Albert R. Hunt, Columnist

The Age of Trump Is 'Defining Deviancy Down'

When the president seems inept or corrupt, we shrug. If he ever fumbles through adequately, he is praised.

May 14, 2017 at 2:00 PM UTC

Albert R. Hunt is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was the executive editor of Bloomberg News, before which he was a reporter, bureau chief and executive Washington editor at the Wall Street Journal.

The president isn't lowering our expectations. We are.
Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

Pat Moynihan, the great politician-intellectual, warned about the dangers of "defining deviancy down," in which worse and worse behavior comes to be accepted as the norm.

The late New York senator's essay, almost a quarter century ago, was about crime and family structure. Today it applies to the Trump presidency: the danger that chronic lying, ignorance of history and policy, petty invective, racial demagoguery and personal greed fall within the realm of the norm.