All the things Trump has broken

Six months ago I wrote a post about how Trump was operating at a more foundational level in his rhetoric. He began this campaign by challenging the way that we can tell fact from belief.

But that’s not the only thing that Trump has dismantled. He has left a wake of destruction in his path to become president. Here is a partial list of the institutions, traditions and cultural norms that he has discredited or destroyed.

1. The GOP is now unelectable. Their candidates either adopt Trumpian policies which put them beyond moderate voters or go moderate and lose the Trumpian base. Either way, they are no longer a conservative party.
2. The mainstream media is now seen as 100% partisan. Reporters are seen as traitors and suitable for lynching and attacked at his rallies.
3. Truth is now optional. Trump has been caught lying so many times that it doesn’t matter anymore. There is no longer a penalty for lying.
4. Opinion polls are suspect and Trump has said they’re rigged.
5. The FBI is seen as compromised by partisan bias.
6. The judiciary has been attacked as racially or ethnically biased. Trump accused the judge in the Trump University fraud case to be unfit to preside because he was of Mexican descent.
7. Voting is seen as vulnerable to hacking and therefore cannot be trusted.
8. Twitter is now the home to newly emboldened, racially motivated trolls.
9. Civility in political discourse is dead.
10. Law and order in politics: Nixon had to resign because his party stole DNC files. Trump colluded with the Russian government to do exactly the same thing and made the stolen documents a cornerstone of his campaign. Unlike Nixon, he did this with impunity.

I could go on but I won’t.

But what will fill the void?

This is just the beginning of a bigger problem because in the aftermath of this nihilistic rampage we will still have the same human problems we had before Trump.

We will still need to police ourselves, differentiate fact from belief, form political parties, choose leaders, understand what people think and manage our society. Something will have to replace these institutions. The revolution is just beginning. Brace yourselves for the hideous re-building of these institutions in a post-election world.