David Pakman

Maybe they're telling the truth.

Maybe they're not.

But he's got the right policy on men and women's sports or whatever.

So I think that this is extraordinarily dangerous.

If behavior doesn't produce a reaction that has consequences, there's no incentive to behave any differently.

And in fact, there's a huge incentive to just push further.

If you can survive a scandal that would have sunk a senator 15 years ago, why would you stop?

Test the next boundary.

Why not?

Why not see if you can walk back a major military commitment or bypass some Democratic norms without suffering any polling consequences?

We are no longer in a moment where the behavior of our elected officials shocks people.

And to a degree, I'm guilty of it.

And I'll explain what I mean.

I am so steeped in this stuff that I have to remind myself, hey, David, don't don't let this be normalized.

This is not normal.

Don't cover it like just another yawn fest.

This is really, really serious stuff.

So what I believe we need to work towards is just because we've become familiar with something and we are very familiar with the insanity of the MAGA movement, we can't interpret it as normal.

We have some standard that we should try to stick to.

And when the line for the basic standards of decency blur, it's really hard to move them back.