DONALD TRUMP AND THE DECLINE OF AMERICA’S MORAL ECOLOGY, as explored by Paul Mirengoff of Power Line, who writes:

Peter Wehner writes about the “cultural and moral context that allows someone like [Donald] Trump – narcissistic, crude, obsessed with wealth and fame, and who has never felt the need to ask God for forgiveness* – to emerge.” Pete believes that “it is hardly a coincidence that Donald Trump shot to the top of the polls in a nation that celebrates the Kardashians.”

I agree.

Pete ties his discussion of the cultural and moral context that fuels Trump’s campaign to David Brooks’ recent book, The Road to Character. According to Brooks:

Each society creates its own moral ecology. A moral ecology is a set of norms, assumptions, beliefs and habits of behavior and an institutionalized set of moral demands that emerge organically. Our moral ecology encourages us to be a certain sort of person.

Over the past several decades we have built a moral ecology around the Big Me, around the belief in a golden figure inside. This has led to a rise in narcissism and self-aggrandizement.

And the rise of toadying establishment stenographers who believe that some men are destined for the White House based upon the sharpness of their trouser creases.

In other words, America’s moral ecology didn’t collapse overnight with the arrival of The Donald to the campaign trail earlier this year:

* But to the best of our knowledge, never prayed in a church led by a pastor shouting “God damn America.“