Every week of the Trump presidency brings with it some new outrage. This week, it’s Trump’s eager welcome of brutal Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who was quickly assured by the president that he is viewed as a valued partner by the administration, despite the litany of human rights abuses racked up by his regime.

The media, particularly liberal-leaning outlets and pundits, rightly wasted no time in condemning Trump for cozying up to a vicious tyrant. “Egypt’s president is a bloodthirsty dictator. Trump thinks he’s done a ‘fantastic job,’ ” Vox alerted its readers. “Trump Sings Praises of Egyptian Autocrat,” intoned a Mediaite headline. “Another morning in Trump’s America,” Paul Krugman tweeted in reaction to the news.

Trump’s embrace of the barbaric Sisi is par for the course for an administration with total disregard for human rights. But it also fits into the ongoing narrative of the Trump administration as an aberration, something new and uniquely scary in the scope of US political history — an idea that allows us to avoid confronting deeper, structural issues by simply writing off anything bad as a case of Trump being his uniquely horrifying self.