The Trump team is "Defining Deviancy Down"

The Moynihan Maxim

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John Tower, Kimba Wood, Ted Sorensen and Tom Daschle, all sidelined from high level Administration jobs over personal controversies, were born too soon. In today's Trump era they would sail through.

The Trump Administration, only days in office, epitomizes what the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan called "defining deviancy down" -- lowering ethical and moral standards to normalize what was unacceptable. In comparison to those earlier rejects, the issues facing Trump nominees Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are far more serious. Yet most, maybe all, will be confirmed.

Like the metaphor that a fish rots from the head, a leader often sets ethical standards. A convicted felon, twice impeached and with dozens of legal and personal offenses, Trump already is thumbing his nose, just launching a crypto currency bearing his name that could net him billions. For the Trumps, government is a money making opportunity.
The appointments illustrate the Moynihan maxim; it's pervasive. On these nominations "the consequences for violations are being suspended," observes Stephen Gillers, a law professor and ethics expert at New York University Law School. "There has been a sea change in the tolerance for ethical transgressions."
Comparisons are telling.