Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know by now that Graham Platner — the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Maine — has dropped out of the race, having been accused of sexual assault. (He denies the allegation.) That outcome has seemed likely for days, yet it still suggests something surprising about American politics: that maybe President Donald Trump hasn’t upended our norms quite as much as everyone assumed.
There’s no need to recite all of Trump’s scandals. “Access Hollywood” (“grab them by the p***y”). Two impeachments. Criminal indictments. A civil jury finding him liable for sexual abuse. Etc., etc., etc. Any one of those episodes would have vaporized the career of all politicians before 2016. (As JD Vance recently boasted, Watergate would have been a “12-hour news story” in Trump’s America.)
In this perverse culture, egomaniacal pols were tempted to think: If Trump can survive scandal, then so can I. But what if Trump didn’t actually change the rules for everyone? What if he only changed the rules for Trump?