Once in a blue moon, a Republican official may quietly (very quietly!) comment that this or that presidential tweet was not, how to put it. . . presidential. But mostly they ignore Trump’s tweets, laugh them off, advise not to take them either literally or seriously, and even sometimes look reporters in the eye and say, “Hey look, I don’t really read tweets.” Now, I don’t expect Republican senators or House members to go to the floor of their respective chambers and commit political suicide by harshly condemning Trump every time he crosses the line in a tweet. But the virtually universal silence is support. And it has served to normalize a wholesale debasement of discourse in America.

Members of Congress themselves have joined in the fun (on both sides). In the wild west of Twitter, they crack jokes, attack rivals, make all manner of tone-deaf comments, and sometimes engage in downright hostile back-and-forth with reporters or the opposition. Speaking of tone-deaf, remember the time Senator John Cornyn joked about coronavirus by tweeting a picture of a Corona beer with a wedge of lime? That was mid-March, when lockdowns were imminent and the NBA had just canceled its season.

Twitter is a strange place. People, myself included, are more careful and traditionally respectful elsewhere. I am more measured and temperate in this space, in my book, on CNN, and on my podcasts. Certainly we tend to be more gracious face-to-face, even with bitter adversaries. Most of us were raised that way.

I try to observe certain self-imposed rules when tweeting. No comments on anyone’s looks; honest efforts to engage the substance, even if sometimes snarky; avoid cursing. But I’ve had twitter tussles myself – with the likes of Don Bongino, Dana Loesch, Jonathan Turley, Richard Grenell, Representative Doug Collins, and even Anthony Scaramucci. None of these generated any light. That’s Twitter. One night, I was especially angry about the bad faith machinations of Representative Devin Nunes. My own dad texted me to calm down.