I pay a lot less attention to the scandals of semi-anonymous congressmen these days, for two reasons that are indirectly related to one another: (1) Congress doesn’t meaningfully legislate anymore, at least not in this Republican-led Congress under Donald Trump. (2) In the age of Trump, what even is scandal anymore? The Trump administration is rife with sex and corruption scandals — the Department of Homeland Security seemingly combines both right now — and the voters and media alike treat this as an afterthought. Some even resent having this pointed out to them, having learned to price it in as “the way things are nowadays.”
Maybe you think our current decline in ethical standards is a positive evolution. But if you detect a note of outrage in my tone, it’s because I despair at how quickly and seemingly permanently our cultural and political standards have been lowered, and how little comment it receives nowadays. We feel far too often like a “post-decency” nation.
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