Does Donald Trump give you bad thoughts?

Many hard things have been said about Donald Trump, a considerable number of them true. What has been given less attention has been the effect he has had on others.

Trump didn’t devise racist politics in the US but he gave what’s now called “dog-whistle” speeches that didn’t say “Let’s all be racist!” but spoke about Mexicans living in Mexico and Mexicans living in the US in a way that crystallized and legitimized racism. The average dumb red-neck listening to his speeches said aloud or to him/herself “Say, that’s what I bin thinkin’ for a long time. I like this guy!”

And the same goes for his gross male chauvinism. Remember when he insulted the memory of a young Muslim killed while fighting in the US army, and then criticized the man’s father when he objected, by noting that the young man’s mother hadn’t been allowed to give her views to the media? That’s the gentler edge of his chauvinism. The grosser part could be found in that vomit-inducing interview he gave Billy Bush about how to get a woman to do what you want.

And there are lots of other views which indicate that the US and the world have got one of the worst US presidents it could have chosen.

But the most remarkable result of his election is that he’s succeeded in making many, myself included, break many of our central political notions.

For example, most of us normally believe that when a politician is elected, he should deliver on what he promised. In Trump’s case, huge numbers of us are hoping and praying that he doesn’t build a wall between the US and Mexico, tear up the Paris climate-control agreement, ban all Muslims from entering the US. The need for awful things not to happen trumps (yes, Virginia, I know, I know) any argument that politicians should be straight and act on what they promise. I hope devoutly that Trump breaks virtually all of his electoral promises.

Although to be fair to Trump, he’s not the only recent force that has driven liberals and left-leaning people to think in very un-liberal terms. Brexit is another example. I accept that the British people have spoken – or those who voted have – an awful lot didn’t bother voting. But if I thought there was a way that an Irish could played at this point – that is, that the referendum should be re-run until the British people gave us a more thoughtful result – I’d be all for it. And yes, I was contemptuous of the way the Irish people in the south had to re-run their referendum until the result was what the government of the day wanted.

Some people have (very quietly) suggested that Trump, if he acts on what he has said, will be lucky to survive in office. They’re not talking about his political life, they’re talking about his literal flesh-and-blood life. It says something for the detestation I feel towards the man, that I’m not horrified by the idea of his assassination, any more than I was horrified when I read of the attempt by some of his own people to assassinate Hitler.

Appalling? Too right. But when you get boxed into a corner by a man who’s an erratic, racist bully, you begin to think thoughts that set aside the normal conventions of decency and justice. That’s how much Trump has changed me and, I suspect, a great many others.