As a young person I imagined that powerful, wealthy, elite institutions (and the people who run them) could do whatever they wanted with impunity. But Trumpism has highlighted something I noted years ago: the amount of deference and cowardice in these places is staggering.

News media is the most visible but def not the only example of this. Media is populated by people for whom American institutions have generally viewed favorably & worked well for. Their default presumption is “everything will be alright eventually.” and it shows in the coverage.

They’re not trying to normalize Trump. To do that they’d have to concede that the situation was abnormal and by temperament and constitution, they’re largely incapable of drawing that conclusion.