Donald Trump Has Shattered Campaign Norms In Damaging, Potentially Lasting Ways

Donald Trump Has Shattered Campaign Norms In Damaging, Potentially Lasting Ways

by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trumps-legacy_us_58212458e4b0e80b02cc45f2?section=us_politics

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But the fact that Trump’s lying is taken for granted, that he casually will say he won Michigan’s “Man of the Year” and plow right on with conviction, says a lot about his campaign and its lasting impact on future elections. Acts that used to engender strong backlash have become mundane. Even worse, important political precedents have been broken and troubling social trends have been normalized.

Donald Trump is now the first major party candidate in 40 years not to release his tax returns during the election. Such an act of secrecy carried political downsides just four years ago when Mitt Romney was hesitant to make his information public. But from here on, there is a precedent that future candidates can cite should they choose the path of non-disclosure.

Trump has been openly hostile to the media. He refused to allow a traveling press corps to fly with him ― a major departure from past nominees. And as documented by The Huffington Post’s Michael Calderone, he has called reporters “dishonest” “lying” “scum,” threatened lawsuits, pledged to “open up” libel laws, and singled out correspondents by name at rallies. At those rallies, the treatment of the press has become so alarming that journalists occasionally have had to rely on law enforcement protection to get in and out. And not for lack of reason.

Trump called for the jailing of his opponent, something unheard of in modern democratic presidential campaigns ― and widely denounced as being more customary of a banana republic. “Lock her up” is a staple chant of his campaign rallies. And though it happens less frequently, talk of assassination now pops up with some regularity, too.


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