First, let's protect the rule of law

It has frankly become difficult to endure the presidential campaign of 2016 without fearing that one detects symptoms of a democracy, even a civilization, in decline. But maybe that's an overdramatization — a specialty of folks my age.

Fact is, our best hope may be that the disgraceful spectacle before us is only, or anyhow partly, a generational aberration — the latest achievement in social turmoil of my baby boom cohort, from which both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton hail, along with much of today's institutional leadership.

The '60s generation's careless disdain for sundry traditional standards and boundaries, its signature blend of moral vanity and moral squalor, and its insatiable taste for the apocalyptic have become the ethos of the age.

Perhaps much of the era's feverish folly will wane with the boomers. If so, the key to steering America's political virtues through a dark passage may be to focus on upholding its most indispensable ideals. And that means safeguarding, above all, the rule of law.

This is why Trump's much-discussed vow during the second debate that as president he would unleash a special prosecutor to put Clinton in jail betrays his unfitness not just for the presidency but for any public office more vividly than any Trumpian outrage that preceded it — which is saying a lot.

The essence of a just and decent government is not that it holds elections, but that it claims no power to act coercively against any person — except in accordance with laws that are made in advance, that apply to all, and that are impartially and impersonally enforced.

That is the rule of law, the foundation of legitimate authority. For a political candidate to stand on a debate stage and threaten to use the power to prosecute to settle a political score is simply abhorrent to everything that ever made America "great."

Yet as in so many typical errors of our era, Trump's contempt for the rule of law is extreme ­— but far from the only kind on display. Politicians near and far have discarded devotion to neutral and independent justice. In the same second debate, Hillary Clinton renewed her commitment to what she has elsewhere called "a bunch of litmus tests" for judges she might appoint to the Supreme Court — that is, specific rulings that she will be seeking from judges she selects.

Clinton explained that she wants "justices who understand the way the world really works ... [and] understand what people are up against."

This sort of talk is well-understood code for judges who will make progressive public policy from the bench, not limiting themselves to applying the law but remodeling it in light of their worldly wisdom.

Lest there be any doubt, Clinton listed, as she often does, specific rulings she "would want to see." They include reversal of "Citizens United," the controversial political speech case; renewed federal authority over states on voting-rights issues, and rejection of any challenges to abortion rights or same-sex marriage rights. "I have very clear views about what I want to see," she added.

This unconcealed ideological agenda in the judicial selection process, especially the itemizing of expected rulings, is not unique to Clinton, but it is a largely new and entirely unhealthy trend. It was long considered unseemly at best for presidents or candidates to suggest that they required commitments to specific rulings from judges. No doubt in reality they always have hoped that by appointing someone who saw the law (and "the way the world works") as they did they would eventually get congenial rulings.

But there was until recently a measure of restraint about giving judges explicit marching orders. It came out of respect for the ideal that judges strive, however imperfectly, to examine each case with an open mind. And presidents' expectations of their appointees have not infrequently been disappointed in the past.

The political discrediting of our courts is already far advanced. It's why the process of confirming Supreme Court justices has grown bitter and dysfunctional — never more so than in the gridlocked appointment today of Garland Merrick, President Obama's nominee to fill the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

Clinton's peddling her "bunch of litmus tests" will make matters worse.

And there's still another way today's politicians increasingly disrespect the rule of law. Amid rising tensions over police shootings of black men, elected officials have repeatedly been tempted to take cover by prematurely proclaiming cops guilty — before the facts are in — or by refusing to acknowledge the exoneration of officers after investigations are complete.

Obama continued to imply wrongdoing by Ferguson, Mo., officer Darren Wilson after his Justice Department had emphatically found "no credible evidence" against Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown. Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton refused to comment on the double clearing (by state and federal prosecutors) of two Minneapolis officers investigated in the death of Jamar Clark, but did not hesitate to condemn the officer involved in last summer's shooting of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights.

During the vice presidential debate Oct. 4, Clinton's running mate Tim Kaine weighted in similarly on that Minnesota case, proclaiming that Castile "was killed for no apparent reason."

The Castile investigation was recently turned over to Ramsey County Attorney John Choi. There have been various claims and reports of Castile having a gun at the time of incident. But few confirmed and scrutinized facts are as yet known to the public. They aren't known to Kaine, either.

But Choi's tough job of finding the truth and fearlessly acting upon it can only have been made more difficult by this political pronouncement on a national stage.

D.J. Tice is at Doug.Tice@startribune.com.