# Has the Trump presidency become "normalized?"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [February 15, 2019, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609 "2019-02-15T16:46:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2019, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/21 "2019-02-15T22:28:09Z")
> [@asahi](#):
>
> … But underneath it all is real anger and a refusal to accept that someone so horribly unqualified can continue to lead this country past 2020.
scuse me? _ **Continue** _ to lead?
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### Author:  [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2019, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/22 "2019-02-15T22:30:07Z")
The alpha lemming is a leader.
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### Author:  [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2019, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/23 "2019-02-15T22:33:24Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> If the American electorate were truly refusing to normalize Trump, you would have seen a turnover of something like 100 to 200 seats flipped in the House. Something earthshaking. What happened in November 2018 fell entirely within normal parameters.
The American electorate is the problem. A huge hunk of them anyway.
Those of us who are screaming daily that “this is not normal” do so not because it’s working, but because we have no choice. Our grandchildren will probably ask us one day why we didn’t do more.
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### Author:  [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2019, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/24 "2019-02-15T22:45:38Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> But the House victory paled in comparison to the turnover of seats in the House that took place in the first midterms after Clinton and Obama were elected (1994 and 2010), unless you mean that those two midterms were the result of American voters refusing to “normalize” a Clinton or Obama presidency (those two presidents were utterly normal compared to Trump.)
> If the American electorate were truly refusing to normalize Trump, you would have seen a turnover of something like 100 to 200 seats flipped in the House. Something earthshaking. What happened in November 2018 fell entirely within normal parameters.
If there were a level electoral playing field with regard to districting and unsuppressed voting rights, I would like to think 2018 would have been as big a swing left as 2010 was a swing right. But I don’t have cites or stats to back up that notion, and it probably isn’t even true.
So, sadly, I will acknowledge your point that, insofar as midterms reflect what Americans believe to be “normal,” we’re more comfortable with a lazy, racist, sexist, immature, ill-informed bully than with an eminently decent man promoting left-of-center proposals.
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### Author:  [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2019, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/25 "2019-02-16T12:36:05Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> But the House victory paled in comparison to the turnover of seats in the House that took place in the first midterms after Clinton and Obama were elected (1994 and 2010), unless you mean that those two midterms were the result of American voters refusing to “normalize” a Clinton or Obama presidency (those two presidents were utterly normal compared to Trump.)
> If the American electorate were truly refusing to normalize Trump, you would have seen a turnover of something like 100 to 200 seats flipped in the House. Something earthshaking. What happened in November 2018 fell entirely within normal parameters.
I’m not contending that the whole of America is refusing to normalize Trump, as there is clearly a solid 35-40% of the country that seems content with the new presidential norms, or at minimum, they see nothing particularly destructive about it.
But Hurricaneditka posed a question about how should people go about refusing to normalize Trump when it seems as though there’s not much that can be done. And I somewhat agreed with him. Using the media as an example, it’s difficult for the media not to normalize Trump. I mean, what do they do - not cover him? Everything he does is big news. Do his political opponents ignore his outrageous tweets, his lies, and his tactics? They can complain in public, but before the elections this past November, there wasn’t much they could do to stop him, either.
I think when people say they don’t want to normalize Trump, they mean resist him. And that’s been happening since day one. Some forms of resistance are more obvious and more effective than others. The ultimate resistance, though, has to come in the form of popular uprising through the ballot box, which has been happening.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2019, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/26 "2019-02-16T16:11:41Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> But the House victory paled in comparison to the turnover of seats in the House that took place in the first midterms after Clinton and Obama were elected (1994 and 2010), unless you mean that those two midterms were the result of American voters refusing to “normalize” a Clinton or Obama presidency (those two presidents were utterly normal compared to Trump.)
No it didn’t. The absolute number of switched seats was lower, but the circumstances limited the possible total. Gerrymandering meant that fewer switches were feasible. Most of the analysis of the election rates it as significant a repudiation as any of those earlier elections.
In addition, the number of women and minorities and members of minority religions was at its all-time highest. Since the Republicans are determined to turn Congress into an all white and male bastion for them, this is devastating. It’s impossible to imagine this trend not continuing in 2020.
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### Author:  [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2019, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/27 "2019-02-16T23:09:18Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> But the House victory paled in comparison to the turnover of seats in the House that took place in the first midterms after Clinton and Obama were elected (1994 and 2010), unless you mean that those two midterms were the result of American voters refusing to “normalize” a Clinton or Obama presidency (those two presidents were utterly normal compared to Trump.)
>
> If the American electorate were truly refusing to normalize Trump, you would have seen a turnover of something like 100 to 200 seats flipped in the House. …
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> No it didn’t. The absolute number of switched seats was lower, but the circumstances limited the possible total. Gerrymandering meant that fewer switches were feasible. Most of the analysis of the election rates it as significant a repudiation as any of those earlier elections.
> …
That’s right. And Democrats (newly elected and otherwise) are working at both state and federal levels to undo the mutilation of the electoral process that is gerrymandering.
So the “100 to 200 seats flipped”—and more— _will_ happen. It’s just having to happen over two elections rather than one, because of the gerrymandering.
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> … Obama used emergency declarations so often that they became routine…
> Obama DID do “ **something similar** when the GOP in congress wouldn’t go along with him”. Remember DACA?
Remind us about the $6.1 billion Obama swiped from the Department of Defense to fund DACA…can you?
Oh, wait: that never happened.
Then could you remind us of the $1.375 billion Obama swiped from Homeland Security to fund DACA?
Gosh, that never happened, either.
Guess the DACA action isn’t so similar to Trump’s Wall-funding plan, after all.
As that lefty publication _The National Review_\* put it:
> [@](#):
>
> One thing that is abundantly clear from reading the full text of President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the southern border — he’s barely even deigning to explain why there is a particular crisis today, or why that crisis is so grave that it requires the military to combat it. At its heart it’s a contemptuous document. It’s the proclamation of a monarch, not an argument by a president. And it should fail in court.
[https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/trump-emergency-declaration-contemptuous-of-rule-of-law/](https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/trump-emergency-declaration-contemptuous-of-rule-of-law/)
\*That’s sarcasm, by the way, for any unfamiliar with NR.
My emphasis in the quote; stats from:
> **[Here's where the money for Trump's border wall will come from](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/heres-where-the-money-for-trumps-border-wall-will-come-from.html)**
>
> With the declaration of a national emergency, President Donald Trump has access to roughly $8 billion to fund a border wall.
> **[Follow the money: How President Trump's national emergency will pay for a...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/15/trump-border-wall-plan-tap-8-billion-national-emergency/2879585002/)**
>
> President Trump will use a national emergency and other measures to tap $8 billion from the budget for his controversial border wall.
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### Author:  [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2019, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/28 "2019-02-17T01:42:17Z")
Yes, Trump has obviously been normalized.
Regarding the declaration of the national emergency it was done in a meandering free style off the cuff speech in which he justified his actions entirely with bald faced objectively varifiable lies followed with declarations that the only reason the opposing party might disagree is that they want to destroy America.
If any previous president had declared a national emergency in this way it would have been a huge scandal. But it’s what we’ve come to expect from Trump so it didn’t warrant more than maybe a cursory mention most news organizations. Its just like any other day. So they talk instead about the probability that he could get it through the courts completely ignoring that the entire policy is based on lies and animus, without any serious planning or gravitas.
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### Author:  [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2019, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/29 "2019-02-17T02:59:46Z")
Yes.
Behavior that was outrageous and unthinkable b.t. is now normal. Behavior like [this](http://imgur.com/vQ7gDr4).
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### Author:  [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2019, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/30 "2019-02-17T03:04:53Z")
Grandpa has worn his underpants on his head to the family dinner table again.
And all anyone can talk about is which ones he wore, and “What does that mean?”
It means HE IS FUCKING NUTS. But nobody wants to say that, because they all hope Grandpa will give them money in his will.
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### Author:  [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2019, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/31 "2019-02-17T03:29:44Z")
I, and at least half of the country don’t see him as normal. Nor does any respectable media organization.
Such a racist asshole would never be allowed in my house, or on my property.
What you folks a talking about is - “Is it acceptable to have a traitorous moron ‘run’ the country.”
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### Author:  [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2019, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/32 "2019-02-17T05:23:34Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#):
>
> But Trump wouldn’t have been elected in the first place if there weren’t a significant number of Americans for whom such things were already “normal.” In many ways, Trump is a symptom rather than a cause of what’s wrong with America.
In some ways, Trump made some things less normalized. His unapologetic and blatant behavior has created backlash that may not have happened if a better behaved and less blatant President were elected.
Sexism was always a problem. Partly because of Trump’s blatant displays, the #metoo movement gained momentum.
Racism was always a problem. But now more people are aware of it, and racist behavior is getting called out, both in politics and on phone recordings.
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### Author:  [@Monocracy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monocracy)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2019, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/33 "2019-02-17T12:33:00Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> But the House victory paled in comparison to the turnover of seats in the House that took place in the first midterms after Clinton and Obama were elected (1994 and 2010), unless you mean that those two midterms were the result of American voters refusing to “normalize” a Clinton or Obama presidency (those two presidents were utterly normal compared to Trump.)
> If the American electorate were truly refusing to normalize Trump, you would have seen a turnover of something like 100 to 200 seats flipped in the House. Something earthshaking. What happened in November 2018 fell entirely within normal parameters.
The popular vote margin was 6 points in '94 and 7 points in '10. Democrats won by 8.5 points in 2018.
Democrats were defending many more seats in '94 and '10 than the Republicans were defending in '18, which is why the turnover was so different.
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2019, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/34 "2019-02-17T12:49:44Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> There was an article - wish I could find it, might have been the Atlantic or something - that pointed out that people crave normalcy. The article basically said that many of Trump’s opponents want there to be a sustained, intense, level of outrage against Trump for the duration of his 4 years in office, but that that level of intensity is only really possible for strong-blue Ds to sustain - that most people can’t keep it up because it is really draining and wearying. It is human nature, even in the worst circumstances, to try to find some sort of normalcy which feels more familiar and comforting and to normalize things.
Exactly. For example, I have one child. He will have been six-to-ten (or, Zeus forbid, six-to-fourteen) years old JUST ONCE. I will have been granted the wonderful opportunity to enjoy his company at that critical age range EXACTLY ONCE.
If I let the Trump/Trumpistas horror show consume me — in destructive (e.g., angry depression) and/or constructive (local political activities, etc.) ways — I will have blown this opportunity. (I do mean “consume me.” Spending SOME time and energy on these things is necessary, and even an important experience for him). I wouldn’t call putting limits around these things “normalcy,” really — more “seeking a personal balance that includes plenty of time truly detached from the whole shitfest.”
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### Author:  [@Monocracy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monocracy)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2019, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/35 "2019-02-17T12:59:38Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> Probably a topic for another thread, but I don’t see it as particularly “precedent-setting”. Obama used emergency declarations so often that they became routine:
>
> [USA Today (2015) - White House: States of emergency are just formalities](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/04/09/pro-forma-states-of-national-emergency/25479553/)
>
> And Obama certainly wasn’t alone in that regard. Past presidents have declared national emergencies rather regularly.
>
> Frankly, I’m not overly-concerned that this is going to open up a can of worms on executive gun control above and beyond the powers that Congress has already delegated (far too many imho). The left-wing “you just wait” warnings seem more than a tad over-the-top to me.
>
> My preference would be that Congress had not delegate so much power to the executive branch. Obama DID do “something similar when the GOP in congress wouldn’t go along with him”. Remember DACA?
Most of the previous national emergencies involved sanctions. (And in my opinion, the government should find a better way to do that.) Some that were significantly different were a couple declared by Bush after 9/11 and one declared by Obama regarding the H1N1 virus.
The Wall is the first national emergency declared that deals with a controversial topic that failed the legislative process. This is why Democrats are saying that it could open a can of worms.
---
### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2019, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/36 "2019-02-17T14:47:16Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#):
>
> Exactly. For example, I have one child. He will have been six-to-ten (or, Zeus forbid, six-to-fourteen) years old JUST ONCE. I will have been granted the wonderful opportunity to enjoy his company at that critical age range EXACTLY ONCE.
>
> If I let the Trump/Trumpistas horror show consume me — in destructive (e.g., angry depression) and/or constructive (local political activities, etc.) ways — I will have blown this opportunity. (I do mean “consume me.” Spending SOME time and energy on these things is necessary, and even an important experience for him). I wouldn’t call putting limits around these things “normalcy,” really — more “seeking a personal balance that includes plenty of time truly detached from the whole shitfest.”
I can see why some might worry that, in the aggregate, too many of us taking too much time away from confronting the horror show will in effect “normalize” it.
But I don’t think so. Decent folks will still elect decent folks to various positions — including the presidency, ASAP — who will behave decently in office. They just will.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2019, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/37 "2019-02-18T02:39:32Z")
If it means that politicians are treating the Trump administration as a normal presidency, yes, Republicans started boarding that train on day one, and some are still trying to jump aboard as it’s pulling away from the station.
If it means people like me are exhausted from being shocked and outraged about norms being transgressed on a daily basis, then yes, it’s been normalized.
If it means we’re far enough into his term that I’m starting to favor electoral defeat over impeachment, just because it’s more decisive and not that far away anymore, then yes, it’s been normalized.
Just like all of the Nazi excesses had become normal in Germany on the eve of the holocaust, many people now treat Trumpism as normal as a matter of practicality and expedience.
It doesn’t mean any of it is normal, of course. Anyone with a passing familiarity with history knows this is all not only quite fucked up, but it’s a well-known pattern of abnormality that tends to precede authoritarian rule. Just because some people want this to be the new normal doesn’t mean that it must be or will be.
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2019, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/38 "2019-02-18T10:43:08Z")
Sure he’s been normalized. Where’s the outrage over [his tweet this weekend](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1097117499336855553) that “THE RIGGED AND CORRUPT MEDIA IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” ? He can say things that, up to a few years ago, would have brought D.C. to a halt until the speaker apologized. Now it’s just another in an ongoing parade of outrages and insanity. Ho hum.
Yeah, I’d call that normalization.
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### Author:  [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2019, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/39 "2019-02-18T11:05:07Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#):
>
> If you were one of the ones advocating that we not normalize President Trump, could you do me the courtesy of explaining what the purpose was?
The idea is to make it clear that what Trump is doing is not normal, and should not be treated as normal. To make sure we keep the bar of decency where it was, rather than accepting this as “the new normal”.
For example, it is not normal for the president to demand a criminal investigation into a family member of a key witness against him in a trial on twitter.
It is not normal for the president to pretend, without evidence, that there was widespread voter fraud in an election he won.
It is not normal for the president to call the press “the enemy of the people”.
It is not normal for the president to engage in what amounts to schoolyard bullying with his political opponents.
It is not normal for the president to shut down the government with his party in control of both houses of congress.
It is not normal for the president to lie literally thousands of time on the public record, often about easily-verifiable facts, for his press team to repeat those lies when called on them, and for the statements of the whitehouse to be utterly untrustworthy both to us as citizens and to our allies across the world.
These are all aberrations in American politics, and treating them as though they’re “normal” is to both undersell the scope of how rotten and corrupt this administration is, and to increase our odds of running into something like it again.
By the way, how do you feel about locking kids in cages, separating them from their families, and then adopting them out and refusing to try to bring the families back together? 🙂 Because that’s another one of those things we need to not be normalizing. We are literally stealing people’s children. For some reason, this isn’t front-page news any more, and not because it’s stopped. It’s because it stopped being “newsworthy”. It became “normalized”. See why this is dangerous?
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> But the House victory paled in comparison to the turnover of seats in the House that took place in the first midterms after Clinton and Obama were elected (1994 and 2010), unless you mean that those two midterms were the result of American voters refusing to “normalize” a Clinton or Obama presidency (those two presidents were utterly normal compared to Trump.)
> If the American electorate were truly refusing to normalize Trump, you would have seen a turnover of something like 100 to 200 seats flipped in the House. Something earthshaking. What happened in November 2018 fell entirely within normal parameters.
If you count the seats, it seems pretty normal.
If you count the _votes_, [it’s absolutely not](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/13/18082490/blue-wave).
The existence of that discrepancy is, in and of itself, pretty fucking disgraceful, all things considered. This election was as clear a repudiation of a republican party as we’ve had in the past 30 years, and they still kept the senate. That’s kinda fucked-up, right?
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### Author:  [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2019, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-trump-presidency-become-normalized/829609/40 "2019-02-18T12:21:45Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#):
>
> Exactly. For example, I have one child. He will have been six-to-ten (or, Zeus forbid, six-to-fourteen) years old JUST ONCE. I will have been granted the wonderful opportunity to enjoy his company at that critical age range EXACTLY ONCE.
>
> If I let the Trump/Trumpistas horror show consume me — in destructive (e.g., angry depression) and/or constructive (local political activities, etc.) ways — I will have blown this opportunity. (I do mean “consume me.” Spending SOME time and energy on these things is necessary, and even an important experience for him). I wouldn’t call putting limits around these things “normalcy,” really — more “seeking a personal balance that includes plenty of time truly detached from the whole shitfest.”
And that is how democracy can be transformed into something other than democracy, whatever we want to call it.
Let me be clear: I’m not attacking or blaming you, because what you’ve described is the approach to life that any good parent and good citizen would take. At the end of the day, what goes on in our lives ultimately wins out over the behavior of political figures who, despite having very real power to influence our lives in noticeable ways, are still hundreds or even thousands of miles removed from us.
But that’s how authoritarian leaders are able to disrupt, wear down, and eventually break not only political norms but also social and cultural norms. There’s a climate of meanness that has to pervade in order for someone like Trump to succeed politically. Authoritarians necessarily play a zero-sum game, because they are not in the business of cooperating with anyone; it’s pure, cut-throat competition all the time, and competing means ultimately driving people into corners so that enemies become easier to identify and eliminate.
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