Just as the human body has no defenses against a completely new virus, our body politic had no immunity against Donald Trump’s off-the-charts willingness to violate every norm and boundary. He wasn’t smarter, smoother, or more charismatic than his opponents. He was simply willing to say or do anything. That was his superpower.
And many of his supporters delighted in watching him humiliate opponents who were still bound by traditional expectations of civility. But after ten years of exposure, we are adapting. We are developing resistance.
That terrifies Trump’s supporters for several reasons. First, it threatens their power if the very tactics that worked so effectively for them are adopted by others. They also believe they should be the sole beneficiaries of those tactics. In their minds, Trump has an exclusive license to behave obnoxiously—even abhorrently—while everyone else is expected to preserve the old rules. They see him as operating outside the normal standards that apply to everyone else.
They are also concerned that the tactics Trump popularized will eventually be turned back on them. Tucker Carlson has expressed similar fears about Gavin Newsom, who has aggressively and masterfully used trolling and media spectacle—tools long associated with Trump and his allies—against them.
At the same time, many Trump supporters argue that the actions of one member of a minority group reflect on the entire group, while insisting their own support for a man found liable for sexual abuse says nothing about them. A massive media and political ecosystem has been built to reassure them that this contradiction is acceptable and that they remain safely insulated from accountability.
That insulation is what makes any crack in the bubble so unsettling. And signs that MAGA’s dominance may be weakening are appearing from multiple directions. Consider the public breaks and criticisms from figures once closely associated with the movement, including Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Megyn Kelly.
A post-bubble future would surely bring renewed scrutiny of unresolved controversies involving figures like Jeffrey Epstein and Trump’s connections to that world. It could also mean that future generations look back with disbelief—or even revulsion—at the intensity of devotion Trump inspired.
The irony is that many people who champion Trump’s rejection of social norms still value those same norms when they benefit from them. They simply believe their side deserves an exemption. Admitting that they helped erode civil discourse is uncomfortable, so denial becomes the easier path.
Well-meaning people on the left who “tsk tsk” their own side for abandoning pre-2016 standards of civility can unintentionally reinforce the idea that MAGA alone is entitled to use these tactics—or that only one side must always “be better.” If we want a more civil society, we must first hold accountable those who dismantled the norms that made civility possible.
But we are not going back to pretending everything is normal when dealing with sexual predators, corruption, or attacks on democratic institutions. And if power shifts, we cannot allow ourselves to be manipulated into extending endless grace to the very people who showed no interest in extending it to anyone else when they held the power.
The past decade changed us. It hardened us. It taught us that norms without accountability can become shields for those willing to destroy them. The victor writes the history, and we will document every despicable detail of this era and of these players. Politeness be damned.
