Trump’s worst legacy may be whom he helps into office

It might be time to reconsider how much time and effort we have been devoting to presidential bashing lately.

There is an argument to be made that all the attention lavished on every crazy Trump boast (“The beauty of me is that I’m very rich”), childish epithet (“Sloppy Steve”) and sham drama (Fake News Award) steals precious attention from elsewhere.

Whatever President Donald Trump may be doing to coarsen American political discourse, he’s doing much more harm to American government and civil society with the ethically compromised men and women he is helping into office.

I’ll cite two examples. Trump pardoned one and nominated the other.

Thomas Farr is cruising toward becoming a U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Farr’s nomination was given the green light last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

This is the lawyer who defended the North Carolina voter identification law that a federal judge determined had targeted black voters “with almost surgical precision.”

Farr’s other claim to infamy is a tie to the 1990 re-election campaign of Sen. Jesse Helms. Farr was the Helms campaign’s legal counsel when more than 100,000 postcards were sent to black voters falsely telling they were ineligible to vote — and that if they did, they risked criminal prosecution. That’s called voter suppression. And this was a particularly vile and racist example of it.

The Department of Justice, under George H.W. Bush, pursued the abuses.

Before the Senate panel, Farr has claimed he was innocent in the scheme. But other accounts, where Farr himself is quoted, show that he knew of it before the postcards were mailed.

He has a track record throughout a long legal career of taking cases that helped undermine voting rights.

Also consider the U.S. Senate aspirations of Joe Arpaio, former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz.

Arpaio, whom Trump has called a “great American patriot,” announced recently that he’s running for the seat being vacated by a fellow Republican, Sen. Jeff Flake.

On Twitter, Arpaio noted that he is running “to support the agenda and policies of President Donald Trump in his mission to Make America Great Again.”

Arpaio has long displayed a special dislike of Latinos. His department routinely violated the civil rights of U.S.-born citizens who happen to appear to his deputies as immigrants by virtue of brown skin. He was known for ordering his deputies to target Latino drivers.

Arpaio’s wrongdoings didn’t go unchallenged. He cost his county millions in legal settlements. And a federal judge ordered him to stop abusing people’s rights through the roundups. Arpaio refused the order.

Last year, he was convicted of contempt of court and was facing six months in jail.

Guess who pardoned him.

Now Arpaio wants a position that would allow him to influence law enforcement nationwide. He could win.

The presidency of Donald Trump will not break American democracy. We will survive him.

But Trump has emboldened and legitimized people who have twisted views and deplorable records on voting rights, civil rights and basic human rights.

No doubt about it, there is damage brewing in Trump’s wake.