Lessons on elections and how to boil a frog

We all know the story about the best way to boil a frog: If you pop it in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out — so put it in a pot of cold water and bring the temperature up slowly. It won’t know what’s happening.

That’s how we arrived at today’s political scene. At first, the disrespect and vitriol were subtle. If the speaker was challenged, he would plead ignorance; he “misspoke,” or “the president can do anything.”

Clever little bon mots about women, blacks and homosexuals were always couched in humorous terms — chuckle, chuckle — and no one important complained. Soon, the insults were converted into proposals for new laws to protect the righteous, religious zealots’ views of a proper society. And that sounds logical to people anxious about how fast our world is changing.

The voices get louder and the language gets coarser. Our own president was insulted on national TV, and that was accepted.

Today, we have Donald Trump and Ted Cruz comparing crotches. No objections?

We sure are good at boiling frogs.

This story was originally published April 27, 2016 at 8:37 PM with the headline "Lessons on elections and how to boil a frog."