One of the most salient Trump-era challenges for the media will involve keeping perspective and not treating every development like an existential threat. Bill Maher’s admission on the eve of the 2016 election that liberals “cr[ying] wolf” over the threats posed by GOP candidates like Mitt Romney was a “mistake” is always worth revisiting. There are real consequences to habitual hyperbole.
Enter Chris Cilizza, who on Friday argued in a CNN analysis that a White House aide’s insensitive quip in a closed-door meeting about Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has become the “new normal.” (“It doesn’t matter, he’s dying anyway,” the aide is reported to have said.)
There is one enormous problem with this argument, which is that reports of the joke spread like wildfire and earned widespread (if not total) condemnation, precisely because those sentiments fall outside the boundaries of what’s considered “normal.”
“No one is standing up and saying ‘We can’t treat people like this,'” Cilizza wrote. That’s just laughably false give that plenty of people stood up right away and said “we can’t treat people like this.” There was, in fact, a rare, clear, and enthusiastic consensus among observers agreeing the joke was wrong.
It’s true the president engages in his share of culture-coarsening, and I do believe his rhetorical style will have repercussions. But quips like this one do not constitute the “new normal,” and that was proven immediately when the bulk of reactions to it were full-throated condemnations. Thankfully, the day has not yet arrived when nobody bats an eye at someone joking about the health of a war hero and sitting senator. Judging by the reaction yesterday, we’re actually nowhere near it.
