MURCHISON

Most of all, you pay heed to the matter of tone in national affairs: to prudence, to generosity to friends and foes alike, to the requirements of honor, and to acknowledgment (however grudging) of what philosophers quaintly call Truth. Our constitutional arrangements presuppose all this in the name of a free people, the living out of the call to virtuous living or, more widely experienced, the call to common sense and decency. It could be something as simple as "being nice." Better that than cutting others' throats, politically or in actuality.

A president serious about his duties won't lessen the dignity of an office founded by George Washington, never mind such louts as may have lodged there since then. A serious president won't demoralize his people by accustoming them to the low and the loud, the crude and the rude. He won't let himself be known for language unprintable until recently, now printable almost everywhere.

Donald Trump needs a more certain path, that's for sure. Hooray for tax cuts! Hooray for Justice Neil Gorsuch! It's not enough. The American people's chief magistrate is leading them on a metaphorical walk through the outdoor accommodations he made fun of as typical of lesser nations.

The eternal irony is that political victories can turn Pyrrhic: so costly as to send the outhouse ceiling crashing down. Outrage enough voters, and guess what. They turn you and your precious successes into targets for destruction — one more sad, still-preventable consequence of demoralization.

William Murchison's latest book is "The Cost of Liberty: The Life of John Dickinson." To find out more about William Murchison, and to see features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.