Down to the final days of Donald Trump’s time in office, any attempt to measure the much-commented-upon decline of American power in the world had to contend with the unceasing abasement of the presidency itself. Under Trump, once-unimaginable shocks, outrages, and demolitions of norms and decorum were routinely eclipsed by even greater ones just a day or two later, and sometimes sooner. They became such a commonplace feature of life that many Americans experienced them as almost self-erasing. It wasn’t so much that they were forgiven or even easily forgotten, but rather that public outrage just could not keep up.
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