What happened to the gentlemen's agreement between the press and the white house to maintain the dignity of the presidency?

We know that FDR was unfaithtful - even died while with his mistress . . . Truman probably wasn't, Carter "had lust in his heart", JFK, LJB & Bill were totally profligate. And in the same era we had Republicans Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush and Bush II.

So I guess it's just that the press expects debauchery from Dems while in office, but it's a novelty from a Republican (although all allegations are from when DJT was a private citizen).

The Republicans broke this in the 1990's when they used Clinton's infidelity to try to impeach him (and you can't put the genie back into the bottle). Trump is the furthest thing from a gentleman. It's not any one incident. It's four decades of dishonesty, divorces, infidelity, affairs, bankruptcies, lying, cheating, and being a bum who doesn't pay his bills. It's his comments in the 1980's, 1990's, 2000's, 2010's, and comments made while President. It's highly probable he raped his first wife, it's a fact that cheated on all three of his wives and has fathered an unknown number of children out of wedlock or paid for them to get an abortion. Oh, and part of that gentleman's agreement means being civil to the press. Screaming at them, ginning his supporters to physically attack them, screaming 'Fake News' at anything critical of him, and violating their trust in him further breaks said agreement.

I think a guy by the name of Gary Hart blew it out of the water. Believe it was 1984 he was running for the DNC nomination and rumors were swirling he was a womanizer the media asked him about it. Of course he denied it and challenged them to find proof. They got a picture of a hot young thing in a bikini sitting in his lap.

Keep in mind during Reagan's first term the 'moral majority' had reared it's head in the Republican party!

a few decades from now, one of the lingering arguments from this era will be the debate whether the trump presidency created the media atmosphere or if the media atmosphere created the trump presidency....

The Evangelicals are the hypocrites that pushed family values and character as campaign issues, now that the guy that they support is the one in the hot seat they suddenly "give him a mulligan," not only on the access Hollywood tape, but on multiple affairs, two divorces (both wives he cheated on), not to mention the accusations of selling out to the Russian Government.

Trump is incompetent and may have conspired with Russia. He also is a habitual, perhaps compulsive liar. I couldn't care less about his affairs, but if he violated election laws to payoff his mistresses (like John Edwards was indicted for) that is a serious issue. Those are my complaints about Trump and the hypocritical evangelicals.

Trump's refusal to help[ the citizens is what's really hurting the dignity of the presidency

It changed at least by the time of Gary Hart who was running in the primary for the Democratic nomination for president. Heart dared and reporters to look into his private life insisting that they'd find nothing. In fact, when they looked into it they found that he was having an affair. This became even more of an issue in the 1990s when conservatives used Bill Clinton's sexual history to attack him. This culminated in the Monica Lewinsky incident where they impeached him for getting a ******* in the White House.

The issue with Trump is not really consensual sexual affairs, but rather the multiple accounts of sexual assault and his admission to committing sexual assault. With Stormy Daniels the issue is that he broke the law to pay her off and may even have sent a thug to threaten her life.

Trump is trolling the whole system and his people love him for it. But anyone from the old guard is going to hate him.

LBJ needed extra ball room in his pants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsrxzHLo6Eg

You can't maintain the dignity of the presidency when the president is completely lacking in dignity (not to mention competence).