One president at a time? Not so much...
In 2008-2009, Barack Obama’s transition team repeatedly invoked the norm that the United States has “only one president at a time” to explain why Obama was staying silent on issues like the Gaza War. That “constitutional principle,” Obama’s incoming press secretary said at the time, is “extremely important in the arena of foreign policy,” where it must be “clear who is speaking on behalf of the United States.” Noting the “delicate negotiations” that were occurring at the time between Israelis and Palestinians, Obama argued that “we can’t have two voices coming out of the United States when you have so much at stake.”
Yet in the waning days of 2016, two conflicting voices on high-stakes international issues is exactly what we have. Barack Obama is vowing to retaliate against the Russian government’s interference in the U.S. election; Donald Trump is questioning whether Russia interfered and thanking Vladimir Putin for his “very nice” Christmas card. Obama’s Pentagon demanded that China return a U.S. underwater drone seized in the South China Sea; Trump elevated the incident to an “unprecedented act” and then suddenly reversed course, suggesting the Chinese just “keep” the darn thing. Obama is dismantling a registration system for visitors from many Muslim-majority countries; Trump might soon revive it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...ouncil/511637/
The bigger picture with this isn't just the ignoring of norms (because maybe these norms will be codified into law if they're actually important now), it's that if people don't see what's going on then ignoring norms confers great power. If both sides adhere to a norm, then things are balanced since the rules are known. If one side completely ignores norms but the other side still tries to adhere to them, then that's a huge advantage.
Normally politicians will say "never lie". They can misrepresent the truth, spin things, or just completely avoid or ignore the question, but an outright lie was seen as damaging. That's partially because the person could be shamed by their opponents and the media and (well presumably) the voters. Trump has no shame, he cannot be shamed, so he and his aides lie constantly. Trump lies because it's a classic manipulation tactic for narcissists. If you lie then no one knows what you're going to do or say so they're constantly paying attention to you. And Trump's proven voters don't care about lies, if they believe you represent a change for the better for them they'll vote for you.
So while part of me thinks it's important for the media to record Trump's words and identify lies, investigate corruption, hold him accountable, the previous methods of accountability (shining a light on the shameful act) don't work. So Democrats are going to have to approach accountability from a different angle and the media is going to have to be different too, if they try and stick to the norms they've had for the past 40 years they'll get even more circumvented by propaganda than they already are.