New Medium: Don't normalize election challenges

From my new column at Medium:

The greatest danger of Donald Trump's presidency is that seemingly abnormal things become seen as normal. After more than 10,000 false or misleading claims, even the president's outrageous assertions that Democrats support the murder of live infants barely seem newsworthy.

What's even worse, however, is that other political actors have started to normalize this behavior and adjust their expectations accordingly. First, Republicans acquiesced to Trump's controversial campaign in 2016. Most stood by when Trump fired the FBI director for investigating him, said there were very fine people on both sides of a white nationalist protest in Charlottesville, and endorsed the physical assault of a journalist. And now, even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — a Democrat who vehemently opposes Trump — is taking behavior that should be unthinkable for an American president as a given.