The leadership standards crisis

In the 2018 election cycle, a record number of women, many of them veterans, ran for office in the U.S. House of Representatives, a heartening step toward greater gender equity and a fairer distribution of leadership in America. But, because of their heightened visibility, several of them were subjected to a toxic sludge of online trolling that was steeped in misogyny, racism and anti-Semitism. Which raises this question: should we, even in times of rapid social change, expect, much less tolerate, the abandonment of normal standards of decency and civility?

It has been impossible for Americans to ignore the erosion...