In my new column for Salon, I address how America’s increasingly vulgar culture will only coarsen under the influence of Donald Trump, a repugnant vulgarian himself. Sociologists often discuss the cultural process of “defining deviancy down.” Tolerance for the previously unthinkable is nearly impossible to reverse. It only creates room for further degradation of public standards.

Presidents exert as much cultural as political influence. Trump has and will continue to empower the crude and crass elements of society.

Read my entire examination of an unpleasant topic at Salon.