Patton: Donald Trump Appears At Club Bimbo

Which came first - the chicken or the egg? Another puzzler. Which came first - decline in public civility or mushrooming support for Donald Trump? Did our decline in morality facilitate Trump's rise or vice versa. Did Trump's coarse behavior sanction boorish behavior by others?

I think the effect goes both ways, but, by and large, our increasingly tasteless culture encourages loutish behavior by Trump.

Carla Seaquist writes in the Huffington Post (3/9/2016), "However, this general development - trafficking in the crude and raunchy - is hardly new to American culture itself, not at all. Our popular culture - "popular" because it's embraced by the general public - has grown increasingly raw in these last decades.

"But scan the pop culture landscape - the comedy scene, TV sit-coms, movies (even the family friendly fare), 'edgy' literature and theatre, pop music, 'bold' advertising, all aided and abetted by critics who extol the 'bent' and the 'twisted'. . ."

Where does Donald Trump fit into this depressing scenario? Trump hit a new low for un-presidential behavior during the Republican debate of March 3. James Poniewozik (New York Times, 3/4/2016) entitled his review of the debate "A National Descent into Trump's Pants."

Said Poniewozik, "A gobsmacking day of intraparty pie-throwing ended with Donald J. Trump, from the stage of the Fox Theater in Detroit, assuring the American public that the size of his male appendage was just fine. 'I guarantee you,' he said, 'there's no problem.'

" I might have been shocked, once, at this whole debate - the hooting audience, the barking candidates, the NFSW (Not For Showing Wife) content - but those days are over. The memory is already fading. This is our life now. . .

"Over and over, (Trump's supporters) tell reporters, 'He's just saying what everyone thinks' and 'He says what's on his mind' - which are not the same thing as 'He always tells the truth' or 'He never contradicts himself.'"

Setting aside their respective political views and records, can you imagine Barack Obama and George H. W. Bush acting like thrice-married Trump? Both are dedicated family men whose behavior in that regard is unblemished, dignified, and worthy of respect.

Trump's partner in his successful quest to claim the Republican presidential nomination has been the media. Communist Vladimir Lenin said, "The capitalists will sell us the rope to hang them with."

The media has been so delighted with the high viewer ratings generated by Trump's television appearances that it has provided him with extensive and, equally important, free coverage. Lost in its infatuation with Trump has been any concern about what a Trump presidency might do to this nation.

E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post (3/6/2016) writes, "You can place a lot of the responsibility for all this on Trump and, yes, the media. As I was writing this, MSNBC (for which I've worked over the years) and CNN were simultaneously broadcasting live the same Trump speech. Welcome to Trump State Television. Broadcasters have reveled in the ratings to be garnered from airing Trump's stream-of-consciousness (if politically effective) rants and the coarser the better."

The New Hampshire Union-Leader adds in an editorial (5/7/2016), "Just as far too many conservative leaders have given cover to Trump's liberal takeover of the GOP, far too many political reporters have gleefully played Trump's game. Rather than exploring his career of business failures, the impossibility of Trump's insane campaign promises, or his willful ignorance of the basic issues facing the next President, we're treated to wall to wall coverage of Trump's empty bluster, and the outrage it generates."

Well, if Donald Trump is a creature created by television, then like all TV programs, his popularity will fade in time. If Trump is elected president, that decline may very well occur in the middle of his presidency when the public discovers to its dismay that all those empty promises he made were, indeed, just bluster.

Gary Patton is the author of two books, Selling Mt. Washington, a political satire, and Outtastatahs: Newcomers' Adventures in New Hampshire, a work of regional humor.