Denormalize Denormalization
A small minority of Americans refuse to accept the democratic transfer of power. Let them know that's insane.
Nov. 19 - Eight years ago this month, American leftists did something they’d never done before. They told themselves and one another, and anyone else who would listen, and even people who didn’t want to listen, that the forthcoming presidency of the recently elected Donald Trump should not be “normalized.” Nor should the man himself be. (See the Guardian, the Times, and Slate for examples.) They spoke of a “resistance,” as though it were somehow patriotic to obstruct the administration of a lawfully elected president.
They were insane back then and they’re insane today.
The only thing that needs to be “denormalized” is this idea of denormalization and resistance.
Democrats don’t have to like Republican presidents or their policies. In most cases they won’t. But they do have to accept them, because that’s how this thing works. At least, it’s how it should work. And yet anyone who’s been 29 as long as I have knows damn well that the American left has been refusing to accept the outcomes of presidential elections since 2000, when the whole “not my president” motif first came in vogue.
In an article about “Morning Joe” Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski having met with Donald Trump, USA Today quotes Scarborough as saying:
"Don't be mistaken: We're not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump," Scarborough said. "We're here to report on him, and to hopefully provide you insights that are going to better equip all of us in understanding these deeply unsettling times."
We come not to normalize Trump, but to bury him.
USA Today immediately adds some important context:
Scarborough previously said that Americans who vote for Trump this year would be "knowingly voting for a fascist" and "a racist." He also said on "Morning Joe" that Trump is a threat to democracy and the 2024 election would determine whether "Madisonian democracy survives."
This is stupid stuff, and destructive.
For one thing, these aren’t “deeply unsettling times.” Donald Trump won the popular vote and the electoral college. Republicans won the Senate and the House. Americans are so happy about it they’re doing a Trump dance.
Trump is normal. He’s always been normal. That’s what people like about him and it’s also what they don’t like about him.
Leftists are free to dislike Trump. To hate, despise, or loathe him.
But this “denormalization” business is the adult political equivalent of a child sticking his fingers in his ears. The child at least has the excuse of being a child. What’s Joe Scarborough’s excuse?
You know what you call a former billionaire playboy and reality television star who’s also a convicted felon that manages to get elected president?
Mr. President.
It may chafe, it may burn, but that’s how it goes. That’s how things work in the glorious democratic republic called America.
Suck it up, buttercups, and get over yourselves.
Personally I think we’ve got some glorious years ahead of us—but even if we don’t, even the next four years are a non-stop shit-show of Biblical proportions, the duly elected president of the United States is still Donald Trump. Reality requires no normalization.
He’s here. He’s president (-elect). Get used to it.
Postal Milestones
On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. The speech remains an important part of American history on account of its having been written on the back of an envelope despite stringent postal requirements that addresses be printed clearly on the front.
Hard Rock
On November 19, 1620, a group of maniacal religious fanatics reached North America and stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock. (Although today, Plymouth Rock would land on them.) Because America did not yet have a Puritan Government, they developed the Mayflower Compact while still at sea. (William Bradford had argued for a Sporty Coupe, but the more practical John Alden had carried the day.)
Eventually the descendants of these frugal and passionately religious people would invent the internet and enable the transmission of pornography around the world at light speed.
Because He Said So
Jean Francois Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet) was according to some sources born on this day in 1694. Other sources put his birthday on the 20th or 21st. No one really cares.
Voltaire is best known for having said things. Here are some of the witty things he said:
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
Anything too stupid to be said is sung.
God created sex. Priests created marriage.
It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge.
He was unhappy only when he thought: and that is true of the majority of mankind.
And most significantly:
A witty saying proves nothing.
(Voltaire did not, however, write that “Mankind shall never be free until the last king is strangled in the entrails of the last priest.” I've made that mistaken attribution many times. I have now learned that those were in fact the words of Denis Diderot, an altogether different, although equally snarky, Frenchman whose birthday can be ignored with impunity.)
It’s Garifuna Day in Belize, Flag Day in Brazil, Coup d'Etat Day in Mali, Prince Rainier's Birthday in Monaco, and Discovery Day in Puerto Rico.
Kerri Strug turns 47 today. The feisty gymnast shares her birthday with Jodie Foster (1962), Meg Ryan (1961)—
—Calvin Klein (1942), Ted Turner (1938), Dick Cavett (1936), Larry King (1933), Indira Gandhi (1917), Tommy Dorsey (1905)—
—James Garfield (1831), and King Charles I of England (1600).
Happy Tuesday!
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