Have Politics Changed Under Trump?

For all the talk about how Donald Trump is a Fascist, or an autocrat, or some other kind of threat to the American political system, I happen to think he deserves to be acknowledged and understood as a true political revolutionary in ways that we have never seen before but perhaps will carry over to how national politics are practiced even after he’s gone.

A quick personal experience, okay? Back in 1985 I had to go down to D.C. to take care of some issues for Columbia University at the National Endowment and I grabbed a shuttle flight out of LaGuardia. I was reading the paper while the plane was loading, and I didn’t bother to look at the person who came on the plane and sat down next to me.

All of a sudden someone came down the aisle and as this guy passed the seat of the man next to me, he said, “Good morning, Mister Vice President” and I realized that I was sitting next to Walter Mondale, who had been V.P. under Jimmy Carter and then was wiped out by Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Without thinking, I blurted out, “Hey! I’m sitting next to a guy who ran for President!”

At which point Mondale folded his newspaper, looked at me with a not-so-nice glance and said, “I did a few other things too.”

The point of this little anecdote is that when someone has been President or tried to become…