Norms-eroding pop culture had preconditioned voters to accept a norm-defying candidate.

Evidence

Trump’s victory was a “political 9/11”—an unforeseen event that challenged the collective understanding of American society and culture. Millions of Americans, including large swaths of “moral majority” fundamentalist Christians, voted for a candidate who openly defied traditional moral codes. American pop culture had grown increasingly indecent and vulgar in recent years, and it was perhaps a strategic miscalculation for Clinton to campaign against Trump on grounds of decorum. … Instead, millions of Americans said yes, that reality TV star should be our leader, commander in chief, and national symbol. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 427

Categorization

• XREF: Carries forward the book’s whole argument that mediated taste culture erodes the boundaries between entertainment and political legitimacy.
• SEED: Angle: the win of a reality-TV president as the terminal case of the blurring between brand-signaling and civic authority Marx traces.