSLY breaking norms per se is not problematic. There was once a norm in this country of referring to black people using horribly offensive pejoratives. It's a good thing that that norm was so systematically broken that we now have a norm in the other direction. The relevant question here is whether the norms that Trump repeatedly violates are 'good', healthy norms for a flourishing democracy. It seems pretty clear that having presidential norms promoting the release of tax returns, say, or against sexual assault (to use just two examples that could be multiplied ad nauseam) is beneficial for the nation. The esteemed professor provides exactly no reason to think otherwise.
The Trump train "norm breaking" has moved on from trashing federal agencies and G-7 allies to being implicated in an apparent criminal conspiracy to violate federal election laws (with who knows what else?)
Not certain if the author thinks that also is just "offending the etiquette of modern liberal etiquette" or whether he prefers to ignore that conduct to set up a strawman argument rather than address subjects that are unpleasant for him
So we are left with cable news talking points in the interest of the NYT editorial page saying it provides "balance"
1
You'd think we were talking about Trump's table manners. The central flaw of Kesler premise is that Trump is breaking norms in favor of his own private interests. A president attacking the FBI is one thing. A president who's campaign and administration are under investigation for any number of crimes from perjury to tax evasion to campaign finance violations to fraud to witness tampering to corruption to obstruction of justice to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. is quite another.
No one cares about Trump's tweets in and of themselves. Obama tweeted. The problem is that the president tweets misinformation, lies and intimidation, not just against other politicians, but against private citizens with whom he has a personal grudge.
Similarly, no one would care about the "norms" of releasing tax returns if Trump were not a notorious con artist who's defrauded everyone from students to contractors to those foolish enough to donate to his foundation. No one would care about him meeting behind closed doors with Putin if he hadn't told so very many lies about prior meetings and Putin wasn't ACTIVELY attacking us as I write this comment. Further, while taking NATO to task OR trying to sweet-talk our rivals might be explainable... taking NATO to task WHILE trying to sweet-talk our rivals is just plain suspicious; particularly in light of, again, Trump's generally duplicitous nature.
This is not about the norms being broken. It's about the corrupt intent behind the breaking.
So when the president says, "flipping should be outlawed" that's just breaking a norm?
How about when he says he chose Jeff Sessions because of loyalty and didn't mention ability to be a good attorney general. That too is just breaking norms!
When the president lies day after day is that too is just breaking norms.
In my view when you break these norms you have nothing left and there is no longer any morals for our country.
We teach our children to tell the truth and we teach our children to be kind and respect others.
Now we have a president who says NO to all that we strive for ourselves and our children.
This president has no decency and neither do you!
A norm for Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Wilson was that truth is truth. That is a norm that Triumph has broken thousands of times as president. Sad.
Is habitual lying "breaking a norm"? No, it is far more serious. Truth is not a "norm".
Trump has broken norms that include suggesting that some white nationalists are 'good people', calling African countries ugly names, mocking a disabled person, suggesting that it is ok for his supporters to be physically aggressive to others, insulting our allies, and refusing to acknowledge the agreed upon facts of the Russian attack on our elections. Acting in this manner is unnacceptable for ordinary citizens and for the person in the presidency. If this author is ok with these behaviors, there is something very wrong with him.
Choosing to lie most of the time is not a 'norm' it is a moral imperative.
Commenters have already eloquently rebutted Kesler's weak arguments, and the ulterior motives for his making such claims.
Therefore, I'm just going to take a shower to wash away the stench of this column.
One question, though. Shall we discard the norm of expecting our president to generally provide us with the truth?
1
With professors like this, we still wonder about the state of education at our second and third tier colleges?
2
This is offensive.
Conservative rubbish tarted up as some kind of intellectual exercise.
In trademark Trump fashion, the well-funded Right has moved from "What? What did I do?" to "Oh, sure.,. there's lots of evidence but, really, so what? What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?"
So destroying the credibility of critical national institutions becomes "Runs down the FBI..."
The chaos in the White House has sent our biggest and best allies scurrying around the globe for replacement partners on military issues and trade. This will not be easily undone, and it will cost us hugely.
Meantime, our norm-smashing President has denigrated the very idea of education, has cemented for generations the perversion that corporations are our only friends into the courts, the press, and the national psyche.
Finally, as a final thumb in the eye of those who actually imagined this was a product of serious intellect, Mr. Kesler uncritically parrots the Make America Great Again trope which has become little more than a cruel joke.
Some day I would like to hear a serious conservative comment on the current state of things. This parade of think-tank geniuses and political lackeys is not likely going to provide it any time soon.
By the way, I said "serious conservative" by mistake.
1
You call it "breaking norms." We regulars call it "lying nonstop." It's not about Presidential norms, it's about societal norms, it's about ethical/moral norms, it's about bending and breaking the law, taking advantage of people, lying constantly and blatantly, cheating, stealing. This isn't about the color of his tie, this is about a demented corrupt old man with no moral center purporting to "lead" our country, and the enablers who allow him to continue to do so, despite constant and mounting evidence that he is incapable of thinking for himself, digesting facts, speaking with people coherently and making logical decisions.
This column is well-phrased nonsense.
Trump's 'alleged transgressions' include taking sides with an adversary against the country's intelligence services - is this 'picayune'? He invites said foreign power to intervened in the election - is this 'picayune'? He hires unqualified famiy members to make national policy - is this 'picayune'? He refuses to respect the emoluments clause - Is this 'picayune'? He removes security clearance on the basis of loyalty - is this 'picayune'? He accuses media who don't fawn on him of being 'enemies of the poeople' - is this 'picayune' ?
No, Trump is NOT energizing goverment by shedding norms that no longer serve the public good. He is shedding ones that DO serve the public good, but not his own.
I think Kessler is conflating "norms" with "the law," and "etiquette" with "bigotry."
Also, I kinda chuckled to myself trying to imagine the Donald attempting to quote this article, and having to figure out what "picayune" meant.
1
You give Trump too much credit. His boorishness is not a tactic, it's not a considered paln to change norms; his boorishness is the self-serving strategy of an infantile narcissist and bully. He was born on third base and thinks he scored a touchdown. If his is the new norm and that's acceptable to you, please show some self-awareness and acknowledge your alt-right nihilism. While not impeachable his offenses against civility and truth are encouraging a complete breakdown of American polity.
1
What better way to renew Democracy than a President who mocks it every day.
I guess denouncing the press as "the enemy of the people" and making racial slurs against a judge of Cuban ancestry may be viewed as breaking "the etiquette of liberal government" by Trump apologists. I generally think if etiquette in terms of which fork I use for salad.
1
"... He fails to disclose his tax returns. ..."
So what?
Disclosing the tax returns would detail exactly what it is that Putin has on his puppet. How the money flows, the players, the IOU's, the agendas, etc.
The norm of disclosing taxes needs to be encoded into law for those who aspire to be president.
I will need to coin a new word for the act of normalizing the self serving gratuitous breaking of norms.
We have whataboutism and bothsideism.
Breaknormism?
There are norms which are not just style:
- Misusing pardon freeing convicts for political purpose.
- Using bully pulpit to insult citizens.
- Pushing policy to help our adversary Russia
- Using bully pulpit to divide the country rather than unite it
- Promoting racist views of Mexicans and Muslims
- Promoting White nationalist views
- Promoting incivility in general
- Complimenting felons
- Undermining truth in political speech and lying continuously
- Undermining the Press as enemies of the people
- More
My hand is getting tired
Huh? This is the most ridiculous thing I have read. Forgot about liberal norms, what about just common decency and civility norms? (And of course, he has installed corrupt people, self-serving people in all sorts of positions) Also, to what is exactly referred to in the "great" part? There is so much wrong here, I can't even begin.
1
What complete nonsense. Trump's violation of norms is not confined to customs, habits, or idiosyncratic behaviors adopted by one or more previous U.S. presidents. On the contrary, he routinely shatters norms that are fundamental to modern society, including respect for the rule of law, scientific inquiry, reasoned debate, democracy, and basic human rights.
Indeed, the U.S. as we currently understand it, including our constitution, would never have developed, and the enlightenment would never have occurred, if Trump's behavior and worldview had been predominant over the past couple of centuries.
Mr. Kesler may think Trumpist norm-breaking is just an act of creative destruction. More likely, he is just engaged in a silly faux intellectual exercise.
Oh come on, this is not merely about etiquette. Nobody cares how he sets his dinner table. Trump's norms: the constant lying, scapegoating of minorities, and petty vindictiveness, are hardly new or clever; they're the norms of every two-bit banana-republic tyrant and a deep injustice upon those he scapegoats, and they certainly aren't making America great. We are fortunate that our press and institutions have, thus far, restrained his worst impulses and contained the damage. Given the opportunity I have no doubt he would govern as a strongman and a kleptocrat.
Nonsense. This president violates the very foundations upon which democracy is built, the very idea that there is an objective truth that is understood by all sane and healthy people. Donald Trump rejects the Enlightenment is trying to take us back to the dark ages. This should be clear for all to see.
Whoa! Your point of view astounds me! Do you honestly believe that the history books will record this president as some kind of shining light? I’ve got kindergarteners thumbing his picture on the wall!
This column sounds like a student belaboring an obvious preliminary point because he knows his main argument is weak.
Everybody agrees that norms sometimes need to be broken. Nobody except partisans and cronies want norms that are self-serving and corrupt.
So many lies; so little time to address them.
"He hires and fires cabinet secretaries, lawyers and communications people with abandon."
Not illegal. Just poor judgement. Repeated ad nauseum. We choose a POTUS to make good decisions.
"Mr. Trump’s manner of treating members of his own administration is often regrettable, but then for his entire term so far he has been entangled in a pitched battle with elements of the executive branch nominally under his own authority — a frustration no previous president has had to face."
Are you blaming anybody OTHER than DJT? *HE* hired the people, who for reasons completely unfathomable to you are engaging in "pitched battle" with their boss! Ever stop to wonder why?
I would be grateful if Prof Kesler would be so kind as to point out to me the part of the Constitution that says that POTUS is above the law.
I agree - Make America great again. Get Trump out of office!!
1
Norms are one thing. The president is credibly being accused of breaking laws. Funny you made no mention of that.
The Claremont “Institute” is, surprise, surprise, a conservative “think tank.” The first thing I do when I read an op-ed expressing, shall we say, unusual opinions, is to check the source. From what I’ve read, this particular “Institute” was at one time heavily subsidized by the tobacco industry and, no doubt, defended the personal right and liberty to kill ones-self by smoking cigarettes.
3
Quite conveniently, this author has failed to address the “high crimes and misdemeanors” explicitly mentioned in the Constitution that this President has surely partaken. The elephant in the room remains.
1
This is asinine. Perhaps it's fine if Donald Trump wants to be to the White House what Rodney Dangerfield was to Bushwood Country Club. A little irreverence in the face of staid tradition never hurt anyone. But as Mr. Kesler observes, not all norms are created equal; and Mr. Trump has trampled several of our more sacred norms, namely, that the President have at least a passing respect for the truth (that's an oldie but goodie) and that one not morally equate racists with non-racists (newer, but still a good idea). Liberals sometimes may lapse into Trump Derangement Syndrome, but Mr. Kesler's essay exemplifies the inverse phenomenon from the right, i.e., excusing Mr. Trump's severe transgressions just because he owns the libs.
I am truly amazed at what the human brain can spew! Being well educated doesn't seem to protect one from utter nonsense.
The only positive thing that one can say about this opinion piece is that it is written in good English.
1
This is a masterful essay attempting to defend Trump by sounding like a reasonable, rational social scientist who uses selections from history along with some ocial science abstractions to say Trump's not all that bad.
Note that Professor Kesler's chirpy interpretation of how Trump does nothing different as president from all the other presidents when he "breaks a presidential norm or two” is possible only because he ignores the actual, visceral content of Trump’s “norm-breaking”—the nasty public bullying, the outright lies, the ongoing tax return evasions, the venality, nepotism, narcissism, laziness, and so on ad nauseam. Instead, wraps together the heinous content into an anodyne catch-all: Trump's "blunt manner of doing business.”
NY Times readers might like knowing that Professor Kesler is a part of a group known as the “West Coast Straussians”—followers of the political philosopher Leo Strauss who believe the biggest crisis facing the country is the rule of the “administrative state” (in right-wing parlance, the “deep state.”) While they no doubt worry about Trump’s competence, they support him because of his contempt for “expertise” (i.e., administrative, university-educated elites) and his utter disdain for the “way things have always been done."
In sum, Professor Kesler has sold the whole of his intellectual soul to the thuggish Donald Trump in exchange for him smashing the administrative state.
428
@Emile
Makes more sense now. In my own comment, (not suitable for posting, apparently) I ask whether it's April Fool's day because this op-ed is surely a joke.
So, the man is not joking and is simply another Steve Bannon promoting the 'deconstruction of the administrative state.'
I never tire of saying that if we didn't have the "administrative state" there would be lawlessness and chaos, plain and simple. We didn't create the "administrative state" to torture people, we created it so we're all on the same page, playing by the same rules.
And they say the NYT doesn't print any conservative viewpoints. I'll remember to link to this beauty.
@Emile
As I vaguely recall the US Constitution starts off with "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic..." Oddly I do not see any mention of the Leviathan Administrative State mentioned in this Preamble...none. Why? Because "We, the People..." still reign supreme, no matter how unhappy it makes those that labor away in the Administrative State.
And I did not vote for Trump as I find him to be an utterly detestable, vulgar, uncouth and ignorant man...still, he does understand WHO reigns supreme in the United States.
@Emile You hit the nail on the head...
I've given it some thought and it's this: Trump believes that if you break it, you own it. So he's doing his best to break it.
Me? I don't buy it.
2
At first, I thought this article was satire because the comparisons between Trumps actions and the cherry picked actions of past presidents are clearly dissimilar. Only fools, caricatures and made up people cling to norms simply because they are the way things have been done. The norms Trump wantonly violates are not alarming simply because they are norms, and to portray the alarm as such illuminates the author’s gross ignorance or shows him to be a fundamentally deceptive person. Trump’s norm breaking is alarming for reasons including, but not limited to, nakedly corrupt intent, damaging long and hard built alliances with no thought on constructive replacements therefore weakening the US and it’s place in the world, violating basic and well known principles of good governance, as well as open and brazen ethical violations often done to enable corruption. The problem isn’t that the president tweets, it’s that he uses it to lie and bully frequently. The problem isn’t that he’s running down the FBI, it’s that he’s doing it to obstruct legitimate criminal inquiries into his associates and potentially himself (inquiries which have led to indictments, multiple guilty pleas, and now a conviction). Each example is simplified to a point where it becomes clear that the author’s only intent is to deceive and spread garbage propaganda. Of course the people elected Trump because they wanted change, but they wanted to drain a swamp that has only festered worse since he was elected. Thanks
1
This is just the preliminaries. Mueller now hold the guys he will squeeze out the juicy stuff: collusion with Russia. Tell me where in your constitution its ok to trafic the election with an hostile power. In Canada we would call it a "Coup d'État".
Be patient, the Mueller report will come out in time. Ideally two weeks before the mid terms. Like Commey two years ago. The score will be even and democracy should resume in America.
It's hugely discouraging to see that we've so defined deviancy down that we actually treat as worthy of earnest discussion this man's squalid sophistries about our Russian-agent gangster demagogue's relentless offenses against law, decency, and the republic's time-proven civic customs.
1
I guess the author recognizes that Trump's behavior is repugnant and indefensible unless we say that "bad" is "good". Welcome to 1984.
1
This feels like an essay written on January 21, 2017 before we knew what norms Trump would break, crush, and trample.
In regard to the breaking of norms, the professor asks, “So what?”
Less than two years in, reality answers, “So this.”
What a shallow piece of claptrap!
Those of us who decry Trump's actions and behaviors aren't concerned about him merely breaking "norms" and not following surface "etiquette." Rather, we decry:
- His constant lying to the American people.
- His demonization and undermining of the freedom of the press (which is one of the pillars of our democracy).
- His attacks on the integrity of our judiciary (another pillar of our democracy), and on our military and law-enforcement agencies.
- His breaking of our agreements and alliances with our allies, and the weakening of America's standing within the world community.
- His use of the power of the office to attack individual citizens, attack some companies but promote others, etc.
- His fomenting of distrust and his promotion of violence against factions of our society.
- His destruction of regard for facts and truths as the basis for making decisions and running our country.
- His utter hypocrisy of campaigning against corruption, but installing corrupt friends into leadership positions.
- His refusal to protect our democracy from interference in our elections by foreign adervsaries (and to even acknowledge that the problem exists).
- His weakening of our government by installing unqualified family members into sensitive positions, with access to classified info.
And worst of all: He has made it "acceptable" to ignore the foundations of human decency, compassion, and living with each other together as a functioning society.
1
I'm sure the republic will be well served by the new norms ushered in by this so-called president: Serial lying, degrading and debasing speech, deeply personal attacks on anyone who disagrees with him, blatant racism and unchecked self-enrichment.
What could go wrong?
This essay by Mr. Kesler serves as a corrective to the NYT editorial:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/22/opinion/congress-trump-corruption.htm...
However, I have a feeling that Mr. Kesler might disagree as to the definition of presidential high crimes and misdemeanors or even crimes in general. Indeed Mr. Kesler seems to have a "Trump being Trump" approach as opposed to the editorial board's impeach now and convict post haste mentality.
My guess is that Mr. Kesler's view is still the accepted one in the Republican Congress
2
If breaking norms is good for democracy well the republicans have certainly done a good job. Unethical behavior, corruption, hypocrisy, failure to govern, failure to address the needs of the country, and the list could go on.
So, I am excited by Mr. Kesler's position about norm breaking and renewing the tree of democracy.
He endorses the taking of the knee obviously as a norm breaker. I hope he supports citizens throwing eggs and tomatoes or shoes at the president, that's a great norm breaker. I know he must support harassing our political enemies in restaurants and the such as a norm breaker as well.
What a ridiculous op-ed.
He's not just breaking norms, he's breaking everything he can to fuel his narcissistic need to continual attention and praise.
He breaks laws and lies continually.
He uses the power of the government to punish those who don't bow down before him.
It is disingenuous to talk about the security clearance issue as if it was a principled decision that ex-intelligence officials don't need clearances, when it is absolutely clear that it was done punitively to people who criticized "His Highness".
Nice try, but this is a hack job.
3
Oh brother! This argument might be true in a normal presidency but Prof. Kesler is presenting an apologia for the Trump train wreck. Putting aside the many incredible, fallacious, racist, misogynistic things this man has uttered to date, let's start with the fact that this is an illegitimate president. He and others (read: Russia) illegally conspired to gain the election. He says "Presidents are often called upon to adjust norms; it’s almost part of the job." but that is a statement that applies to a normal (and legitimate) presidency. I do not think that anyone today would describe the Trump administration as normal. Prof. Kesler needs to get out of those fusty rooms at Claremont-McKenna and see the Trump White House as it really is just now.
2
Kesler's list of Trump's "alleged transgressions" is an absurdly cherry-picked one, and he knows it.
5
True enough, there's nothing in the constitution about lying about everything (including your own lies). I does seem obvious enough, though, that Mr Trump has repeatedly violated the oath he took to defend and uphold the constitution.
This was an academic rhetorical exercise and not a bad joke right?
2
This is the thickest coat of whitewash I’ve ever seen. Underneath, the fence is still rotten.
3
For the word “norms”, we may now substitute the word “laws”. How well does the argument stand up?
1
Destroying norms that have preserved the union for the making of some future rediscovery of "greatness" is pure fantasy. That one would so flippantly sacrifice what has helped to make America great for a predictably dire future resulting from fatal errors reveals only the delusion of a fool and not the wisdom of a reasonable man.
1
The worst intellectual sin is maintaining the truth of a proposition merely because one wishes it to be so. In this essay Mr. Kesler commits that sin in spades.
3
Lots of hand-waving and distraction, but the fact is that the norms Trump is breaking are mostly good, and Trump is mostly evil. Kesler, desperate to run interference for Trump, can dismiss "picayune" norms like defending the rule of law, pursuing justice, and valid elections, but those are important things for a president to defend, and Trump's a dismal failure.
I'm wondering how this op-ed read in its original Russian language version. (The Claremont Institute and Claremont McKenna College are well-known right-wing academic think tanks.)
2
Trump is no Jefferson, Wilson, F.D.R., etc.
So, correct me if I'm wrong...but you're saying it's refreshing and happy if our president adopts the norms of a third world dictator?
Our essential pillars of democracy are under attack by a narcissistic criminal and Mr. Kesler is saying he's not bad, just a breath of fresh air?
1
How about the norm of telling the truth?
5
Methinks you compare normal norms to the abnormal abnorms that Trump creates or destroys with every tweet or interview.
He wouldn’t conform to a norm, even his own, if his life depended on it.
2
Very generous of the NY Times to provide a senior fellow of a conservative think tank the opportunity publish this lawyerly propaganda piece on behalf of unknown donors and Trump himself.
No mention here that Trump has actually now been implicated in court of real crimes- a fire that no amount of skillfully delivered smoke and mirrors can conceal.
That the NY Times has chosen to publish this piece of political propaganda at the very moment that Trump's behavior is being described in court as criminal, and not the mere breaking of norms, is a mysterious editorial decision.
3
Breaking norms? What about breaking laws?
1
There is little at once so poignant and so ridiculous as a man on a sinking ship proclaiming that the water - and in fact everything - is just fine.
3
Kessler is associated with Neo-Confederates who believe the Civil War was about tariff issues between the North and South, and not about the South's desire to preserve Slavery, and extend it to the new states of the West.
Kessler and his associates believe that Slavery was (A) legal in the South, as it was, (B) that because Slavery was legal, it was also moral, and protected as an institution by the Bible.
Nonsense, but you can see how weak their moral compass might be.
South Carolina's Declaration of War against the US in 1861 mentions Slavery 40 times as a cassus belli - but NEVER mentions tariffs or trade.
This level of intellectual deceit runs through the spine of the Claremont Institute, the Cato Institute, Von Mies in Auburn, Alabama and a host of other badly staffed 'think tanks' throughout the US.
It's interesting that the NYT cannot find anyone with better credentials than Kessler, to provide the counterpoint to the moderately liberal Times, but perhaps such a person doesn't exist.
4
The writer forgets that Donald Trump is accused of conspiring with Russia to influence the presidential election, not tweeting too much.
3
Excuse me sir, but our current president is not a norm breaker, he's a law breaker. If you can't understand that or chose not to you have no place in academia and certainly not one teaching government.
7
Oh, Brother!
Mr. Kesler takes Trump's original theme of being the anti-"politically correct" candidate and runs with it, applying the same (lack of) principles to, well, everything. But we've seen how that works and have determined that it just doesn't. Presenting Trump's disastrous actions across the spectrum of his Presidential responsibilities as merely "outside the box" thinking is tone deaf and ridiculous. Senior fellows at conservative "think" tanks have apparently been relegated to applying lipstick to pigs. Oh, well...it's a living.
"...but then for his entire term so far he has been entangled in a pitched battle with elements of the executive branch nominally under his own authority — a frustration no previous president has had to face."
And whose fault, pray tell, might that be? I thought this guy "hired the best people."
Is this the best the conservative "intelligentsia" can do? Really? Pathetic. I have no idea why President Trump is the hill conservatives have chosen to die on, but I will look forward to their arguments in favor of historical norms as soon as the Democrats are in power again.
3
Deliberate avoidance of discussing the crucial norms and guardrails. Quite the vacuous response to the actions of a wannabe dictator who doesn't understand and who, on a near daily basis, abuses and/or undermines the rule of law and presidential power.
A university professor? God help us all.
This is a piece of "trumpery": showy but worthless, attractive articles of little value or use. (Even Trump's name warned the world about what he was and wasn't.)
6
This author’s arguments are frightening not because they are wrong. Their relative saneness and the curves he puts on sharp edges are arguments that would make people who want to break norms and rights to invoke totalitarianism would find music to their ears. Wake up and smell......(not the roses) Professor. Great list by Anonymous
1
What goes around comes around. Would he still be saying this if it were a Democratic president changing the norms? I doubt it. Hypocrites.
1
"Breaking norms? Doing business in his blunt manner?" That's what you think he's doing? Donald Trump is a pathological liar with authoritarian impulses who actively encourages and delights in all manner of toxic behavior in people. He foments racism, misogyny, and hatred of minority groups living in America, legally or otherwise. His cruel borderland policies are destroying families and negatively impacting children's sense of well-being. He continues to sow division among Americans and has done absolutely nothing to unite us. He has not reached out to me, a Democrat who voted for Hillary, not a single time, not once. He continues to hold his rallies just for his rabid, witless, toxic base, denigrating and wrecking everything that I, and many of us, held dear, simply because it was something President Obama signed into law. He has totally destroyed the dignity of the office of the presidency and has made America, once a truly great nation, into a pariah on the world stage. Breaking norms? No, just breaking anything and everything in his pathway with no regard for anyone other than himself. I don't even want to fix this country anymore. I want a divorce from people like you; let's just formally dissolve the "United" States of America. It doesn't exist anymore.
Breaking norms is sometimes vital. But Trump's new "norms" are nothing new. They are all well-worn norms of autocrats of the past. Others have documented these in detail, such as Andrew Sullivan and brilliant Times writers. Since Kesler knows this, it's clear this is just a propaganda piece designed to get him air time on Fox.
2
What a spineless, craven pile of drivel. It misses the elephant in the living room while claiming advantage of one's relative position of height gives perspective--while standing on top of the elephant. It's not that these things mentioned herein aren't so bad and are part of custom not the law, it's that they are in addition to all the corruption that does break the law indicating that the gop's and trump's actions are not one offs but run through any and every action they take. If it's not playing footsie with the Russians to egg them on in disrupting an election, then it's some guy buying his own third party candidate to try and divide the opposition. And all of that is on top of fake campaign voter obstructive laws, gerrymandering and mountains of dark money spent that must be corrupt otherwise why would it be dark in the first place since the guys whose money that was love to crow about what they can do with all their money and choose to be quiet.
No Mr. Kesler, you are dead wrong and in the most bankrupt, disingenuous manner possible. The worst of it is you are a teacher responsible for training young minds. This is an abomination and disgrace that parents and students alike should reject as wholly unacceptable.
1
Not a thoughtful article. Apart from his incompetence, ignorance, and narcissism, he is deeply corrupt and has traduced our democratic traditions and strategic alliances at the service of a foreign power, our foremost adversary in the world, and that's called treason. So: "bribery, treason, and high crimes & misdemeanors"-- that about covers it.
3
What sophistry! Many of the norms Prof. Kessler dismisses as dismissible represent behavior that values honesty and widespread collaborations to bettter the world. Other norms Trump flaunts - affairs with pron actresses and Playboy models while his third wife is pregnant, heretofore unimaginable profiting while in office, appointment of know-nothing relatives and lobbyist-shills to Cabinet posts, cozying up to dictators - are societal protections plain and simple. And this writer teaches at Claremont-McKenna? For shame.
3
@Jazzmandel I doubt "shame' is in Prof. Kesler's lexicon.
This author lacks the moral courage to name the dangrous things Mr. Trump has done, from breaking campaign finance laws to lying to the American people about the purpose of various meetings with enemy nations. Frankly, this reads as a disingenuous plea for the American people to stick their fingers in their ears and not protest. I hope most conservatives have more courage than this writer.
2
Breaking Norms Will Renew Democracy, Not Ruin It!
Well, I guess that's what they thought 1933 in Germany, too.
1
Free the 1040's! And PA GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Wagner, release your taxes, too!
Raping what's left of the environment, coddling to racists, fascists and dictators, removing consumer protections and attacking health insurance without any kind of replacement. what's not to like, eh Charles?
Make America Grift Again?, Make America Gullible Again? Sure.
Great? Not so much.
2
The only way that this country can be renewed is by a lengthy and comprehensive impeachment trial and conviction in the Congress.
Anything short for our 242 year old republic would be a disaster.
He lies, he cheats, he steals. He is unfit to be President.
Lock him up!
1
This article is utterly besides the point: Trump’s transgressions against normal political behavior befitting a President are in service of deceit, self interest and ignorance. Most interesting, the good professor likely penned this irrelevant article before our norm busting leader lauded criminal conduct and derided law enforcement. Here is a norm the President has shunned: as chief law enforcement officer , head of “my” Justice Department as he likes to say, he wants to outlaw cooperation with law enforcement. He rules our a democracy as a mob boss controls his “family.”
Trump’s norm busting is in furtherance of his self interest. He refuses to disclose his tax returns to obscure his tangled finances. He refuses to divest from conflicts of interest to profit from his high office. He fires or threatens law enforcement officials to conceal his own misdeeds. He wants to “lock up” Hillary, and outlaw “ flipping”, while down playing tax evasion, money laundering and bank fraud: in other words, criminalize his accusers and justify his criminal conduct.
Trump wants us to accept his immoral, corrupt and illegal conduct as acceptable because ....he did it. Trump’s norm busting is not an example of innovative leadership; it is symptomatic of his narcissistic and sociopathic personality which constructs an alternative reality in order to rationalize his aberrant behavior to avoid detection.
1
So this president has broken more than presidential norms, he has broken human norms. This president has put the cart in front of the horse in all aspects of his governance. What he has displayed in his norm braking is his total lack of comprehension of the issues at hand. I don't think of that is something to hang your hat on, rather he looks to me like a spoiled brat who has so much to choose from he just does not know what to do.
1
The Professor hit the bullseye.
You forgot the parts where he incites violence against private citizens who are his critics, funnels federal tax dollars into his many businesses by visiting them regularly to conduct the nation’s business, very likely has broken the law and lies as he breathes, just to name a few. Let’s see the columns when the one who’s “breaking the norms” is doing so to crush the religious right.
1
This piece is borderline offensive to thinking people. To compare norms of behavior that are changed in service to the country by a president that is serving the country to the behavior of Donald Trump is odorous. An attack on the press is an attack on democracy itself. Sexual predation. Accused criminal behavior by his own attorney to effect the outcome of an election. Treason "Russia if you can hear me..." and on and on. These are not norms that he is changing. These are red lines he has crossed and crimes.
2
This argument is a bit ridiculous and beneath the NY Times. No?
1
Well that is a paper thin view of reality
The norms of which Mr. Kesler speaks are no more modern than they are liberal. They date at least to the 17th century, when Thomas Hobbes described the social contract of people delegating their right to harm others in exchange for protection from harm.
As Mr. Kesler asserts, it is not strict constructionism of the Constitution that the president has undermined -- as far as we know. Rather he has trampled the voluntary norms that a government of the people chooses to follow, so that citizens will know that their trust in the government to keep the social contract is valid. The United States exists because a capricious monarchy did not hew to such voluntary norms. Public trust can be broken, and it is precisely because of the Constitution's textual limitations that members of the government are expected to adhere to behavioral norms that affirm their trustworthiness.
1
Charles, you are so naive! Engaging in criminal conduct, and fostering conspiracies that undermine our democracy -- these are not "norms." They are normal behavior for Trump, perhaps, but they are NOT norms.
3
Pay no attention to Trump's alleged crimes. Look over here instead!
2
Under the author’s definition, Pres. Clinton only violated disposable “norms” when he visited with Ms. Lewinsky in the Oval Office. Why did Republicans get so upset?
1
This is a piece of shallow sophistry, an embarrassment to the academy. The worship of power by the California Straussians has long been evident, but this reaches a new low.
3
Mr Trump is merely the purulent head of the festering boil that the Republican party has become. Case in point: Senator McConnell defied custom to deny President Obama a Supreme Court pick. Why does Professor Kesler protest the Democrats response to this breach (adding more justices to the court), but not the breach itself? Both-sides-ism once again rears its repugnant head. Prof. Kesler is not a conservative under the meaning of the term as I learned it; he is one more radical making excuses for an authoritarian.
3
Should future presidents follow the new norm of paying hush money?
2
The breaking of norms include leveraging hate and division to gain power, money and praise. Separating mothers from their child for a misdemeanor, breaking down all of our institutions both foreign and domestic and violating his oath of office on a daily basis, attacking the first amendment, attempts to destroy anyone who crossed him and throws all allies under the bus when they are no longer useful.
These actions all have taken us farther down the road towards a Russian style gangland style oligarchy. The Justice Department is our only institution left standing in his way, which is why he spends his waking hours attacking it.
Anyone who thinks that the best way to improve his home is to start by tearing it down, while he is still living in it, is a fool.
4
After a long list of broken norms you write: "Guilty as charged — but so what? All norms are not created equal."
Attacking our freedom of press on a daily basis, attacking our intelligence agencies and DOJ, using and threatening to us the pardon as a weapon for self-preservation are beyond the pale. You assume our country will survive Trump without Constitutional crises and a degradation of our politics. I make no such assumptions. Your twisted logic of this all being a good tonic for our nation is almost beyond belief, especially coming from a professor.
3
No Professor Kessler, the norms President Trump violates are those of civility, truth, honesty and integrity. He’s not some high-minded individual looking to advance our democracy, just a shady grifter lining his own pockets while wrapping himself in a flag, playing to our worst selves, and using his position to retaliate against his enemies both real and imagined. I would expect people like you to point out that the emperor is naked and not fawn over his great new outfit. Finally, I put to you a question: Would you be comfortable with a person close to you acting the way the president does? I don’t know about you but, I have NO friends that lie constantly, are racists, act as if they are above the law, sleep around on their wives, are woefully ill-equipped for the job they’re in, and that are unindicted co-conspirators.
3
What utter nonsense! Trump isn't breaking norms, he's violating very explicit instructions of the Constitution, such as the Emoluments Clause.
He's deliberately violating or helping states violate several clauses of the 1st Amendment, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 14th,15th, and 24th Amendments and has hinted at violating the 22nd.
He's used the power of the Pardon to violate the separation of powers and the power of the courts to enforce their decisions by pardoning the contempt conviction of Joe Arpaio, and threatens to use the Pardon to obstruct justice.
He has nominated to the Supreme Court a candidate who, in the face of the onrushing legal and criminal charges Trump may face, has written that the President is, unlike every other citizen, above the Law and beyond its reach.
He has threatened to remove the Speaker of the House despite having NO legal authority to do so.
But worst of all, he has conspired, and continues to conspire, with a hostile foreign power in its ongoing efforts to corrupt and disrupt our election process. The cyber attacks by Russia in which he is blatantly complicit, constitute an Act of War on the United States, and that is clearly the exact kind of transgression Impeachment was designed for.
Trump has violated his oath to uphold, defend and enforce the Constitution of the United States the very moment he concluded with "so help me, God."
It's not norms he's violated. It's the Constitution.
3
We are currently witnessing the wholesale trashing of democratic norms by one political party. The olnly “renewal” I seen happening is a renewal of voters determination to get to the poles and put a stop to this train wreck.
3
History is littered with people who "broke norms" Putin as an example.
While most of his transgressions offend it appears as if many of them are actually illegal. Nothing like a good perp walk to re-energize our federal government.
We don't need a norm breaker, or even a swamp drainer. We need an exterminator.
3
Kesler is a conservative think tank small government Republican who won't say anything bad about Trump. He minimizes the problems Trump has created, and the dangerous precedents Trump has set. He neglects to mention the way Trump uses the presidency to make money through his hotel business, golf courses and Mar a Lago club. This violates the emoluments clause of the US Constitution. His pardon of Joe Arpaio, and Dinesh D Souza is a horrible break with norms, and was done purely for political purposes. The number of Orwellian lies Trump tells each day is another horrible breakage of political norms. In electing Trump the nation has chosen a narcissistic aspiring dictator, who has scorns the rule of law, and was aided in his election by Vladimir Putin, Russia's dicator.
Hopefully, Trump will take a shellacking real soon, and this will discourage copying of what he is doing by future presidents.
3
This column is sophistry, and Charles R. Kesler is a pathetic Trump apparatchik masquerading as a thoughtful intellectual.
The breaking of governing norms could have salutary effects if it were done with a higher purpose, or even a thought process. That is not what Trump is doing. All of Trump's norm-breaking has the effect domestically of dividing Americans and serving Republican partisan politics. Internationally, everything seems intended to serve Russia's desires.
The bottom on ALL of Trump's norm-breaking? What serves Trump best. He has absolutely no sense that he is a public servant who needs to make decisions and take actions in order to best serve all Americans.
6
No previous President has ever shot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue, either, and when Donald finally gets around to it, I expect Mr. Kesler will cheer him on.
3
He's not simply breaking norms, he's breaking the law. In fact, he would never have gotten where he is today without doing so. This article reads like a caricature after this week's events.
4
Speaking and acting on one's racism, xenophobia, and misogyny, spewing hatred and lies without pause, and being a sexual predator (behaviors which no reasonable person can deny are the norm for Donald Trump) is not about "breaking norms." It is about being evil. To assert that such evil will renew democracy is about as irresponsible an assertion as any person, much less a senior fellow and professor of government, could make.
3
The Claremont Institute of California. Conservative think tank known in part for its less than indirect connections to Steve Bannon.
Therefore, no bias here. And besides, presidential barbarism and boorishness is good for America. Serves the goals of the Institute's focus on "natural laws" and "stable family life."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claremont_Institute
2
Unfortunate timing for Mr. Kessler that one of the norms Trump is breaking is a felony. But, since it only “....offends against the etiquette of modern liberal governance...”, maybe it doesn’t matter either.
3
I hope the White House rewards you for this drivel.
You wrote “Most of Mr. Trump’s alleged transgressions, measured by those standards, seem picayune.”
Except for felonious campaign financial transactions and violating the Logan Act, and soliciting stolen documents from foreign adversaries as a non-government agent, you would be right. I am giving you a pass on abject obstruction of justice.
Alas, the media is the message. An attack on private companies via Twitter is not benign posturing- if it was he would not engage in it. Taunting foreign adversaries by Twitter is not benign, or he would not do it. Denigrating allies by Twitter is not benign, or he would not do it.
Defending unfitness for office is not benign. Why do it?
2
A bit of partisan “jiggery-pokery, if not pure applesauce."
Mr. Kesler eloquently and sadly, proves one of the few accurate statements ever made by the popular vote loser Donald Trump, that “…he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters.”
I fear Mr. Kesler is one of those voters.
1
With all due respect to the effort of being balanced, I am surprised that the Times would publish such a piece of obvious pro-Trump fluff. The author seems to ignore the difference between breaking norms and breaking the law, which this President appears to be doing. On all counts, domestic and foreign, the "norm breaking" has been damaging to this country and its status as world leader.
3
You give the man in the White House too much credit. Rather than creating new norms, he is blowing up old ones because, frankly, he is like a toddler with a hammer. There is nothing considered about what he does.
3
Telling ten lies a day is just an “etiquette” problem. Got it.
4
con·serv·a·tive
[kənˈsərvədiv]
ADJECTIVE
1.holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion.
NOUN
1.a person who is averse to change and holds to traditional values and attitudes, typically in relation to politics.
And what about the norm to behave as a decent human being?
3
dude seems to have missed Trump's capitulation to Putin at Helsinki, who made no bones about telling his post mobster KGB to attack our democracy to throw the election. still going on. so yeah, let's continue giving the Russian mob a shot at running America.
3
Wow, what an ignorant and partisan essay - especially from a history professor. Everyone should read the Declaration of Independence - basically a list of complaints against King George - and realize how many of them are exactly the same kinds of things Trump is doing. For example, interfering with the positive trade and other relationships with other countries, and attempting to put judges and judiciaries under his control. These are norms which go all the way back to the founding of the country - they aren't just some passing phase.
"But if he is to make America great again"--he's not, he won't. The man child is tyrant-wannabe. Excusing his crimes and misdemeanors, as well as his thuggish behavior does not improve our country, or Kesler's reputation as a thinking person.
1
When I read the concluding statement that Mr. Trump needs to "cherish his legacy as a norm-builder," my first thought was, "Don't be absurd! Trump only smashes things. He doesn't, and won't, BUILD anything." Then I remembered that we’re talking about behavioral norms here, and I realized Trump has established a long list of new ones. To name only a few, it is now okay for a sitting President to:
- Grab ‘em by the... you know;
- Direct your lawyer to pay women with whom you’ve had affairs to stay silent so it won’t hurt your election prospects;
- Publicly demean, threaten, and mock members of Federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies;
- Make racist, offensive statements about non-white athletes, members of Congress, former White House staffers, entire ethic groups and/or entire countries;
- Defend, and even praise, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and racist conspiracy theorists;
- Attack a free press as “the enemy of the people;”
- Lie nearly every day about nearly everything;
- Forcibly separate children from their parents at our Southern border;
- Use the power and influence of the office to reward friends, punish enemies, and enrich the family business;
- And so on, ad nauseum.
Trump has done all of these things, and more, with obvious relish, so I have to admit he IS cherishing his norm-building legacy.
This is some kind of “renewal” we’ve got going on here.
3
"....his blunt manner of doing business." Even a senior fellow at Claremont, of all places, can't make a better argument for a president he probably refuses to abandon because of a refusal to acknowledge the plain truth. The plain truth is that Trump is unfit for this office. These apologias for Trump by people nurture norms that suit only them -- which these days seem to involve crimes by people they want in power -- are sinking lower and sounding ever more desperate to attach a through line to Trump's erraticism, racism, and profound lack of intellect. This defense is equally pathetic and laughable.
2
Note how the author conveniently forgets to mention the most important “unconventional “ thing Trump does routinely- LIE.
1
Yes, lazy sophistry. Focusing on etiquette fails to call out the far deeper and injurious transgressions.
2
Some norms should be broken. Many exist for very good reasons. Breaking norms for the sake of breaking norms is the province of the scatterbrained.
There is nothing unconstitutional about having a kook in the White House. But don't pretend it's healthy for the republic.
2
You're right Charles. Let's break some norms to renew democracy...by charging a sitting president with the crimes we know he's committed and walk him out of the White House in handcuffs.
5
Yeah, yeah, we all know it's not a crime to be an obnoxious ignoramus...but that seems to be the only reason why Trump breaks norms. Not out of some rational strategy, but just because he's a flailing baby.
This is setting aside the fact that he's also just about definitely a criminal - and that IS a crime.
Should Mr. Kesler travel south of 6th St in Claremont, he’d meet professors and students unconcerned about the president disrupting norms (e.g. “NATO’s allies’ slumber” and the “list from which a Supreme Court” nominee arises ). Instead, he’d find disdain for some of Mr. Trump’s policies (e.g. deficit spending to offer tax breaks to the wealthy, easing environmental regulations). But mostly he’d find disgust for a man who lies (4229 since taking office), cheats (see Stormy Daniels, etc) and steals ( see Trump University). Mr Kesler may believe these “transgressions” are “picayune”, but those accustomed to greater decorum find them odious.
Gregg
Pomona College ‘83
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/08/01/president...
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/federal-court-approves-25-m...
3
Bottom line, he’s a criminal and surrounds himself with other criminals. That’s not normal.
3
A brilliant column. Thank you.
Gobbledygook. Hogwash.
Breaking norms is one thing.
Breaking laws is another thing entirely.
2
What a wonderful sense of irony, "Professor." Just at the moment, almost, when Trump is publicly shown to be not merely a man who steals children from families, who misuses the idea of national defense to sanction Canada, who is a racist and a homophobe, but also a life-long felon who stole the election, you contribute this piece of fine satire. Thank you for trying to lighten the somber mood of the electorate with a bit of humor. The death a year ago of "Professor" Irwin Corey left a gaping hole in the ranks of mock-experts, and you are clearly just the man to fill it. Or perhaps Spike Lee could cast you in his next movie.
When I saw the title of this opinion piece, I read it looking for some hope. Instead, I find an apologist, a little auntie, for the current president. You call it breaking norms to taunt the parents of a soldier who died fighting for this country, to brag about assaulting women, to allow violent, thuggish, lying, criminal, and simply uncivil behavior. And how strange that you compare Trump to arguably our worst president ever, Woodrow Wilson, known for utterly tanking the economy, getting totally outmaneuvered by Britain and France in the Versailles negotiations, and for his heinous abuses of civil rights.
This president lost me with his remarks and behaviour toward workers in the 1990s, let alone his actions in his campaign. But his bumbling authoritarian reign, abetted by a cowardly and traitorous Republican leadership in Congress, is for all time a lesson in what can happen when the people do not get out and vote. Your remarkably myopic view of this president's behaviour as merely "breaking norms" for the health of the democracy is dismaying. And profoundly wrong. Trump is an evil man. Those who are not against him are complicit. That includes you.
3
Ummm .. think I'll pass on any norms that the Donald cherishes and blesses. Just sayin' ...
1
After reading this article for about 25 seconds, I went to the comment sections, selected the Reader Picks and went ahead, no questions asked, clicking on every "Recommended" for 35 seconds, a sort of "down ballot" approach.
Kesler is definitely sub-norm!
Trump is looking like a mafia don, and Kesler like he wants to move up from foot soldier to made man but as this piece demonstrates, he's already reached his level of incompetence.
2
These are NOT norms. These are LAWS he is braking. It you don't understand the difference, I suggest you take up a dictionary ....
You need to read Madeleine Albright's book on Fascism, immediately. Then re-read your essay and reconsider your ill-considered thoughts.
This piece is a sterling example of pseudo-intellectual drivel parading as rational process. It's pathetic in how shallow and vacuous its argument against the concept of presidential norms is, as if there are no reasons why norms exist and why being presidential sets high standards for those who hold the office. Trump is the antithesis of both norms and presidential deportment. An ignorant, dishonest, uncivil, angry narcissist does not meet the expected standards of intelligent citizens. We know a human failure in a position of power when we see and hear one. Why should we suffer a fool as our president.
Eclectic Pragmatism — http://eclectic-pragmatist.tumblr.com/
Eclectic Pragmatist — https://medium.com/eclectic-pragmatism
4
Spot on Charles Kessler. But the biggest norm breakers, the most dangerous ones, are the ones who have taken it upon themselves to somehow find a way to get Trump out of office before he finishes his first term. These people are dangerous because they simply want to overturn the results of the 2016 on any pretext -- thus setting our democracy on a dangerous course and disenfranchising those who voted for Trump.
You can somewhat understand politicians trying to make hay while they can and thus use everything Trump does or does not do against him. But it is beyond the pale for media -- the true believers in the free press -- to step outside of their boundaries and encourage taking Trump down. Particularly when their reasons are simply partisan and wrapped in half truths or straight up false representations of what actually happened.
You sound pretty desperate, Mr. Kessler.
2
So far most of the responses to this editorial’s outrageous attempt to paper over Trump’s malfeasance are very measured, admirably so - mine will not be.
Trump has shown himself - through words, deeds, staffing and affiliation - to be thoroughly anti-democracratic. The constant repetition of phrases like “enemy of the people” to discredit a free press, the incessant lies, and the vindictiveness are bad enough and go well beyond a tweaking of non-productive “norms”. What about colluding with a foreign power?
Many (even some on the left) will argue that the accusations of collusion have not been proven at this point and may never be. When I first heard the reporting on the issue I thought it was a rabid, Democratic (large “D”) fever dream. Then the meeting in Trump Tower was exposed, with Jr’s “I love it...especially in September” email (with associated buffoonish attempt at coverup - anyone still believe meeting was about adoption?) and my delusions evaporated. I always knew the administration would have flaws, but now the chasm was laid bare.
History will not be kind to this pack of authoritarian grifters and those who’ve enabled them. This article is I suppose the natural progression of defending their corruption as the water has gotten so very obviously deeper and dirtier.
Ignorance, after all, is Strength and Truth is not Truth on the Republican side of the aisle in 2018 - been moving that way since, oh, about 1984...
1
Putting Donald Trump in the same piece as Woodrow Wilson and FDR, and Washington, except as an outrageous, deceitful, now possibly criminal antithesis, is an insult. Comparisons to Bozo (if Bozo was a vain, hateful clown played by Joe McCarthy) would be more apt.
Give me a break. Breaking norms is fine. Replacing them with spite and bile is not the experiment the Founders were staging.
1
Kessler has cherry picked the daily transgressions that don't matter as opposed to the ones that do. Possibly the most intellectually dishonest argument by the right wing so far. And that's saying something.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
1
This article goes beyond cherry picking. We need a new term, a larger term. How about coconut picking?
What about the lies, Mr. Kesler? Both the NY Times & the Washington Post have tried to keep track of the hundreds, no thousands, of lies that spew forth from the mouth of this sociopath ("a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes & behavior & a lack of conscience."). And I am not talking about differences of opinion. I mean factual, verifiable LIES.
Is telling the truth part of the quaint "etiquette of modern liberal governance"? Do you think the Founders should have thought it necessary to have added that requirement?
What about hiring corrupt officials & supporting them well after their corruption has been exposed?
What about giving aid & comfort to the principal enemy of this country?
I could go on, but I am sure my fellow commenters will add to the list. Let's look at one of the coconuts, Mr. Kesler did pick, the matter of security clearances. What is their purpose? It is protect the security of the country by limiting accesses to its secrets. It is not to be used as a weapon against the President's political opponents. Did you miss Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution which requires the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”?
This article does serve a purpose though. It clearly illustrates the "thinking" of persons who value ideology over data & facts, indeed over ethics and morality.
3
Breaking the norms on ethics & honesty is OK, really?
1
There is a difference between being blunt and being vulgar...between being direct and being a bully....between being forceful and being insulting.....between being angry and throwing a tantrum....between being flexible and being erratic...between being rational and being irrational.
I pray for this nation and the world if the "new norm" is that we are filled with morally bankrupt narcissistic unbalanced individuals who view political office merely as an extension of their own egos.
2
I don't consider criminal behavior to be an acceptable break in norms. And Canada is your enemy? Surely you jest.
1
This article is a pathetic excuse for a narcissistic bomb-thrower to destroy both political and cultural norms that are intrinsic to a functioning republic. Does Mr. Kessler promote lying on a daily basis? Does he believe the free press should be demeaned, ridiculed and taken down in the brutal fashion of Trump & Co.? Should we believe his love-fest with Putin is just "playing nice" and a new norm for diplomatic behavior toward an enemy that is undermining our country and our institutions every day? Does Trump promote civil discourse (a norm) or civil unrest and distress?
Your historical references bear no rational semblance to what norms are being destroyed in Trump's nihilism.
He doesn't just break norms, he behaves illegally and corruptly. He breaks norms not to accomplish anything, but rather to destroy them, just because he can. The man is despicable and any attempt to normalize or justify his behavior is apalling.
1
Can we say that using Trump to begin a discussion of how norms are established and when they should be broken is absurd. Trump has no interest in policy but has taken on conservative talking points with a populist twist in order to please his audience. I think his election was a surprise to him. After 19 months now, we can say that Trump is out only to make more money for Trump. His market is in the parts of the world where strong men rule and laws mean little, so he flatters dictators and would really like Russian oligarch money to flow into his projects around the world and to come back into the US market so that he can sell more really schlocky apartments.
To imagine that something else is going on is to be blind or even stupid.
Trump is the intoxicated, rude uncle who is invited to Thanksgiving because that is the “norm”. Unfortunately, he shows up and everyone wishes he wouldn’t, but tries to be polite(another nasty norm). The author is right, maybe it is time to abandon those nasty norms and kick him out of the (White) house along with his unwelcome silver haired friend (Pence) who knew what was going On OT at the very least suspected and didn’t have the honor or courage to do something about it.
I'd laugh at this ridiculous attempt to normalize Donald and his actions if he weren't so corrupt, so crooked, so venal, and so dangerous. I imagine if Kesler came upon a terrible train wreck, with bodies flung hither and yon, he'd muse on past wrecks and note that this will be a great opportunity to get a new train.
Trump's deceitfulness is good for democracy like needles are good for balloons. What a ridiculous column and not even a good attempt at defending the indefensible.
It's not the shabby behavior or nonsensical blather, it's the criminal conduct that will finish this guy. That is another norm.
2
A nicely written essay. Unfortunately, it is also utterly disingenuous and willfully deaf and blind to what Tump is actually saying and doing.
3
If by "breaking norms" you mean lying, cheating, stealing, denying a free and open press while supporting willfully ignorant and racist ideals, then I guess you are right to suggest that Donald Trump is doing nothing worse than breaking norms. It would be interesting to learn if all of your colleagues at the Claremont Institute and your students at Claremont McKenna College understand that all of the above are quite acceptable behavior to Mr. Kesler. I have to admit that I and my friends and neighbors are a bit too old fashioned to consider these behaviors acceptable, and we might respectfully suggest that this behavior is quite a bit worse than merely "breaking norms." I am glad that you are not my neighbor.
2
Thank you for putting this President in to perspective. He may be a very poor chief executive, he may be personally repugnant. But he is not, as the NYT tries every day to convey, the Devil himself. Perhaps now we can start a mature discourse?
Calling the press the enemy of the people or being a sexual predator, being implicated in criminal behavior by your own attorney is not breaking norms it is crossing red lines.
2
The perversion of a once-respectable academic institution like Claremont into a nesting-place for bought faux academics is disgusting and discouraging. Churning out such partisan drivel as the instant article for a nice salary might be the dream of B-team hacks, but the calling of the Academy is to an unbiased search for the truth, not a post-facto apologia for flatterers and thieves.
1
Norm breaking and busting. This is just an excuse to try to white wash Trump's boorish behavior, which is the least of the Trump/GOP problems. Breaking the law isn't breaking a norm. Trump violated campaign finance laws, he broke the law running his foundation, he's cheats thousands of people through his business dealings. He's a swindler, conman, and crook. To put it in plain English, he's a criminal.
Hmm... did you pay attention to the last 24 hours of “real” news? The simple fact that this illegitimate president (and poor excuse for a human) has and is embroiled in daily controversy mostly of his own making and in the process spends an enormous amount of time and energy rebutting and not governing is part of the shame.
Anyone paying even a scintillion of a second attention knew all of this going in yet here we are. His history was well known and predictable. Maybe this is his Waterloo one can only hope. Impeachment is too easy for him. Drum him out and then unleash the legal cannons to thoroughly unmask this catastrophic loser.
And you can honestly tell me that you are not embarrassed for our country and the presidency by the behavior, overt shamelessness, and, I hate to say it, stupidity of this president?
And, SO FAR we've not seen (aside from emoluments issues which are unassailable) hard evidence that he has violated Constitutional rules, but were I you I wouldn't bet that something won't change that assessment.
Finally, what sort of support is it to be OK with Trump because the parade of horrors he's visited on the country will only make it stronger - if we survive? That's tortured logic.
1
Professor Kesler:
When our president uses nasty names to disagree with others, is that simply a "norm" that he is breaking? Would you consider it fine if one or more of your students called you "stupid', "failing", or "sad" on Twitter or Facebook? Regardless of politics I consider Mr. Trump a horrible role model for my junior and senior high school students. That alone makes me hope for a new occupant in the Oval Office in two years.
1
"...but so what?"
You are seriously trying to repackage Trump as an iconoclastic visionary? You don't see the destruction he is bringing upon the nation, the fabric of society, the international community and the earth itself? You don't have children who will pay the price for his imperious caprices? You don't see the esteem of the nation, which took hundreds of years and countless lives to forge, being eviscerated in a moment by a mendacious, self-serving, simpleton who accidentally stumbled into the White House? You don't sense the embarrassment and shame this has caused the nation?
So what? That's what!
Charles R. Keeler, you know this much: you know he lies without compunction to the American people. You know he is a ribald person, unfit to lead a nation. And you know he took an oath to uphold what you euphemistically refer to as 'norms'.
Rationalizing the absurd has become a rapidly growing industry in America. When opportunity knocks, some people will always answer...
1
What in the world did I just read?! Trump's problem is merely one of style?! Sadly, that is what a lot of his supporters fundamentally believe.
And it is his style that won him the election (yes, he did win the election Democrats; don't kid yourself). His style of making the progressive left, the identity politics left, the Politically Correct left, the everyone-I-disagree-with-is-a-stupid-bigot left, clutch their pearls and get the vapors that remains the fundamental reason for the support he gets. He is a foil to what we have come to call "liberalism" in this country.
But while he's upsetting lefties and breaking mere conventions, he is doing everything he can to enhance the toxic divide between right and left in our country, ruining the environment, exploding the debt on behalf of the already uber-wealthy, alienating allies unnecessarily, etc., etc.
And that is before we get to the point of him filling his administration with the most sleazy, immoral, corrupt, disgusting and incompetent hacks in the history of this nation.
Oh goodness! I sure wish the only problem with Trump was his manners!
"They offend against the etiquette of modern liberalism and modern liberal governance, not the Constitution."
This the only reason for this op-ed. He offends liberals!
Ridiculous piece. Perhaps Trump is correct about overly educated academics.
So it’s okay that the President cheated his way into office? As long as it wasn’t before he was inaugurated? We’re talking and angry about firing Urban Meyer for knowing his employee was committing spousal abuse, but we don’t care that our President paid off prostitutes in order to become elected. (And we did impeach Bill Clinton for just having sex and not paying to cover it up and that was such a big ethical deal.)
When do we become embarrassed by the President? Do we not care as long as corporations are protected over people and Roe is overturned and racist statues constructed to intimidate black people are saved? Where are our ethics?
I’m embarrassed of America and I’m doing everything I can to change it, because I can’t look my kids in the eye without trying to rectify our culture for all. We all ought to be utterly ashamed.
1
He "mostly" doesn't offend the Constitution? This is the bar you set, sir?
For all of you that agree with this article, close your eyes, change Trump for Obama, and swear by your kid's lives that you would have been OK with it.
Thought so...
2
NY Times, don't give a platform to the right-wingers. They pretend to want to engage in discourse, but actually are attacking our democracy, and planet, with no regard for intellectual honesty.
Ripping dark skinned children from their family in fact is not really breaking many norms from a country with as deeply racist history and present as this one. Is that a norm you are glad he kept?
3
It clearly occurred to the Founding Fathers that the new nation needed to be protected from a rogue President.
Donald Trump is a textbook sociopath who literally daily lies to the American people, and who is incapable of concern for anyone except himself and by extension his family. He is also a transparent racist and a sex offender.
In office, despite his long history of these profound flaws, he has proven himself to also be a demagogue who plainly considers himself now beyond the law as well as beyond decency. His Presidency is simply incompatible with our Republic, our democracy, and the spirit of our people.
Obviously Mr. Kessler knows all this. Why people like him do not care escapes me entirely.
3
What???!! There’s really only one norm under the magnifying glass. It’s the rule of law. There’s a norm for breaking norms, it’s called repealing an old law and replacing it with a new one with the blessing of congress. Trump’s flaw is that he doesn’t adhere to the rule of law, doesn’t think before he leaps. As a result we have lawlessness which shreds the constitution. Trump is a bad guy because of this and no amount of equivocation can change that. A chief executive who chooses to continue operating as a private businessman while holding the office isn’t just breaking norms, he’s violating the constitution he is sworn to uphold. This article makes no sense except to those who can’t fathom how Trump could be such a monster.
1
You have not said, Mr. Kesler, a single word I agree with.
"Norms." A malleable word, wouldn't you say? Like washing your hands after using the restroom.
Or starting from the OUTSIDE of all the silverware laid by your plate--then, course by course, working inward.
Or saying thank you when you get a present.
IT ALSO RELATES. . . ..
. . .to telling the truth. To keeping your promises. To obeying the law. If you are bound by treaty to certain foreign powers. .. . .
. . ..to pledging to uphold your obligations under that treaty.
. . to preserving a minimum standard of decency and probity in your public utterances.
Oh Mr. Kesler! Who are you? Where do you live? Where are you coming from?
Mr. Donald J. Trump as a NORM BUILDER? Mr. Donald J. Trump making America GREAT again?
May Almighty God defend and preserve this country from any "norms" Mr. Trump might seek to introduce.
And if THIS is what "making America great again" REALLY entails. ..
. ..may Almighty God make us small and weak.
The "norms" that Mr. Trump has (to quote Mark Twain) "flung down and danced upon". . .
. ..those aren't just shifting and amorphous prejudices contrived by woolly-minded liberals. . . .
. . .they're permanent and abiding standards of human decency.
I pray, sir. .
. .that I may live to see a DECENT President installed in the White House. ..
..a man that really WILL. . . .
. ..restore the norms of decency to our government. . .
. .and to our country.
From the well funded spigot of the conservative “thought leaders” media machine. Serving all your oligarchic needs for over three decades.
3
Save your time; just another sell-out Claremont Institute hack shilling for Trump.
3
Time to toss out the dusty old norm of not indicting sitting presidents
Don’t agree with author, but NYT should be commended for allowing a different view of a subject.
1
This is drivel. Why are we talking about "norms?" And then to suggest that it's "liberal" norms. As if Republicans didn't use to distrust the Russians too. Drivel.
This isn't about norms anymore. The president is a named co-conspirator. Are American laws normal or are they just more liberal nonsense Mr. Kesler?
"Breaking Norms Will Renew Democracy, Not Ruin It"
Didn't Adolf Hitler say something along these lines when he took over Germany in 1933?
An astonishing stupid opinion piece, which the comments seem to be doing a beautiful job of pointing out.
Let me just add that Americans like Mark Twain and a long, honorable list of others "broke norms" for moral and patriotic reasons, not so that they could be crude for crudity's sake, or get away with theft, or whip up racism, or distract from crimes. And they certainly didn't do it in a panic, to help distract from their latest screw-ups.
Nor does the invocation of old discussions from "The American Adam," or the prof's suggestion that this is class prejudice at work, get it. This is demogoguery at work, coming from a born-wealthy greedhead who has no intention of doing anything for working people other than scattering a few bread crumbs.
It isn't even a violation of norms. It's a President channelling the ugliest ideas, thoughts, and words in America. Trump may be violating "liberal norms," but he's right smack in the middle of the norms that drive the David Dukes on one hand, and the guys who ran Enron on the other.
So again: it's not that my little liberal norm feelies are all hurt. It's that this is deeply stupid argument, and deeply ignorant ideology, driven on behalf of a fat, thieving jerk.
Don't like my language? Oops, terribly sorry to have stepped on your liberal norms.
Apologist rationalization. Tell us how you felt about President Clinton's private actions in the Oval Office, or is hypocrisy too foul of a taste.
The need to renew democracy does not mean debasing it and subjecting the republic and its people to getting used to a lowered standard of decency. We should not equate renewal with degradation, even how transitional the process may apears.
2
It's odd that the author thinks all the norm-breaking is just a Trump thing. Senate Republicans refused even to take up President Obama's "normal" nomination for an open seat on the Supreme Court. The GOP generally is completely on-board with voter suppression, and they are totally "sold" (literally) on the idea that monied-interests should dominate the public sphere. In general, Republicans want to break the "norm" we call democracy. How can one put a positive spin on that? More specifically, how can destroying democracy invigorate it?
3
After Hitler broke Germany, it took a lot of years and outside help to recover but is now a far better place than before WWII. Is that something we who may live long enough can hope happens here after Trump's and his minions' behavior destroys the decent country that was continually improving the lot of most citizens before the Reagan era? Will the majority of citizens finally wake up and understand that, as the old saying goes, "united we stand, divided we fall?" Hatred mostly hurts the hater in the long run.
104
@Julie Carter The only trouble with that "cure" is that tens - of millions of innocents (73 million soldiers and civilians) had died, including members of my own family who died in Auschwetz-Birkenau and Treblinka.
Most European, Russian, Japanese, and UK cities were virtually destroyed, taking years, even decades to return to their former prominence.
America is still a start-up. This young country will weather bigger storms than the troubles this teacup presidency brews. The author is right, much of what Trump does simply challenges norms and by 2020 or 2024 we will all have learned and changed for the better - regardless if this one character is a criminal or not. We will carry on.
@Colm Byrne
In this case, I am afraid your optimism may be somewhat premature especially within the time frame you state. Trump has brought forth a rather significant and ugly underbelly in America that has created even deeper and more dangerous divisions to a country that even if this President and his administration disappeared tomorrow will certainly not go away and, in fact, it could get considerably worse, especially if democrats assumed power again and reversed all of his changes. There is also the issue of how Trump has packed the courts with corporate/right-wing judges whom will invariably turn the clock back on human rights and corporate governance.
The right wing,Federalist Society/corporate Lochner court of the late 1800s lasted until FDR where he fought them tooth and nail to implement his New Deal, i.e. almost 40 yrs.!
As I stated, history tells us, your optimism on the timetable just might be a "little" premature.
He disparaged Mexican immigrants as criminals and “rapists.”
He called for a complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.
He said a federal judge hearing a case about Trump University was biased because of the judge’s Mexican heritage.
He said 15,000 recent immigrants from Haiti “all have AIDS” and that 40,000 Nigerians, once seeing the United States, would never “go back to their huts” in Africa.
He spent years suggesting that the nation’s first black president was born not in the United States but in Kenya, a lie that Trump still has not acknowledged as such
He frequently criticizes prominent African-Americans for being unpatriotic, ungrateful and disrespectful.
He has retweeted white nationalists without apology.
He called some of those who marched alongside white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., last August “very fine people.
He endorsed and campaigned for Roy Moore, the Alabama Senate candidate who spoke positively about slavery and who called for an African-American Muslim member of Congress not to be seated because of his religion.
He pardoned – and fulsomely praises – Joe Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff sanctioned for racially profiling Latinos and for keeping immigrants in brutal prison conditions.
But yeah, let's pick and choose a handful of unorthadox policy decisions he's made and chalk it up to presidents just being presidents "breaking norms". You can't be serious with this nonsense.
578
@Anonymous
"You can't be serious with this nonsense."
I'm afraid that Kesler is serious. My real fear is that the repubs have a hole card and are just waiting for the right moment to play it. These folks like Kesler, Giuliani, Huckabee-Sanders seem to be emboldened in their lies and spin. It's as if they have no fear of retribution both legal and social.
Amen. He is a racist fascist who stole the election by conspiring with the Russians, but his kids love him, so he can't be all bad. And those who oppose him are demonstrating horrible partisanship.
It was only a matter of time for someone like Mr. Kesler to put in words what most republicans are already portraying by their actions. Norms of decency, ethics and patriotism can be broken to achieve ideological goals.
8
It is interesting to look at the examples given; taking our allies to task could be defended, if the President weren't simultaneously cozying up to our enemies; nominating Kavanaugh without consultation is only shocking because we are all pretty sure that it is Kavanaugh's opinions on executive powers have gotten him that nomination; stripping a security clearance from an actual spy, and not just someone who is a critic, would have no one blinking. It is not the norms being broken that are the problem; it is that our President appears to be breaking them to satisfy his debts, protect his legal position, and silence anyone who might later testify to his misdeeds.
10
This article appears to advance the notion that if it is good to break some norms, then norm-breaking in general is a great idea.
While this may be true in the most general sense, I would think each norm should be considered on its own merits with an understanding of the rationale of doing it the current way, before one makes an informed decision on whether it should be followed or scrapped.
3
While I strongly disagree with Mr. Kesler's dishonest argument about Trump's actions and behaviours, I note there may be a bright spot on the horizon. This republic has not been challenged by the destructive, dishonest behaviour of a group so focused on stripping the State of its powers for the benefit of so few as we have seen over the past thirty years. That this could happen in Camelot exposes severe fissures in governance by and for the people. Perhaps in seeing these fissures exposed so clearly in the glaring light of day and examining the shortcomings of the Constitution and naivety of unenforceable governing norms as is being done today, citizens will push hard for responsive reforms that make it more difficult for future office holders to undermine democracy and enrich themselves.
6
Good op-ed for setting perspective, a general context within which we might evaluate Trump’s persona and behavior. However, it skirts the real reasons our politics and civil discourse are in such ferment.
As a general matter, the Tea Party rose in importance because the 111th undivided Democratic Congress and undivided Democratic federal government embarked for two years on a hubristic course that sought to impose a hyper-liberal agenda on a country embodied in a set of transformative initiatives, on regulatory and entitlement premises, to which approximately half the country was strongly opposed – and as regards the ACA were incompetently fashioned and based on lies. This set the stage for an incremental destruction of the relevance to our governance of the Democratic Party, really at all levels across America, over several election cycles. Unfortunately, the charge given to that Tea Party consisted solely of putting a halt to such liberal arrogance and did not include the ancillary charge of actually governing creatively and effectively. We still live with that failure of imagination, and today our parties, as riven in their opposed extremism as ever since our civil war, continue to fail to govern us effectively through compromise and a resolve to move us forward manageably.
Along came Trump, who could have lost as easily as he won, and would have lost but for the baggage and poor decisions of his opponent. He won (barely) as an expression of the impatience …
… of the people in a government that simply no longer worked. The voters understood that his persona, his background and his behavior lay at right-angles to political “norms”, but were looking for precisely that seismic shock to force BOTH our political parties to re-form along more moderate and effective lines, in existential self-defense if for no other reason. We face two successive elections that will determine whether we’re done with that reformation, and are prepared to return to a frozen, useless state, or require more deconstruction to become effective again.
Trump will not be impeached, over paying women hush-money to mask marital infidelities, or for Russian cahooting for which no apparent “smoking gun” exists. He is sloppy, outrageous and ignorant of the legitimate role of the president and certainly of how to bring our people together, but he is hardly a traitor or guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors”. But the flipping of the House this November likely would succeed at effectively freezing our governance again for the remaining two years of his term. We’ll see what we see.
In the meantime, our Republican Congress had better set in stone funding bills that could be the basis of general funding over a two years that might need to resort to continuing resolutions underpinning frozen governance … again.
Vote early, vote often, and vote Republican.
2
@Richard Luettgen you could expand this cogent, uncommonly trenchant essay into a book
@tigershark
Why, tigrshark, it's not uncommon at all in my posts.
It's true that this isn't the proper forum for extended analysis, but I'm saving monumental efforts for the times of MY life when my toes are as gnarly as a 72-year-old Trump's likely are.
there is a reason the founders thought civil society was essential for the Republic to survive. (Read Madison's Federalist #10) and the civil in civil society is a reference to behavior which is civil. so it is not surprising or authoritarian President doesn't understand civility because he sure does not appreciate the rule of law and norms of democracy.
6
Good reading on Claremont Mckenna: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/23/trump-think-tank-racism-clarem...
1
@joshua lipton Yes, very interesting. Thank you!
Here's the norm that should be toppled: that the president can't be indicted while in office.
6
The New York Times is really going to have to stop offering conservative Republican propaganda pieces under the delusion that it makes them appear fair and balanced.
It will stop doing so eventually, when the history we see being made is fully played out. Then no doubt they will write think pieces about how we could have ended up with a crime family running the country, if only for a few years, downplaying their own role just as they did in looking back at the historically disastrous decision to invade Iraq under George W Bush and Dick Cheney.
The day before the Trump-linked author of this piece claims that President Donald Trump has only been charged with violating "norms", adding "guilty as charged" with an implied chuckle, the President was in fact implicated as an un-indicted co-conspirator in a crime. The crime is a felony, and the person confessing to the crime said that he was directed to commit the crime by Donald Trump.
The sole reason that Trump is not now indicted for this felony is that his being President makes this a complicated issue. There is zero chance that anyone else who was not President would remain free of charges for this same crime at this point.
This is not just opinion, it is a falsehood. What the author writes is false. Please stop publishing falsehoods.
6
Turns out the Claremont Institute is a right-wing organization, which just yesterday had to shut down an email list because its white nationalist members were getting a little too explicit in their racism. (https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/23/trump-think-tank-racism-clarem...
The Claremont Institute has also specialized in justifying Trump's presidency. This helps explain the lazy arguments and the ignoring of the actual abuses of power and obstructions of justice committed by Trump. It doesn't explain why the Times would publish such an obvious piece of propaganda.
8
@Jeff Edmundson I wrote here that there is still free speech (for now), and people have a right to have their voice heard. However, people who have some sense of morality and are critical thinkers don't have to accept opinions such as Kesler's. His reasoning is sophistry at its most egregious, and I'm heartened to read so many others like yourself commenting here who've clearly realized it as such.
Have to wonder whether this piece should have been rewritten after the revelations from a couple days back...
As is, it really comes across as pathetic...
3
Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal enterprise. That's a bit more than "breaking norms." That's breaking the rule of law and cannot stand. It's shameful that today's Republican Party has turned a blind eye to Trump's criminal behavior and this article is exhibit A.
9
Contrary to this shallow opinion piece, many historians and political scientists have identified the traits of authoritarians and the despotic regimes they run or wish for by destroying the norms this author ignores:
- Denigration of the press as "enemy of the people", (Stalin).
- Labeling of the "other" as a threat to whip up divisiveness and group anger, (Nazis).
- Placing loyalty to the leader above loyalty to the law.
- Disputation of facts in favor of self-justifying "alternative facts".
And more. These are all norms, unwritten rules which can't be put on a spreadsheet. Yet, without them, a democracy quickly falls apart. Sadly, we're already a ways down the road with this. Yet the author chooses to highlight norms like whether a President can deliver the State of the Union address as a letter rather than a speech. Thanks for the brilliant update, prof.
8
The problem with this idea is that the Crazy Man never knew what norms were in the first place and is too ignorant to learn now. He stumbles around like a drunk actor in a bad play pretending to be a President. He allows his greasy, corrupt cabinet members and hangers on to come up with ideas which are never really run through a system and checks and balances which is the way the Government is supposed to run. He relies on advice from the places no decent person would go --Steve Bannon and the alt right, Fox News, Melania, other criminal types which hang around waiting for crumbs from his filthy table. No, he has no norms beyond his petulant childish ravings for his "Parade." This column about norms is about as "false" as it gets.
G
4
He is a trail blazer having (alledgely) unprotected sex with multiple women while married and then reducing the act to services rendered through payoffs. Lying to everybody, making fun of the disabled, defending the white power movement, claiming a president was not born in the US, making racism mainstream.....
Yup, breaking norms. Maybe he will sanction the arrest of reporters, or political opponents, good to shake things up.
He has exposed a deep seated white-power-stupid component in the middle of the country a and the Republican party which we always suspected was present, but could not believe it was as bad as it is... Thanks for that.
See, things were stable, it is dangerous to shake things up, but coming with a plan and slowly changing course is good.
"you can't fix the world if all you have is a hammer" - 1933 Frank Turner
3
Oh for god's sake. Trump doesn't know what the nuclear triad is; he thinks Frederick Douglas is alive; he barely understands that he can't do a trade deal with Germany; he thinks tariffs are fines paid by foreign countries to us; he doesn't know where Mercedes makes its cars; he is a vile person; he craves applause like an addict and will do, it seems, pretty much anything to get it; he gets his policy talking points from the stupidest talk show on Fox News.
Stop trying to pretend that he's just a bit of a rogue.
20
This commentary sounds like the excuses of the parent of a brat and a bully. Explaining that all the bad behavior as good for everyone, rather than acknowledging the issue. Lies, threats, bullying, prejudice, stupidity, and the list is much longer are not picayune little issues. This is not the country of 200 or 100 years ago, as the professor uses to bolster his argument. The United States was not the world leader then, but an insignificant dot on the map. In our current shaky role, as world leader, we cannot afford an unpredictable baby threatening the world order. None of this is picayune, professor, none of it.
10
Why in God's name would this piece be on your op-ed page the day after the president is found out to be in essence an unindicted co-conspirator? In faux balance does democracy die, too.
7
And what about lying almost every day to the American people? Are we also to excuse his wildly manipulative exaggerations? His failure to inform himself deeply about any opinion and a reliance on stale, unsupported opinion? His brutal policies? His nasty blathering idiocy regarding his critics? His surrounding himself with advisors and cabinet ministers who are either thuggish and criminal or merely intent on enriching themselves at the expense of the taxpayer?
If you are going to defend the breaking of norms, please explain why we should accept all of the above?
7
Sure thing Mr Kessler. Up is down, black is white, slavery is freedom, war is peace... Familiar? Your opinion, sir is nothing more than a continuing attempt to rationalize an incompetent and divisive president's impeachable conduct. Let me stae it clearly for you: Mr. Trump is NOT good for democracy. He has done almost everything he can for the last 2 years to undermine it.
13
Methinks the writer is confusing norms with ethics.
11
This is the specious argument that something can be good so it is always good. This is the republicans' favorite argument that "here is one regulation that is bad, so let's get rid of all regulations (feel free to substitute "taxes" for "regulation" and you see the republican agenda since Reagan)." Obviously one must evaluate each regulation or norm individually to determine whether we should keep it. Also, one must consider, once you decide something is bad, how to address it-eliminate it and leave a vacuum, revise it to improve it, or replace it with something better. Trump's approach is not even to break norms for the sake of breaking them because he thinks norms are bad. He is simply a bull in a china shop, out of his depth, flailing around and trying to keep afloat. He breaks norms by accident because he lacks a clear vision or strategy. Everyone is trying to attribute some vision or strategy to his actions but there is no coherence other than "preserve Trump at all costs." Every statement he makes and everything he does is for that singular purpose, without regard for the welfare of others or the Constitution he swore to uphold or the people he governs (how otherwise to explain the tax bill that most hurts the workers he purports to defend). This article is complete blather dressed up as a "professor's" thesis. NYTimes, you must do better.
4
You really didn’t have to go any further than “Most of President Trump’s alleged transgressions offend against the etiquette of modern liberal governance,...” to know where this article was heading. Another right wing apologist with the cover of an academic title.
5
I'm amazed that a professor of government would write such a superficial piece. This glosses over the constant lies, self-dealing and extraordinary incompetence of the Trump administration, including his cabinet. I think Mr. Kesler is living in a political fantasy world, or maybe he just stopped following the news.
2
The use of the word norm isn't accurate, rather character, ethics and morality combined are more appropriate.
Will using personal attacks, humiliation towards those who disagree become the new norm?
Vindictive behavior used as a weapon to instill fear in others, new norm?
Public statements during a trial in order for self benefit become the norm?
Praising a convictived felon as being a good, man and for not, "breaking", the man also failed to pay US taxes and defrauded banks. Is this the new norm?
Undermining the Department of Justice, FBI, CIA and calling the press fake news
be acceptable behavior in the future?
Defending white nationalist is merely stepping out of the norm?
Aligning with Putin on the global stage
rather than the country he represents the new norm too?
Repeated obvious lies and propaganda to American citizens the new norm?
Alienating allies and admiration for dictators something to look forward to as a new norm?
Degrading women and paying off former dalliances weeks before his election part of the new norm?
Surrounding yourself with corrupt, incompetent, self serving individuals to run, "the big operation", while you watch TV and travel to hotels and golf courses while earning personal profit, new norm as well?
Trump's behavior can not be described as deviating from the norm , That is a great injustice to the citizens of this country. Better to ask.. Will the abominations causing peril be tolerated in the future?
6
Constitutionally, the President is a steward, elected by the people to preside over the operation of the Republic. The norms of presidential conduct are essentially those of good stewardship.
For some, it appears, it’s a matter of etiquette not to steal from your employer and lie about it. For others, perhaps, it’s a matter of etiquette to do the job you’re paid for instead of sneaking out to the whorehouse or the golf links. Outside of the conservative bubble, however, we have higher standards, and even in the Deep Bubble there are some who are starting to feel unease.
4
Yes, breaking norms and breaking laws are two distinct characteristics of this President. You missed " kidnapping children(babies) and torturing them" as a prime example.
2
Trump thinks the rules that everyone else must follow don't apply to him. He's a spoiled brat and a malignant narcissist. Referring to what he does as "breaking norms" is just a way some Republicans make excuses for his execrable behavior.
15
It's really quite simple. Donald Trump is immoral and incompetent. The matter of breaking and building norms is trivial in this context.
6
thank you for your contribution and go home now mr. kessler we have enough problems without this effort to normalize the abnormal and excuse the inexcusable.
18
@coale johnson You put it far more succinctly than I did here, and I thank you!
The so called change Trump voters were looking for is a return to their glorious past (make it great again), is grievance and perceived loss of privilege. You know the right to discriminate, bully, and lynch those not in the white, anglo, christian tribe.
If a serial liar, adulterer, and crook is now the ideal American leader of the modern GOP, then Mr. Kesler, we coastal elites don't have much to talk to you and your cabal of apologists about anymore.
5
This column totally misses the point and tries to provide coverage for his aberrant behaviors. All his crass and unfortunate policy decisions are not the problem per se, as bad as they are. This man has committed crimes, now we have one specifically on record and there will be more. He has been conspiring with a foreign nation and looks to corrupt our system and tear down the rule of law. We have elected a low rent Mafia boss who calls his lawyer a "rat" for telling the truth on him. Is that someone just shaking up our norms of decorum???
5
Stunning. This Trump supporter equates the bullying and daily trashing of federal justice and intelligence agencies to Wilson's decision to speak directly to Congress instead of sending a letter. It would be more accurate to compare Trump's attack on American institutions to Hitler's consolidation of power by setting fire to the Reichstad.
When a powerful leader decides to subvert the rule of law to enable his shady and probably criminal activities, and Congress - the so-called check on his power - enables it, it is not a "breaking of norms" but a sowing of the seeds for the destruction of democracy. Trump supporters would do well to remember that they may not like the politics of the next president who reaps the rewards of Trump's corruption.
16
The most foolish apology for incompetence ever heard. Using Woodrow Wilson and FDR as examples for breaking presidential norms is an insult to responsible statesmen acting in extraordinary circumstances. Endorsing torture, threatening to bomb other countries, holding rallies to promote hatred all the while entertaining illusions of one's own outstanding intellect is certainly abnormal.
3
Given that the institute he represents has a conservative bent, I wonder what this piece would look like were a Democratic president doing the shattering of the norms. I hope it would be the same, but I rather suspect there would be a somewhat different conclusion reached by the author were the party holding the office other than the GOP.
7
Here’s a thought experiment for the author of this fascinating piece:
Suppose the president of your university uses his or her office to make daily personal attacks on you—to shake up your department—while also denigrating various groups (Mexicans, maybe, or Asians or Jews).
Suppose further that he or she uses his or her position to promote businesses he or she has a stake in. How about blocking research that he or she doesn’t like—maybe on stem cells or psychedelics? Old norms come crashing down. Are you ok with all that?
What if the president secretly empowers other universities? That could be fun. You onboard?
377
And when Prof Kesler's students bravely break established norms by ignoring facts when writing research papers and by insulting any opinion that contradicts their own view I assume he will applaud them for also breaking the norms of academia ... why should academia or democracy be constrained by the stuffy norms of fact based reality. I encourage his students to test his committment to the philosophy of norm breaking
418
@megan Brilliant!
@megan And let's not forget that when Prof Kesler uses university funds to pay off his mistresses, that's just a careful action to maintain harmony and respect for his high office. LOL
Some behaviors can be changed due to technology or on the basis of facts. Others are due to lying to the American people, trivial? I think not.
1
@megan As I absorbed this article - the name Alex Jones kept popping into my head. Trumputin has normalized the presence of such a scourge on our society. Adios Private Bone Spurs.
Norms?? It is fairly clear to all but ignoramuses that he has broken the law and is continuing to do so.
He can bloviate and you can blather, but neither of you can hide from the truth.
5
Under current circumstances, this article is worse than an embarrassment to its author and to the NYT. I suggest he read some Machiavelli, not the bits about cruelty and ruthlessness, but the sections pertaining to customs and norms. A leader who rampantly violates these destroys both himself and the state he is trying to dominate.
1
Bravo. Well said!
Trump is a criminal and beholden to a foreign power while presiding over a corrupt administration. When this is proven conclusively this article will be seen as an example of how clever people lie to themselves and others.
3
If President Obama acted the way Trump did Kesler and his Russpublican friends would be screaming!
3
So would you and I, I would assume. Such behaviour would not, and should, be acceptable from anyone by anyone. The fact that “conservatives” now rationalize it only demonstrates their moral and political bankruptcy.
This writer would have no problem with trump being king as long as it serves his master, the Kochs.
2
A couple of well taken points, but come on......'his' making money off of the office, refusal to shed his business interests or reveal his income tax statements? That is not good for the country or the office of the Presidency. Calling private citizens derogatory nicknames, lying incessantly, sleeping with porn stars and paying them off with hush money, inciting his supporters against the free press. That's only a partial list of seriously damaging, if not illegal behavior. Your "So what? No Big Deal" thesis just doesn't hold water. This POTUS is a disgrace, through and through.
6
What a bunch of "excuse-everything-because-he's-one-of-us" malarkey.
I note that one of the Claremont Institute values is to promote stable families. How's that working out for you with Trump? I guess that's just another "norm" that he's oh-so-publicly flaunting.
Some load of hooey. Some "think tank."
3
This is a dishonest bunch of nonsense that carefully avoids talking about real issues. How can you write a piece like this and not talk about the threats to the press—unless of course your only interest is academically-worded coverup.
1
Inciting racial hatred, denigrating a free press, and bald-faced lying are just new norms. I see.
4
A foolish article. Norms are being broken because we have an ignorant President. Trump has no respect for the Constitution or much of anything else. To put these breaking of norms into the context of Liberalism shows an ignorance of history. Trump never refers to the Constitution except to the pardoning power. Have you heard him refer to the Bill of Rights?
13
Even as an exercise in expository writing it is pure sophistry to call trump a breaker of norms.
He is more properly a criminal, a racist and a lout.
This article will turn out to be an embarrassment in retrospect.
10
Tell me Mr. right wing op-ed writer, are assaulting women, constant lying, and calling the press the enemy of people just a little norm breaking? No harm their, right? Just shaking things up, right? You're another stark reminder that Hillary's "deplorable" reference was oh so right.
6
What a great, albeit sick, political joke, this article is, and I bet this is really a speech written by Stephen Miller or another one of Trump's remaining speech writers on staff and submitted under a pseudonym. Did Giuliani and Trump laugh out loud about this submission with you? Did Kushner take a break from all his international business deals for Trump Holdings, in direct violation of the Constitution, to chuckle and snort along with you guys?
Did you refuse to add the Trump postscript about how much he hates our Constitution and our democracy as part of your 'breaking norms' for an 'American' president of our American democracy?
4
The NYT should be ashamed for hosting this column. What poor arguments! Anyone who can equate lying with "breaking the norms" lacks any sort of moral compass.
4
Breaking norms? For the love of god, this President isn't using a different salad fork or wearing a tan suit. He is a cheat and a law breaker. He lies to the public *constantly*. He is a racist and misogynist, implementing policies that have resulted in real harm to individuals and families.
It's embarrassing that this was published in the NYTimes. An erudite and learned apologist is still an apologist.
16
Norm was a character on Cheers.
This disgusting excuse of a human is a habitual criminal and a pathological liar. Attacks on etiquette are the least of his transgressions.
At the very least, Trump and his sychophants will be a hideous stain on American history.
3
What are you talking about? These are actual laws the he routinely breaks. What utter nonsense.
1
I think the author must be a graduate of Trump University!
What a piece of nonsensical, pro-Trump, Fox Fake News propaganda!
Claremont should be ashamed to have him on their staff... he conveniently ignores Trump's law breaking, undermining of the rule of law, xenophobia, policies that deport hard working immigrants, separate children from their parents, and put immigrant children in cages, attacks on the free press and democracy, corruption, his cesspool of self-enriching cronies, violations of the Emoluments Clause, personal profiting off the presidency, false attacks, stoking racism, etc.
As has been reported by many news organizations:
“Since his election, his national security adviser, personal lawyer, campaign chairman, deputy campaign manager and a foreign policy aide have all admitted or been convicted of crimes.”
Trump is breaking fundamental norms of civil society, decency, social justice, and democracy — and, no matter what pseudo-academic gloss the professor puts on it, that is dangerous and definitely not OK!
8
Well ok Mr. Kesler. Let us follow your reasoning all the way. You maintain that calling Mexicans "rapists" is a good thing. You say naming Nazis "good people" will make our democracy stronger. According to you giving classified intel to our worst adversaries while in the White House is, what? improving our international relations? Let us, for a moment, pretend I don't find your arguments to be just another pathetic attempt to create more smoke to cover up for the criminal in the White House, an absurdist, almost amusing mashup of comparing apples to aadvarks and oranges to orangutangs whilst cherry picking examples and facts. So with your logic Mr. Kesler I suggest that another norm should be ignored. Let us forget about the DOJ policy for not indicting sitting presidents. Let us break that tradition, because that would be good for our democracy.
6
Recommend highly
This apologia for a criminal POTUS is a disgrace.
The very things the author pooh-poohs are designed to degrade the rule of law and elevate the cult of the strong man.
I can only conclude that the author fervently yearns for autocracy.
1
This pathetic garbage does not belong in the New York Times. Flaunting basic human decency is not an acceptable step forward but a step backwards. to Germany, Italy and Spain in the 30s and 40s.
4
I appreciate honest debate NYT but why did you let this into your paper? The author favorably compares the changing tradition of the delivery of State of the Union to how our current President regularly attacks our institutions and installs people who don’t believe in those institutions. That’s not norm breaking, that’s just “breaking”. Very unimpressed with your choice to print this.
4
It is important to hear the arguments of Trump apologists to see how vacuous their arguments have become.
Trump as “norm breaker”? Norms like, honesty, decency, ethical behavior and abiding by the law? Yes, he’s broken all those “norms”.
What a putrid right-wing apology. Charles R. Kesler should not be teaching at any college.
4
This is navel-gazing by a professor with a grant.
Donald Trump has broken the law, or many laws. I guess that violates a norm. He is a criminal.
1
Highbrow propaganda, rotten to the core, and sponsored by the varied interests of the Koch brothers and Putin.
6
Written as a true apologist for a dictator. Nothing is inherently good or bad, it all just depends on how you can spin it. If it makes the master race feel good about themselves, then it’s apparently A-Okay by Mr. Kessler. So I guess daily helping of racism and sweet talking white supremacists is just another norm that is fine to blow through. And ahhh, it will feel so good to be “renewed” by such important norm breaking as the POTUS setting Americans against one another and conspiring with a foreign adversary to do so. No thanks, Mr. Kessler, you can keep your “renewal”.
3
Methinks Mr. Kesler takes this all too lightly. His title of "senior fellow" takes on all new meaning with this column.
2
Of all the strange things defenders of the current president have come up with, this is among the silliest. Mr. Kesler, we’re not talking about changing which fork to use for the salad. Our concerns are lies, obstruction, self-dealing and complete incompetence. Why would you pen such a ridiculous piece?
3
Is this NY Times clickbait? It seems deliberately designed to provoke. On the same day that Politico publishes a story on racism at the Claremont Institute (see link below), and the same week that a former fellow of theirs is fired for attending white nationalist meetings, the NY Times runs an op-ed by a Claremont Institute fellow?
The major point of the op-ed isn't wrong, in that many norms not written into law are neither good nor bad, and that at a time with such inequality, division, and deep social problems as right now, disrupting some norms could even be a good thing. But this op-ed is a partisan piece not necessarily written in good faith and obviously ignoring the controversy around the author's institutional affiliation. Why would the Times publish someone associated with white supremacists, while that controversy is ongoing, unless the Times 1) actually want to amplify those voices or 2) want to troll their readers for clicks?
Politico story on racism at the Claremont institute, which also talks about the firing of Trump's white nationalist speechwriter/former Claremont fellow: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/23/trump-think-tank-racism-clarem...
3
You are all starting to sound like Dudley Moore, drunk as a skunk at the wedding and slurring " don't worry, I have everything under control" Give it up, man. Trump's a raging, tantrum throwing misfit child. How many bankrupcies did he have again ( 6--7??). You're reasoning is desperate sounding. Apparently you're very happy with the Republican party today.
4
Does "breaking the norms" include ridiculing a decorated Viet Nam War hero and POW (John McCain) as well as a litany of other unnecessary offenses committed against minorities for self-serving purposes?
You stand for everything or you stand for nothing. Which is it? No cherry picking allowed.
4
So let’s ignore the constant lying and bullying as long as it benefits what this guy and his cronies want. They’llfind a way to justify it. No thanks. Throw the crooks out.
1
Total garbage, crammed with false equivalences.
5
A truly awful piece.
10
Biff Tannen is not a "Norms Renewer", he's a National Nightmare.
Funny. I remember reading the exact same opinion piece in Berlin in 1933. Hitler just broke norms. No big.
1
The well of spurious apologies for this mendacious, ignorant man would appear to be bottomless.
7
Mr Kesler starts his comments by stating that "alleged transgressions offend against the etiquette of modern liberal governance,.." In other words whatever he says is tempered by a partisan slant - liberal. He should know that George Bush Jr and Senior, Ronald Reagan and other "conservative" presidents have abided by a decorum of etiquette that transcends partisan labels. Presidents represent us to the world at large. Breaking norms shouldn't mean that you attempt to overturn every etiquette precedent established before you get in office. Especially when it does not earn the respect of leaders around the world. Diplomatic is not in this presidents lexicon but he his very good at being a bull(y) in a china shop. I'd like to see a lot more common decency and strategic planning in achieving goals. Is there no longer any use for common decency in the name of the public good Mr. Kesler?
1
A brief synopsis of this article:
What the president is doing isn't unconstitutional, so stop crying about it.
My response: So what if it's not unconstitutional. I don't think that anyone is even saying that what he is doing is unconstitutional. The criticisms against the president are often more along the lines of "he may have done something illegal" (which this article conveniently ignores) or "what he is doing is bad policy" which people can disagree on, but they certainly are will within their rights to make that claim.
4
How to fix our broken system:
1. Paper ballots.
2. Abolish the Electoral College.
3. Make voting mandatory, noncompliance punishable by fines and/or jail time/community service.
4. Restore voting rights to felons when they have completed their sentence.
5. Overturn Citizens United. Campaigns get a set amount of money.
6. Free tuition to college for the first 4 years. Make America smart again.
7
It is no accident that civility and citizenship are closely linked. In order to be a well informed, good mannered and considerate member of any community from the smallest to the largest, are not just matters of "etiquitte" (like using the right fork or not slurping your soup) but the very essence of how a democracy works. If we can't talk to each other, disagree but still work together, collaborate on communal projects, and protect the rights of everyone, what will become of us?
4
The author clearly admires our "president's" willingness to walk in and flip over the table on traditions, norms, even common decency. But logic demands that when people use such drastic measures to take control of the conversation, they have well thought out alternatives to offer. They have proposals that promise solutions, new ways of approaching a problem, etc. So where are his? Coal?
10
While the professor's discussion on the role of norms in our system is absolutely spot on and reasonable, several other norms not discussed in the article are lacking in this president. Most occupants of the Oval Office had some measure of character, a moral compass, an understanding of morals and ethics and a conception of the importance of public service. I could deal with the breaking of some norms. But the general repugnance of this man and his lack of even the most basic levels of decency in my eyes make him unfit for this office.
8
Very thoughtful analysis, Mr Kesler. Trump is upsetting the presidential apple cart decorum, but why? What is really behind the sudden explosion of anger everywhere? It’s his base against every other minority.
The Trump presidency is just the opening salvo in the fight for future political power. As the US becomes more diverse, our society has fractured along every conceivable ethnic boundary. This is natural. This is also the new normal. Our political system is democratic and thus every group is in competition with every other group. If blacks and Latinos are natural allies linked through the Democratic Party, the alliance is one of convenience until one or the other gains the upper hand. But there are other groups vying for power, too, like Muslims and Asians. And there are different Asian groups all pitted against each other.
This is the big picture - a country of various ethnic and religious interest groups in political struggle for domination against every other group. Trump is not an anomaly. His presidency marks the beginning of true identitarian politics in the US whose catalyst is voter identity, not ideas.
5
Absolutely. Trump's grotesque approach to governing isn't a good-old American rebellion against established norms; it's a good-old American example of the stupid, the know-nothing, the vicious, and the racist.
1
What’s the word I’m looking for? Let me think ... ummm ... oh! Hogwash!
4
Woodrow Wilson left the country to conduct diplomacy. Yes, indeed, that is a very similar norm-busting to surrounding oneself with crooks, undermining law enforcement when those crooks are investigated, Tweet out corrosive and inflammatory garbage, and use Russia to win the election.
Um... Hitler and Mussolini broke a few norms. Not good at all. Nor was the norm busting in Iran, when we put the Shah in place, and when Iran took him out. Some norms are there for a reason.
I always like to google the author. Google this one, folks, and check out the Claremont Institute as a source material. If I could run my own internet source check (Snipes) I'd rate it three pitchforks and a full barn.
3
Yeah. I guess. So Charles R. Kesler thinks the norm of dishonesty is good for the USA? I guess that says something about HIS character.
8
Mr. Kesler is free -- if he wants to -- to ignore the fact that President Trump is a pathological liar, a racist, a tax cheat, a draft dodger, a molester of women, a man who cheats on his wives and a man who connives with Russians to steal elections.
But some of us -- like Hebrew National salami and hot dogs -- answer to a higher authority and will never be able to accompany him.
4
The author seems to have forgotten Agent Orange’s emollient problem in his laundry list of “so what” offenses.
Mr. Kesler's argument only makes sense if the behaviors employed in breaking norms are themselves democratic. Revoking security clearances denies democratic institutions the intelligence they need to do their jobs. Failing to disclose tax returns obfuscates a person's history and undermines trust. "Making fun of other politicians" (seriously, Mr. Kesler?!) causes schoolchildren to terrify their peers by threatening that they will be deported.
The problem is not that this lack of fundamental decency breaks norms. The problem is that most of the President's impulses are anti-decency, anti-transparency, anti-trust, and anti-democratic. His motivations are often admitted explicitly as such (the firing of Comey; the revocation of Brennan's clearance), or they are simply lies that have come due ("The meeting was about adoptions." "I'll release my tax returns after the election.").
Mr. Kesler seems to be arguing that smashing all the China may force the purchase of a new set. But you'd be a fool to let that bull in the shop in the first place, and in the end you might just decide that the civilized practice of putting food on plates and sharing a meal with your neighbors is too much trouble after all.
3
Wow, so Mr. Kesler is allowed to teach? He needs to learn some history.
Yeah, Woodrow Wilson violated some norms. He re-segregated Washington D.C. (and federal jobs). He also pushed for and signed into law the Sedition Act, which criminalized speech the criticized the war effort. He also had a stroke and became unable to govern effectively, a situation largely hidden from the public. But, hey, Kesler wants to go back to the fine old days of Woodrow Wilson, the time marked by the political ascendancy of the KKK! Uh, count me out.
Trump's violation of norms has nothing to do with what group approves of his Supreme Court pick. They have to do with his bold lies, his financial corruption, his embrace of an oligarch class, his obstruction of justice, his failure to adhere to the constitution, his embrace of racism and xenophobia, and his fealty to Putin. These are not "norms." These are dangers to our nation.
If Charles R. Kesler can't see this and identify it, he should not be given space to blather about nonsense in the paper of record.
5
Hard to know what the point of this absurd piece really is. It seems to be: "let's haul out a bunch of unrelated historical 'context' as a device to normalize the undemocratic and insane behavior we see daily from the nincompoop-in-chief." Nice try, I guess, but nothing here is even remotely compelling or convincing.
10
"alleged transgressions offend against the etiquette of modern liberal governance".
Right, then. It's the fault, as always, of the liberals.
5
The "norms" were a major part of what most people hate about Washington, especially most of us Berniecrats.
1
Breaking norms? How about breaking laws? In your mind, is that supposed to reinvigorate democracy too? Because that's what we have here. High crimes and misdemeanors are what we have here.
Your apologia for a criminal president blinds at Fox News, not here.
New York Times, are there so few viable "conservative" voices out there that this is the best you can rustle up? First Buskirk, now this Kesler. Both pathetic. Perhaps the Times should just accept that there are no viable honest opposition to the opposition.
9
Another right-wing apologist. Your response would be much different if it was a democratic president doing these things. Your a professor. Don’t let your biases get in the way of your analysis.
5
Thank God “intellectuals” like this man are few and far between in the US. His article reminds me of speeches Martin Heidegger made in Germany in the 1930’s supporting National Socialism and Hitler.
6
Do the ‘norms’ include the most unstable, racist, bigoted, hateful
leader of America and the free world. Not to mention the most corrupt and surrounded by even more corrupt advisors and hacks. All in the name of your ‘norms’!
3
James Bennet, once again trolling by proxy.
2
We have to destroy Ben Tre in order to save it??
Disingenuous blather and contorted logic all to numb us to the fact that we have the worst president in the history of the republic.
9
Professor, I have a one word question regarding your column. Huh?
2
That’s a lovely little apologism, Mr. Kesler. Tell us what to do with a President who is a liar, a cheat, and now, apparently, a felon.
4
In my view, Donald Trump isn't breaking norms, he's creating abnorms.
3