https://quillette.com/2019/01/24/the-dangers-of
In 1993, then-Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan published an essay entitled “Defining Deviancy Down,” in which he argued that understanding the shift towards more permissive attitudes regarding crime and violence is crucial to their reduction. Specifically, he asserted that the redefinition of norms around deviant behavior (or “defining deviancy down”) had collectively shaped society in unintended ways, resulting in a desensitization to what might have once been considered shocking. By way of illustration, Moynihan referenced the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago—the notorious gangland execution of seven men committed during the prohibition era. He reminded his readers that those killings had elicited universal public outrage, and then contrasted that reaction with a contemporary example: “On the morning after the close of the [1992] Democratic National Convention in New York City in July,” he wrote, a headline reported “3 Slain in Bronx Apartment, but a Baby is Saved…A mother’s last act was to hide her little girl under the bed.” These were also execution-style killings, but they were greeted with only a barely discernible nod of dismay. In the six decades between 1929 and 1992, a transformation had occurred in the levels of violence and criminal behavior that the public seemed willing to accept.
The idea of defining deviancy down has attracted renewed attention from commentators in the Trump era. In recent years, Moynihan’s analysis has been used to understand how Trump’s impact on the culture has increased the acceptability of previously taboo language, attitudes, and behaviors. In November 2015, Jonathan Capehart wrote an article for the Washington Post entitled “How Trump is ‘defining deviancy down’ in presidential politics.” Capehart argued that, “As the 2016 Republican presidential contest drags on, [Moynihan’s] diagnosis fit politics in general and the campaign of Donald Trump in particular. Just when you thought the Big Apple billionaire couldn’t sink any lower, he does. He gleefully dances through the nativist, racist, misogynistic slop as if he were Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain. And to make matters worse, Trump is rewarded for it.” In a similar vein, Albert Hunt wrote an op-ed for Bloomberg in May 2017 entitled, “The Age of Trump is ‘Defining Deviancy Down’: When the president seems inept or corrupt, we shrug. If he ever fumbles through adequately, he is praised.”
