Yet there were a couple of notable characteristics about these noxious comments. For starters, they may be representative of the Age of Trump, but none of them were uttered by Donald Trump, or aimed at him, or were in any way about him.
What’s more, none of these insults was apparently made in a fit of pique, or were a hot-mic aside not intended for public consumption. On the contrary, they were apparently all unleashed as a matter of deliberate strategy, in the hope that they would be regarded as clever by the political class and strike a resonant chord with voters. In other words, they were at least trying to play the game by the rules as they are now understood.
The implications are significant, even as the insults themselves are likely too lacking in impact, or wit, to linger in mind for long. Here is another part of Trump’s legacy: Other political actors are mimicking his instinct for casual savagery. It is now part of the everyday diet of American political life…
A more troubling possibility, however, might be that Trump is not the cause of the new crudeness and rudeness of contemporary politics — just an especially florid manifestation of much deeper trends. The paradox of modern technology, especially as harnessed by social media, is that it is especially proficient in unleashing primitive dimensions of human character. That suggests a renaissance of insult, indignation and conspiracy theory — the signatures of the politics of contempt — is going to be with us for a long time to come no matter what happens to Trump.
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