How Trump convinced America that character doesn't matter

Trump's twisted behavior has made it harder for us to draw the right connections between presidential character, leadership, and policy

A lack of character.
(Image credit: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

Many years from now, a young person will ask you, "What was it like when Donald Trump was president? Was it really as crazy as people say?" There will be a thousand ways you could answer that question, but try this one: "Well, at one point it was revealed that a month before he was elected, Trump paid $130,000 in hush money to a porn star named Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about an extramarital affair, and the media was so uninterested that they didn't even put the news on the front page, if they reported it at all. That's how crazy it was."

A visitor from an earlier age might assume that the news media, concerned about the propriety of sticking its nose into a gentleman's private affairs, decided to withhold what they knew from the public. That happened often in the past, from the reporters who said nothing about John F. Kennedy's womanizing to those who decided in 1996 that the story that Bob Dole had an extramarital affair in the 1960s simply had no bearing on what kind of president he'd be, so they declined to publish the news. "It just didn't pass the relevance test," said Len Downie, then editor of The Washington Post.

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Paul Waldman

Paul Waldman is a senior writer with The American Prospect magazine and a blogger for The Washington Post. His writing has appeared in dozens of newspapers, magazines, and web sites, and he is the author or co-author of four books on media and politics.