The tricky mirage of the "new normal"

Why resisting this all-too-American tendency will make you stronger.

On the heels of Trump’s big speech to the Senate, how many of us have heard or read something like the following from one of his bow-chested supporters: “so what did you think of that?” or “how do you like him now?” or “pretty impressive, huh?!”  This is a mark of true desperation for his supporters and many of them are blind to it… let me explain how.

Cut the ropes and think freely

Any individual who can sincerely ask the question above is a person who suffers from the delusion-inducing meme of “the new normal.”  If you are unfamiliar with this phrase, here is how this phenomenon operates: no matter how shocking or strange something might be initially, if exposed to it long enough, we can be easily lulled into accepting it as routine.  This viral meme infects both liberals and conservatives; neither are immune to this.  Let me show you how to break out of this hypnotic mindset; you will revel in how good it feels to be self-aware.

For example… Hillary’s discourse markers were a distillation of hackneyed, regressivist thinking that, over time, metastasized into its own Frankenstein-ish persona of ultra politically-correct drivel.  This jargon warped her mind to the point where, if questioned as to whether a circle was round, she would be initially non-committal only to then ask what demographic she might be speaking to.  WTF! Right?  Her chameleon-esque word-play leads one to honestly speculate as to whether she is the intellectual equivalent of the Borg in Star Trek.  For several years now, this phenomenon has developed a life of its own, becoming our “new normal.”

Are you sufficiently self aware?

So it is with Trump; while his unorthodox “straight talk” was both shocking and refreshing precisely because our political discourse had been so empty for so long, his undisciplined, uncultivated and immature rhetoric gradually established a new low for our political discourse; and we are nowhere near the bottom yet.  


But wait!  Oddly, even among the most fervent of his supporters, there are still some who rightly cringe at some of the wild and indiscriminate statements that emerge from his puerile mind.  No matter; our nearly constant exposure to his Tweets makes it typical.  We expect it from him, or, more importantly, we don’t expect any more from him.  And viola, we gently slide into a “new normal.”

Now we come to the crux: if you were truly impressed with Trump’s speech then you have confused his ability to read from a teleprompter with who he has revealed himself to be. The “new normal” has hoodwinked you; subconsciously expecting the usual chaotic Trumpisms, you are now shocked that he can hold it together for more than 30 minutes and follow the script laid out for him.  Caught up in the wistful and wishful fantasy of wanting to believe that he is more, you grasp impetuously at the first sign that Trump can be anything other than a disordered, vindictive adolescent…  You proudly exclaim...

“You see! He is not completely unhinged!”

And therein you betray your hand and reveal what you really think.  Unfortunately, only someone who is either in denial or romantically wistful of Trump could produce a comment like this.  

Don’t be this person.  Find YOUR center and be unapologetic about it.  Go tell it on the mountain: the dualisms of “right and left,” “democrat and republican,” and “liberal and conservative” are bankrupt and need to be seen as the principal obstacle to any chance of having responsible and productive discourse.  

Abandon the sinking ship of inbred political polarization.  There is an ocean of ideas out there that don’t fit into these false categories.
Jump in... the “independent” water feels great.

We have no center anymore… the labels of “democrat” and “republican” are bankrupt

The political is now a binary of illiberal extremes; the “right” is increasingly rabid and the “left” is so regressive that both sides may be irredeemable at this point.

In our current climate, almost nothing should be more obvious than the absurdity of labeling oneself as a “democrat” or a “republican.”  Only those who are enamored with the sound of their own partisan BS could possibly think that this duality still has any merit or consequence.  I suspect that more and more people sense how imbecilic and farcical it is to pretend as if any issue could be easily and neatly bifurcated in such a way.  “Liberal” and “conservative” don’t fare much better because these terms are loaded with such emotional baggage that they have become nothing more than ways to end a conversation rather than serve as a starting point.  We need a new “center.”  But how?

If you have gotten this far, this post is for you — an individual who refuses to succumb to the intellectual retrogression that has gone viral in our culture and inevitably leads one into a pit of confusion and factional hysteria. Allow me to suggest a possible pathway out of this cerebral chasm; I will attempt the reclamation of a very misunderstood word… “liberal.”

To say that this word is encumbered with connotations is an understatement. Highly uninformed folks on the right will shudder at the sight of it just as thoroughly ignorant folks on the left will get dewy-eyed at the sound of it.  Ready for the facts?  Democrats and Republicans, left and right, “regressives” and “neo-cons” are ALL “liberals”...  Is this crazy talk? Allow me to make sense of it.

We are all sons and daughters of what is known as the “liberal” enlightenment (Google it… you might be surprised by what you learn).  The Framers of the Declaration and the Constitution were greatly influenced by the likes of Thomas Paine and John Locke, among many others.  In a nutshell, liberalism is a philosophy that encompasses concepts such as: property rights, civil rights, liberty, equality, individualism, and rationalism, often with close attachments to the idea of progress, market economics, and internationalism.  

These *liberal* cornerstones are no less important today than they were in 1776; there is not a progressive, a conservative or an “alt-right theocon” who wouldn’t defend their right to own property, pursue being an entrepreneur or practice freedom of their religion to name only a few.  So-called “conservatives” and “progressives” are merely particular flavors on the broad spectrum of general principles that constitute liberalism.

Ultimately, it may be the case that rescuing the tradition of “liberalism” is a hope whose ship has sailed.  The reclamation of “liberal” from the burdensome and politically-laden term “left” may be impossible at this point.  I have tried to furnish a new perspective on the issue and one can only hope to reinvigorate the public’s interest in the tradition that is the thread that makes up the fabric of this country.  We need a new center for our politics; the very possibility of intelligible and productive discourse seems to depend on it, indeed, require it.