During the Trump years, we are repeatedly told we’ve reached “a new low.”
January 6. Threats against NATO allies. Flirtation with Russia. The monetization of the presidency. Personal crypto ventures. Private dinners for top investors. Each time, we adjust. Each time, the floor drops again.
Then comes violence by authority—brazen, unmistakable, and defended without hesitation. No ambiguity. No chaos. Just power exercised, recorded, and waved through. The killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti were not accidents or abstractions; they were the result of force deployed and justified. If that is not a new low, the phrase has lost its meaning.
What unsettles me most is not only the acts themself, but the reaction—or rather, the absence of one. I recently spoke about Renee Good with two successful, thoughtful people. Neither ideological. Neither particularly “MAGA.” I expected outrage. Instead, I heard rationalizations. Shrugs. A quiet acceptance that this is simply how things are now.
That is the danger.
When violence is absorbed without moral friction—when it no longer shocks people who love their families, value order, and consider themselves reasonable—something fundamental has shifted. This is how approval ratings survive. This is how institutions continue to function. Not because everyone agrees, but because enough people no longer object.
It is tempting to keep score, to catalog each new outrage. But that risks missing the deeper problem. Things are not stabilizing. They are normalizing. Permission is being granted—not loudly, but sufficiently.
If a significant share of the country is willing to tolerate unchecked force, false equivalence, and the erosion of accountability, elections alone will not resolve this. Courts will strain. Legislatures will stall. And the question will no longer be what is happening, but why more people are not alarmed.
I no longer look for “new lows.” That way lies exhaustion.
What matters is whether we recognize the direction of travel—and whether enough people decide, quietly but firmly, that this is not acceptable.
Because once indifference sets in, the descent accelerates.