Curious to know why the Globe stopped short of asking Trump to leave office, I reached out to Bina Venkataraman, the papers editorial-page editor. She told me by email that the editorial board has considered demanding Trumps resignation, most recently over the Ukraine scandal that led to his impeachment, but to date it has refrained from taking that step. She said that an election year raises the bar in terms of the rationale and timing that would justify doing so. However, Venkataraman emphasized that the Globe has not ruled out the possibility. When we deliberate about such questions, she told me, we consider all kinds of factors, including the timing, the potential to influence the outcome, whether its the best position to take for the country in the moment as well for institutions and democratic norms over the long run, [and] what precedents it sets for the editorial board. She also pointed out that the paper had recently called on Attorney General William Barr to step down over what it alleged was his serial misconduct. (Its worth noting, too, that the Globe columnist Michael Cohen, although not a member of the editorial board, has demanded Trumps resignation several times.)

Barbara McQuade: What would happen if Trump refused to leave office?

The Princeton University historian Julian Zelizer thinks the fact that Trump so recently survived impeachment is probably another reason editorial pages and congressional Democrats have been loath to demand his resignation. But he suggests that deeper factors may also be at work. Zelizer says that after decades of anti-government rhetoric from the right, a lot of Americans have come to expect that Washington will fail them, and this has shaped how the country responds to incompetent leadership. Its this feeling that this is the best we can get, he says. The degree to which we have become inured to failure, he says, was vividly demonstrated during George W. Bushs presidency. Even though Bush presided over a series of historic disasters9/11, the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, and the global financial meltdownhe served two full terms in office.

Our political culture does seem to have developed a high tolerance for failure. As the CIA director under Bush, George Tenet oversaw two intelligence debacles: 9/11 and the Iraq War. Yet he kept his job until June 2004, more than a year into the Iraq fiasco, at which point he insisted that he was not leaving in shame or disgrace. He told CIA employees it was a personal decision, and had only one basisin fact, the well-being of my wonderful familynothing more and nothing less.

Business culture has perhaps also numbed us to the prospect of failure without consequence. In the corporate world, poor performance is no impediment to lavish compensation. When the Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg was fired last December after two 737 Max planes crashed and the entire fleet was grounded, he walked away with a $62 million payout. Executives seem to rake in millions no matter how badly their companies fare.

Read more:

Why No One Is Calling on Trump to Resign - The Atlantic