Yup, that's one of my chief concerns, too. Even if his policies end up being reasonable, the lowering of the bar for discourse is troubling. Both in terms of vulgarity, and in the idea that you don't have to actually make arguments for things any more.
There's some upside in this, in that lots of politicians surely think awful things and don't say them, and I'd rather have that out in the open. I don't think leaders should be walking on eggshells with every public statement, so that saying the wrong thing once ends your career. But Trump clearly represents an over correction to this problem. And the behavior we aspire to, whether genuine or not, it still important in and of itself.
That said, I'd like to welcome my liberal friends to the "coarsening of the culture" debate, which conservatives have been talking about re: television and film for a couple of decades now.
There's some upside in this, in that lots of politicians surely think awful things and don't say them, and I'd rather have that out in the open. I don't think leaders should be walking on eggshells with every public statement, so that saying the wrong thing once ends your career. But Trump clearly represents an over correction to this problem. And the behavior we aspire to, whether genuine or not, it still important in and of itself.
That said, I'd like to welcome my liberal friends to the "coarsening of the culture" debate, which conservatives have been talking about re: television and film for a couple of decades now.