Opinion: American social norms and buffers are endangered as leaders 'behave without moral authority'

With the next U.S. presidential election less than six months away, most Americans expect to see probable candidates such as Donald Trump campaigning across the country. But Trump has not been focused on stumping. Instead, he has been in court where Americans have seen and read coverage of his efforts to "buy the silence of a porn star on the eve of the 2016 election," writes Thomas L. Friedman in his opinion for The New York Times. While this case may not be the most critical case against him, this case "more than any of the other cases is revealing of a trend ailing America today: how much we’ve lost our moorings as a society."

Friedman uses mangroves as a metaphor for what used to support U.S. social systems. In nature, "mangroves filter toxins and pollutants through their extensive roots. . . .They create nurseries for young fish. . . . They literally help hold the shoreline in place . . . .One of the saddest things that has happened to America in my lifetime is how much we’ve lost so many of our mangroves. They are endangered everywhere today — but not just in nature."

Friedman writes, "All those things that used to filter toxic behaviors, buffer political extremism and nurture healthy communities and trusted institutions for young people to grow up in and which hold our society together. . . . Locally owned small-town newspapers used to be a mangrove buffering the worst of our national politics. A healthy local newspaper is less likely to go too far to one extreme or another because its owners and editors live in the community."

Expressing shame for misdeeds used to be a mangrove that protected social norms. Friedman writes, "To be clear: People in high places doing shameful things is hardly new in American politics and business. What is new, Dov Seidman, the author of the book How: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything, told Friedman, 'is so many people doing it so conspicuously and with such impunity.' . . . That is what erodes norms. . . . Nothing is more corrosive to a vibrant democracy and healthy communities, added Seidman, than 'when leaders with formal authority behave without moral authority.'"