Normalcy! I can see wanting to resonate with Reagan and JFK — so presidential! — but Warren G. Harding? Here you have one of the famously bad Presidents, and the word is absolutely associated with Harding.
Harding said: "America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration."
From the "Back to Normalcy" chapter of the 1931 classic "Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s":
[Harding's] liabilities were not at first so apparent, yet they were disastrously real. Beyond the limited scope of his political experience he was “almost unbelievably ill-informed,” as William Allen White put it. His mind was vague and fuzzy. Its quality was revealed in the clogged style of his public addresses, in his choice of turgid and maladroit language (“non-involvement” in European affairs, “adhesion” to a treaty), and in his frequent attacks of suffix trouble (“normalcy” for normality, “betrothment” for betrothal). It was revealed even more clearly in his helplessness when confronted by questions of policy to which mere good nature could not find the answer. White tells of Harding’s coming into the office of one of his secretaries after a day of listening to his advisers wrangling over a tax problem, and crying out: “John, I can’t make a damn thing out of this tax problem. I listen to one side and they seem right, and then—God!—I talk to the other side and they seem just as right, and here I am where I started. I know somewhere there is a book that will give me the truth, but, hell, I couldn’t read the book. I know somewhere there is an economist who knows the truth, but I don’t know where to find him and haven’t the sense to know him and trust him when I find him. God! what a job!” His inability to discover for himself the essential facts of a problem and to think it through made him utterly dependent upon subordinates and friends whose mental processes were sharper than his own.
In the transcript, DeSantis only said "normalcy" once — and never "normality." He also said "normal" twice:
If there’s no accountability over any individual or entity of course they’re going to behave differently than if you have normal accountability....
My grandfather worked in the steel mill in western Pennsylvania. I just know instinctively what normal people think about all this stuff. I have a good sense of when the legacy media and the left are outside of where the average American is....
I myself am hungry for normality, but I don't trust people who keep saying "normal." I always think of Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty in "Lolita" — "It's great to see a normal face, 'cause I'm a normal guy. Be great for two normal guys to get together and talk about world events, in a normal way...."
For a longer version of that quote, read my post from June 2010, "Barack spent so much time by himself that it was like he was raised by wolves." The post title is a quote from Michelle Obama. There was also this quote from Maureen Dowd:
Of the many exciting things about Barack Obama’s election, one was the anticipation of a bracing dose of normality in the White House.
That was back when the abnormality was George W. Bush. The idea of a President as weird as Donald Trump was nowhere in sight. It's hard even to remember what was supposedly so un-normal about Bush. Remember when his brother Jeb stood on the debate stage next to Trump and pathetically relied on the assumption that we'd have to pick him over that unacceptably weird guy Trump? It didn't work, though it worked when Joe Biden stood on the debate stage next to Trump and argued, essentially, you'll have to take me over Trump because I'm the only thing here that approaches normality? That did work though.
Are we just alternating between weird and normal — perceptions of weird and normal? If so, then 2024 is Trump's turn again.
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102 comments:
The NeverTrump “right” has been using normalcy routinely since Trump beat everyone in the 2016 primary. You may associate the term with Harding. They associate the term to candidates picked by the party leaders and not the voters.
Honestly, I associate that word with Althouse.
That the often expressed ideal at this blog is for normalcy. In politicans anyway. Or is it dull? Althouse wants dull politicians. Normal and dull, something like that.
Yes, Harding was a dope and all but it sounds like he was honest enough to reveal how overwhelmed anyone would be for the job of Decider.
You just have to keep up the act better than that.
It is said that morality cannot be legislated (I agree), and I suspect that normality also cannot be legislated.
The abnormals have 2 options:
1. Get normal (or at least act normal).
2. Drag Western Civilization down until its inevitable fiery death.
I wish Gov Desantis the best in his futile quest. He will have my vote.
One of the NE Jacobins, Sen Megan Hunt, was on the Molly Jong-Fast podcast this week. She claimed the Dems in NE are going to gain seats by running “fucking normal” people. My response? Yeah, normal like the screaming Sen. M. Cavanaugh.
It all depends upon what the definition of normal is.
In another of your threads this morning, I called it "Return of the Normals". I like it much better than "Back to Normalcy." I doubt if we're ever going to see normalcy again in our lifetimes. But I'd be very happy simply with normals in charge again, maintaining some balance amid the daily, unending onslaughts on every aspect of our lives by the crazies.
10,000 people in the room.
Speaker says "normalcy".
Speaker: Show of hands, how many of you immediately thought of warren G. Harding?
Speaker counting.
Speaker: Ummmm. Let's see. That's one. Is that you Ann?
The scientific notion of 'normal' and 'norms' follows statistics and bell curves. Every President before Trump stayed within 1 standard deviation of the mean (average) for public political behavior. Trump fell on an extreme...perhaps 2 standard deviations from average...per his ignorance and flouting of establishment standards. He hadn't been invited to DC's annual Eyes Wide Shut orgies and Epstein/Weinstein/Clinton/Gates didn't tell him he should avoid arriving in a taxi.
https://www.subjectcoach.com/imagecdn/s/standardnormaldistribution.jpg
Puppet Biden was fabricated and pushed on the public as a mirror-image "rule breaker" per the establishment's misreading of Trump and misreading of his appeal. The establishment attempted to trip and punch Trump when he proved to faster in a footrace. So, Biden is equally abnormal and tries too hard be a mirror image even when Trump was plainly correct.
Ways out of our predicament: (1) Biden and/or Trump dies. This would end the era and allow everyone to rethink the situation. (2) Someone from the "normal middle" outcompetes both Trump and the puppet. (3) The center left break away and stop supporting tit-for-tat childishness, as the left holds near-total control over universities and bureaucracies. They therefore must be the prime movers.
May you live in interesting times.
Normalcy is more general than normality. Normality has something in mind.
You might want to rethink that view of Warren G. Harding as a mediocre failure that you (and I, for that matter) were fed in high-school history class: https://spectator.org/13191_defending-warren-g-harding/
What is the point that professora can connect word X with president Y?
Strange mental framework!!
Is this wonking or working at life
Ever-Trumpers should listen to the Trey Gowdy interview.
DeSantis speaks to fixing stuff Trump failed to do.
Not nostrums but normalcy.
No nattering nabobs of negativity.
Here's how this works: If you are a GOP candidate or president, the leftist establishment treats you as some combination of sinister and imbecilic. For evidence, they often point to just this kind of stuff, i.e., the Republican's misuse or mispronunciation of certain words, etc. It supposedly shows that he is not normal, not to be trusted.
OTOH, if you're a leftist, you can engage in practically any kind of extreme behavior (e.g., have sex with interns, wear blackface, operate a pay-to-play scheme from the West Wing), or advocate practically any kind of economy- or society-wrecking policy (e.g., defund the police, quarantining healthy people in their homes, open borders) and the establishment will dismiss those things as perfectly normal.
[Harding's] inability to discover for himself the essential facts of a problem and to think it through made him utterly dependent upon subordinates and friends whose mental processes were sharper than his own.
I think W and Obama were both the same way. I remember a number of articles we were offered, at a time when Obama seemed to be struggling, telling us that the job of President had become too much for one man and that America needed to elect 2 co-Presidents to share the load.
The press wasn't so generous to W, portraying him as borderline retarded.
Trump, of course, had a lot of personnel problems, often putting his faith in unreliable and even treacherous advisors.
And Biden? Fuhgeddaboudit.
However, I don't think DeSantis is comparable to Harding. DeSantis seems on the nerdy side and seems to grasp policy very well. He has also been pretty good at choosing his team so far. He is relatively inexperienced politically, but that's not a bug, it's a feature. I mean, compare and contrast with Biden for example. Yeesh.
I listened to much of DeSantis' announcement speech yesterday. It was pretty boring. I remember thinking, Althouse might like this, right before I nodded off.
I don't associate it with Harding (like Sally, when I saw it, I thought of Althouse). The full statement, "America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration," may have been coined by a bad president, but it captures what many want today. It's perfect for our moment.
Look at me. I'm normal, see?
JAORE said...
"10,000 people in the room.
Speaker says "normalcy".
Speaker: Show of hands, how many of you immediately thought of warren G. Harding?
Speaker counting.
Speaker: Ummmm. Let's see. That's one. Is that you Ann?"
Hey, my hand was up, too!
Hey Ann, I’m betting one in a hundred voters associate the word “normalcy” with Warren Harding. Make that one in a thousand. Only one in a hundred even know who Warren G. Harding was. Not a DeSatoid here but the real problem with the word “normalcy” is the word “normalcy.” What a mouthmusher.
How do you get back to normalcy when you won't address election fraud and just want to move on, so you can cave to Progressives again?? THAT is normalcy.
the establishment knew exactly what trump was about, this is why they conspired with the tech sector and the intel community to put this eldritch mannikin in office,
I suspect that it is a very small percentage of the population that a. knows who Warren Harding was, b. associates him with the term "normalcy,' and c. thus draws a negative association with DeSantis's use of the term. "America First" was a slogan of more recent vintage that came into disfavor after America entered WWII. Its use in Trump's campaign against Hillary Clinton didn't seem to hurt Trump, although I do recall one or two columnists commenting on it. Easiest to smear your opponent by calling him a "fascist" or a "racist"--railing against his use of "normalcy" may work with a small percentage of the population, one likely to be hostile to DeSantis in the first place.
That long quote from Harding, if you rephrase it in academic language, it is standard political science: Presidents don't understand the details of most everything they have to decide on. They rely on people they trust who supposedly do understand. Finding people to trust is perhaps the most important part of the job (Trump was not very good at this). This is especially important because people on different sides of an issue may all make convincing cases. They almost always know more of the details than you do.
I find the quote more sophisticated and self-aware than the things most politicians say.
There is actually a certain amount of revisionism about Harding, that a large part of his bad historical press is politics. Imagine if the people at Instapundit wrote the history of Joe Biden.
"Normal" defines a specific type of distribution of a population, from one extreme to another, and deviation from the norm is identical and regular on both sides of the center of the distribution.
There are other distributions of populations that are more heavily weighted on one side or the other, irregular in distribution
We do not live in a population normally distributed about a mean, and haven't for a long time.
Trump moved Overton Windows and got inside opposition OODA Loops. He recognized that he wasn't dealing with a Bell curve of political opinion in the US. Here's hoping the next Republicans running see the opposition for what it is, extremely abnormal.
"Here you have one of the famously bad President"
Peace, low taxes, limited government, beginning of roaring twenties, and oh yeah, he said this in Alabama: "Whether you like it or not, unless our democracy is a lie, you must stand for that equality." To what extent are presidential reputations based on prog gaslighting of previous eras?
"the word is absolutely associated with Harding"
But used today, it's a dog whistle for us normies. We hear it loud and clear.
"His mind was vague and fuzzy. Its quality was revealed in the clogged style of his public addresses, in his choice of turgid and maladroit language (“non-involvement” in European affairs, “adhesion” to a treaty)"
Hey, historians, now do Joe.
"I myself am hungry for normality"
I appreciate that (no snark). But what do you mean exactly? For example, what are "normal" deficits and debt, numbers of illegals, judicial appointments, sexual standards and abortion limits, defense expenditures, China and Ukraine policies, etc.?
"It's hard even to remember what was supposedly so un-normal about Bush."
Correct. Cuz for practical purposes normal is defined by the MSM and prog PTB.
Here's a possibility:
"In the United States (U.S.), either word (normality or normalcy) is acceptable. People usually choose the term that flows best in the overall statement."
https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/vs/normalcy-vs-normality-whats-typically-correct
Does DeSantis use both "normalcy" and "normality" and his usage depends on contextual flow?
Most of us know too much history to be of any use in determining how the public will respond to the term "normalcy."
What about the time Harding won? In 1920, we'd just gone through the war to end all wars, a flu pandemic, the Palmer Raids, and eight years of Woodrow Wilson, a president unable to perform the duties of office due to infirmity when he left the White House.
Hmmm. Normalcy. Why would that sound like something you'd want in 1920? How about now?
I recently listened to this book. Here's what Amity Shlaes blurbed for it:
"Presidents are ranked wrong. In The Jazz Age President: Defending Warren G. Harding, Ryan Walters mounts a case that Harding deserves to move up—and supplies the evidence to make that case strong. -Amity Shlaes, bestselling author of Coolidge
Leftist historians smear non-leftists is the lesson I keep receiving.
"Are we just alternating between weird and normal?... If so, then 2024 is Trump's turn again."
True, if you define normal as an 80 year-old, mendacious, demented, serial liar pushing a fascist agenda. Sometimes you write such claptrap that it detracts from the lucid insights you often have. Frankly, I liked the pretend "cruel neutrality" BS better, even if it is completely bogus.
Such an old word! One we haven't heard from in so long.
One that I've heard every few months for the last couple of decades.
Harding?? Really?
It has become a commonplace word.
I'd be worried if he'd said "competence." That didn't work out too well for Dukakis.
think Just HOW BAD things were, in the 1920's!
Why, they were Nearly as bad as it was during the Trump era!!
Which is NEARLY as bad, as the 1980's with (WORSE THAN HITLER!) Ronald Reagan
We can ALL Agree! That NO ONE wants to live in a country that is not at war
We can ALL Agree! That NO ONE wants to live in a country that is full of jobs
We can ALL Agree! That NO ONE wants to live in a country with a successful economy
we ALL WANT to live in poverty, with ALL our money going to fight a senseless war in europe
BRING BACK WILSON!!!
BRING BACK CARTER!!!
BRIAN BACK BIDEN!!!! (because he's wandered off somewhere.. I think he was looking for ice cream)
Language evolves. Normality has been replaced by the better-sounding word, normalcy. Grammar Nazis might scoff, but that's OK. They're Grammar Nazis and suffer from undiagnosed abnormalcies.
Labor leader Samuel Gompers asserted that the word “normalcy” was “obsolete,” like “the condition to which” Harding “would return.”... Well, Harding certainly hadn’t made up “normalcy” — the word had been knocking around the English language for a few decades by then, at least
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/03/post-pandemic-normalcy-normality/
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Normalcy%22
Look at all the results for normalcy and Joe Biden:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Normalcy%22+joe+biden
All the many stories about how Joe Biden promised a return to normalcy.
@JAORE -- Anyone knowledgeable in American history associates the term "normalcy" with Harding. But you may nonetheless be correct given the current state of national ignorance about our own history.
And FWIW true historians know that Harding was a much more effective president and better man than generally appreciated.
I like the Twitter launch. It is audacious and Twitter is where so many Americans, especially young Americans, participate in politics. Close to 700,000 listeners tuned in and then 50,000 more were added per minute before the servers crashed. This is tremendous. Unfortunately, the interview "failed to launch." But this is what real people in the real world deal with it everyday. This "failure to launch" humanizes Desantis more so than his relentless beat down of the gays and trans. Big win!!!
But I think more importantly, Desantis needs to convince himself that he is an insurgent, from a humble background, who is challenging a powerful incumbent. Because he is. If Desantis keeps listening to Jeb Bush's trash political consultants, Trump is going to smash him.
Speaking of normal, Trump is the only president who can speak normal English. Everyone else speaks in speechwriter English, which brings in various "elevations" of the language, which people are supposed to think are the mark a leader, but generally sound fake.
It all depends upon what the definition of normal is.
Liberal is divergent. Progressive is monotonic. Conservative is moderating. Principles matter.
A fetus is a baby socially distanced as a technical term of art and other purposes.
The scientific notion of 'normal' and 'norms' follows statistics and bell curves.
That, and, perhaps, an intrinsic character (e.g. "moral").
"the word is absolutely associated with Harding"... Lol, nobody, but nobody thinks that. Nobody ever thinks of Harding, period. The few who even recognize the name think of TeaPot Dome. On the other hand, that's a hilarious line about a word being "absolutely associated with" a person nobody remembers or thinks about.
That was back when the abnormality was George W. Bush. The idea of a President as weird as Donald Trump was nowhere in sight. It's hard even to remember what was supposedly so un-normal about Bush.
The only thing not Normal about Trump, he is not a politician. He does not filter every hand gesture, and word placement, through the lense of re-election. He is not a politician, and acts normal within his circle of movement.
It has always been, who ever is the Republican is evil incarnate. Hitler or Charles Manson, or Dylan Mulvany. Who ever the current definition of evil is.
Trumps a racist...except for those awards handed to him by the likes of Al Sharpton. Except, for a man living a very public life for 5 decades, there were zero examples of racism.
The question I would like to see from DeSantis is how is he going to handle the woman he raped in college coming forward? For God sake, we are supposed to replace Trump with a rapist? And What about DeSantis being so cozy with Iran, and all the perks Iran has bestowed on DeSantis. Whistle blower from the IC has said the information is being suppressed.
Biden was supposed to be the 'back to normal' guy.
That's how he was sold.
And look how that turned out...
Allegedly or reputedly bad. Not accepting famously.
I don't think Harding did much damage to the fabric of the republic, but he has been a convenient punch line for the progressives who have performed hagiography on those who have.
Wilson, FDR, Obama, LBJ. I don't know if they will attempt the canonization of the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but to lump an innocuous non entity like Harding in with those who, in my view, actively worked to undermine, transform, and distort this first and probably last experiment in exalting the common man is to parrot an a facile, unreflective and conventionally reflexive assessment. Give me Harding and his successor as a substitute for all of the presidencies I listed above.
I remember reading Only Yesterday in nigh school history class — it had to be 60 years ago. I recall reading that he was chosen —and elected! — at least in part because with his white hair and distinguished looks he just looked the way people imagined a President of the United States should look. When you read what White wrote:
His mind was vague and fuzzy. Its quality was revealed in the clogged style of his public addresses, in his choice of turgid and maladroit language (“non-involvement” in European affairs, “adhesion” to a treaty), and in his frequent attacks of suffix trouble (“normalcy” for normality, “betrothment” for betrothal). It was revealed even more clearly in his helplessness when confronted by questions of policy to which mere good nature could not find the answer.
Doesn’t that sound like Joe Biden? Except for the “good nature,” because Joe Biden is a malevolent toad. Also, as I recall it, the consensus of historians was that Harding wasn’t personally corrupt, though his administration was one of the most corrupt in history. The evidence of our eyes is that Joe Biden is personally corrupt, one of the most corrupt individuals ever to campaign for the Presidency.
>"Normalcy!...Here you have one of the famously bad Presidents, and the word is absolutely associated with Harding."<
Yeah, uh, no. No one in today's electorate, other than a smattering of aging history majors, is going to think of Harding when they hear "normalcy" in DeSantis' speech. The relatively few voters who even remember who Harding was will know next to nothing about him. I'm pretty sure that Ron is going to be OK on that one.
I need to go research this, but didn’t Joe Biden himself use the word “normalcy” during his 2020 campaign and in one of his State of the Union addresses?
"The NeverTrump “right” has been using normalcy routinely since...."
"Honestly, I associate that word with Althouse. That the often expressed ideal at this blog is for normalcy."
Please distinguish the idea of normality from the word "normalcy," which people have objected to as a nonword since the days of Warren G. Harding.
I talk about normality — click on the tag "normal" which is on this port — but I would never use the word "normalcy"! The 2 things can go together, but it's a distinct thing to use that crazy word. Ironically, it's not normal!
Anyway, I'm also making something out of the invocation of "normality" that isn't necessarily normal. It's like claiming to be for "the good." Saying it doesn't make it so, and people, like Claire Quilty, who talk a lot about how normal they are can be up to no good.
Ann Althouse said...Please distinguish the idea of normality from the word "normalcy," which people have objected to as a nonword since the days of Warren G. Harding.
"Normalcy" is a perfectly cromulent word.
Another important concept in the area of normality is "normalizing." Lots of funny stuff can be called "normalizing" and accusing someone of "normalizing" something traditionally thought bad can feel like an effective argument. There's also the way some people promote things by saying "Let's normalize [whatever thing the think is inappropriately disapproved of]."
There's also the word "normie" — used to put down people who are supposedly normal.
No one over 70 should run for president.
"Lovely Hillary" - Trump 2023.
The women who paid for the Russian Collusion lie - its now "Lovely".
Got it.
I like the word Normalcy in this context. Normalcy is like democracy, "rule by normal people".
Normality is the word that sounds stranger to me.
How many voters even know who Harding is? For Desantis, this is a good criticism for his opponents to focus on as almost everyone will just ignore it.
"Show of hands, how many of you immediately thought of warren G. Harding?"
Yeah, people have almost no cultural literacy. I had to read "Only Yesterday" to get through high school history class. That was only yesterday to me.
I'm sure you can also say the audience was full of people who don't associate "well..." with Ronald Reagan or have any idea of the word "vigor" in connection with JFK.
But these are the people who vote, and for them Ron DeSantis invokes traditional values. What the hell could that even mean to them? Probably little more than a man is a man and a woman is a woman, keep the married couple together, and take care of children, including not aborting them. Anything else still showing through from the junkpile of history?
I have adopted Kurt Schlicter's term of "normals" to refer to those of us who want the culture to be largely in the center of the "crazy vs Normal" bell curve.
Harding, by the way, was a good president who reversed most of Wilson's Fascist authoritarianism. He was badly let down by his appointments, like Trump, but his policies reversed the 1920 depression that followed the Armistice. The "Progressives" wanted the party to go on and have altered history to conceal the great prosperity of the 1920s, which resembled the 1990s with new inventions and technologies. The 1929 crash resembled the 2000 recession but the policies of Hoover and Roosevelt, which were similar, made things much worse. The debt crisis in Europe made 1929 worse but there was no Harding or Coolidge to save the economy as in 1920.
Oh, fuck's sake- only an autistic would think DeSantis had Warren G. Harding in mind when he used that word (assuming he wrote his own spoken words). Only 0.00001% of the people who saw the announcement or read the transcript would have thought of Harding.
Additionally, I don't think "normie" has that connotation in the comment at 9:44, at least it doesn't on the Right- perhaps Leftists use it that way. On the Right, the word is used to describe normal people, those who do not support "gender affirming care" or "Drag Queen Story Hour" in the local kindergartens. The only pejorative part of it on the Right is that the writers are sometimes flustered by normies' passivity, but they know the Republican Party needs them to show up to vote, so they are not insulting them.
Please don't combine me with another, as I don't associate the word with Althouse and was specific to whom I did associate the word. However, if you talk about "normality", then you may want to have a word with the American Heritage Dictionary.
I agree with that last paragraph at 9:40am.
I also don't like "the new normal". We were told for two years that we were getting a new normal, and that was certainly rejected nearly the world over.
We could have normalcy at any time.
The fascists (a/k/a demmies, progs et al) won't let us have it for the past 20+years
John Henry
-Open southern border with gangs and drugs and human trafficking - NOT NORMAL
-High inflation, out of control government waste and spending - NOT NORMAL
-Pro-Noun police - NOT NORMAL
-Sexualizing young children in Government Union Schools - NOT NORMAL
-Biden family criminal money laundering for personal profit - NOT NORMAL
-FBI creating false flag operations to aid their BS narratives pushed by the hack press and Biden himself - NOT NORMAL
-Leftwing radical extremist democrats protected by a corrupt out-of control FBI - NOT NORMAL
-FBI in concert with big corporate banks spying on Americans - NOT NORMAL.
-Leftist redials in power Purposefully seeding dangerous race-hate relations (for power) - NOT NORMAL
the list goes on...
It’s interesting how so many commenters here have glommed onto the non-word “normalcy”, even after Althouse pointing out it’s not considered a proper word. Is it because DeSantis used it and they are going to adopt his mode of speaking, or are they using “normalcy” to poke at Althouse, or they really like abnormal speech, while considering themselves “normies”.
All this talk of “normalcy, normies and anti woke” just strikes me as dumb right wing sloganry, ooops I don’t think that a real word either. Sloganizing? Sloganeering?
"I'm sure you can also say the audience was full of people who don't associate "well..." with Ronald Reagan or have any idea of the word "vigor" in connection with JFK."
Yeah- it was almost completely full of such people- like 99.99%. I did notice the "Well,..." and did immediately think of Reagan, but I am "not" typical in way whatsoever- I am an extreme outlier when it comes to political speeches. I imagine you are the same, Althouse.
DeSantis was not trying to make people think of those past Presidents in that choice of words. They were used intentionally, if they were, to remind the voters of our present-day abnormalities, of which there are many dangerous ones.
@Althouse Yeah, people have almost no cultural literacy.
Nor do they have a nuanced understanding of normal, norms, normie, normality, normalcy, and norm*****. However, they are familiar with Norman (Psycho) and Norm (Cheers). Grammar and etymology posts always have a narrow techie audience.
But these are the people who vote, and for them Ron DeSantis invokes traditional values. What the hell could that even mean to them? Probably little more than a man is a man and a woman is a woman, keep the married couple together, and take care of children, including not aborting them. Anything else still showing through from the junkpile of history?
The US and any country has 'reservoirs of tradition' everywhere. There are people living with Victorian values, Protestant Christian values, Great Depression values, WWII values, Hippie values, Global New World Order values, and more.
Few of the make the news, as they live their daily lives out of the media and political cultures. The key is whether they are "mostly happy" or "mostly unhappy" with the system as it stands.
“There's also the word "normie" — used to put down people who are supposedly normal.”
But is it a put down when used by the right wing to describe themselves?
‘Is normie an insult?
Normie is a slang for a “normal person,” especially someone seen to have conventional, mainstream tastes, interests, viewpoints, etc. It is intended as an insult but often used ironically. Normie is also sometimes used by specific in-groups to refer and distinguish themselves from specific out-groups.Jan 13, 2021”
Dictionary.com
'Harding said: "America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration."'
That's not bad. Although what is normal by now? Fruity, fat and/or ignorant is a good bet.
If anybody wants to know why I classify Ann Althouse as not bring a winnable voter, they just need to read her comment at 9:50.
Maybe it is time to split off "normalcy" from "normality".
As knowledge of statistics and chemistry becomes more common, "normality" is sounding more and more technical because of increased knowledge of the normal distribution and normality of solutions. (See https://www.dictionary.com/browse/normality.) "Normality" also sounds very precise and sciency and is rather difficult to pronounce precisely.
So we need an easier-to-pronounce version of "normality" which doesn't sound so technical, hence the rise of "normalcy". Its meaning is clear, so no problems there.
A Harding precedent Joe Biden may have to consider:
"Harding also acted to free the political prisoners incarcerated by the Wilson administration, thus putting an end to what was called by historians the First Red Scare. On the day before Christmas in 1921, he freed from prison the Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs, who had run for president the year before, inviting Debs to come to the White House before returning home, where he would be welcomed to celebrate his freedom on Christmas Eve with his wife. On the 26th, Debs was received by Harding in his White House office.
"Harding had always believed, as he put it in letters written in August of 1921, that “we cannot punish men in America for the exercise of their freedom in political and religious belief.” He had no sympathy with the socialist ideology of Gene Debs, he told Ben Myers, a citizen who wrote to him demanding clemency for Debs and other radicals, “but I recognize his right to his belief and I think him wholly sincere.
"Writing a few years later to his close friend Malcolm Jennings, Harding revealed that not only did his attorney general, Harry M. Daugherty, oppose clemency for Debs, so did his wife. But Harding recognized that he stood to gain nothing by making Debs a martyr, and furthermore he felt freeing the dissident “was the right thing to do.” Debs, Harding wrote, had been “a presidential nominee” who received 900,000 votes. Harding found him to be “a lovable character” and noted that he had “heard men in Congress say things worse than the utterances upon which he was convicted,” while “the men in Congress, of course, went scot free.”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/07/warren-harding-letters-could-they-spark-a-revisionist-view-of-the-much-maligned-president.html
News for today:
December 23, 1921. Harding pardons Eugene Debs along with twenty-three others found guilty under the wartime Espionage Act.
Big Mike: "I need to go research this, but didn’t Joe Biden himself use the word “normalcy” during his 2020 campaign and in one of his State of the Union addresses?"
Yes. A return to "normalcy" and protection of our sacred "norms" was front and center of the Biden 2020 campaign.
Hardly surprising DeSantis' GOPe handlers would latch onto that for a primary race against Trump.
Now this is where a dumb, shallow buffoon, like Flip-side Inga (Hunter's Hooker) would say DeSantis said something the dems have said! DeSantis is just like the dems! He IS a dem! OMG eleventy!11!!!11!1!
Obviously, he is not.
But remember, these are GOPe handlers massaging everything DeSantis is saying (see the Ukraine statement walk back and DeSantis' lame immigration response in the Q&A session last night) and those GOPe-ers only care about getting back a % of the educated (credentialled-only really) white suburban pro-choice democratical-adjacent women in order to have an orderly return of things back to the 2004 model...which doesn't exist anymore. But whatever, its a very lucrative political consulting gig and the consultants are going to clean up on the DeSantis campaign regardless of results.
Bigly.
DC_Draino
@DC_Draino
To the former Trump supporters who now believe he can’t win a general election
Congrats - the Deep State propaganda worked on you
When they rigged 2020 and arrested thousands of J6ers, they not only seized power but they wanted to intimidate & deflate the MAGA movement
“Pipe down you stupid peasants - we’re in charge here”
When they investigate, impeach, and indict him, they are trying to make you so exhausted with “scandals” in the media that you give up & move on
Even though he got more votes than any other GOP candidate in US history, they want you to believe he’s ‘unelectable’
But you must realize the Deep State cartel cannot be defeated by going around it
The only way out is *through*
We have to fight this machine head on with President Trump if we want to defeat it for good
Understand that they are trying to psychologically break you with scandals and rigged elections
And it’s sadly worked on many
But with enough perseverance and momentum we can ram through their gates, overwhelm the fraud in 2024, and finally dismantle this criminal
Cartel that’s been illegitimately ruling robbing us for decades
If we don’t, we will never have another free & fair election nor a President that truly works for We the People in our lifetimes
Strap in & Fight on🇺🇸
10:38 AM · May 25, 2023
Ann, did you sit at your keyboard this morning and ask yourself 'what position can I take this morning that will give me a 100% ratio from my readers'?
Ann, did you sit at your keyboard this morning and ask yourself 'what position can I take this morning that will give me a 100% ratio from my readers'?
Some kind words for Warren G. Harding: He was accused of being a womanizer, but he wasn't in the same league as FDR, LBJ, JFK, and Bill Clinton. Not exactly chaste but one would more accurately describe his behavior as being unfaithful rather than as that of a slavering horn dog....So far as the Teapot Dome Scandal goes, there was another financial scandal immediately before that. When the USA went to war with Germany, the lucrative German patents became null and void. Those patents were auctioned off but not to the highest bidders but rather to those bidders most esteemed by the Democratic Party establishment. This scandal exceeded the monetary value of the Teapot Dome Scandal by several orders of magnitude. My guess is that many readers here have never heard of this scandal.....The President before the "famously bad" Harding was the infamously bad Wilson. Wilson has fallen afoul of the current Dem hive mind, but they mostly criticize him for his civil rights record. They ignore most of his other failings: He screwed up the Versailles Peace Conference. He had some help there, but a more forceful man could have done better. He re-organized the map of Europe while undergoing mental changes associated with incipient strokes. After he was incapacitated by a major stroke, he took to bed and let his wife run the country. His response to the Flu Epidemic directly caused many unnecessary deaths. There were lots and lots of things he messed up that we are only now becoming aware of.....Wilson wrote a lot of books and was a college president. He had the kind of intelligence that impressed people like William Allen White. Such White people lack the imagination to appreciate the good qualities of people like Harding. They equate normalcy with mediodcrity.
Sally327 said...
"Honestly, I associate that word with Althouse."
Great. Now I associate "normalcy" with men in shorts.
"Normalcy" as defined by whom???
Discord, dissent (often violent), extremes of opposing views, ideas and behavior condemned as beyond the pale, "evil," etc. (as defined by each person or cohort of like-minded people according to their particular perspectives), social and civil turmoil, etc. is normalcy.
Politicians and pedagogues using the term are saying without saying that they will impose a restricted, censorious and narrow way of "acceptable" (and legally permitted) thinking and behaving on the masses, or will try to do so. DiSantis has already started.
In short, it means: "Things will go as we* want them, and only as we want them."
In shorter short: "Normalcy" means "Suppression."
*(The particular pedagogue or oppressive government in a given situation.)
Negativity has a bad rap. We need more negativity, not less. But American politics demands a positive message. So RD is stuck with the idealization of the normal, rather than his real message, which is the whole hearted, full throated attempt to rid us of the currently regnant and mandatory weirdness in all its forms.
I will own up to it: I am a reactionary. If you don't see reaction as the most productive avenue of political progress right now, you aren't paying enough attention.
Barack Obama used the word "normalcy" at least once. I commented on it on FB and was told by a (D) friend that normalcy was more common than normality and only a pedant would care.
Never Back Down???
You're trying too hard, Ann.
Sometimes words are just words.
Trump is abnormal; Biden is more than abnormal—he’s perverse.
So, I see the appeal to normalcy.
Oh Malarkey! Not everything is attached to something a former President said.
I don't think normie is an insult except to people like the girl in the Fantasticks. I suspect the don't let me be normal virus is precursor to the woke mind virus.
If anybody wants to know why I classify Ann Althouse as not bring a winnable voter, they just need to read her comment at 9:50.
She certainly does seem to remember the most obscure tidbits of history that she believes makes Republicans look bad and brings them up routinely. Sure "normalcy" is a nonsense word, but this is the post-Obama era in which new nonwords are added, or common words with new nonsense definitions, to the Oxford dictionary on almost daily basis. That's why it wasn't difficult to look up the "definition" of the nonword "normalcy" and see it defined somewhere to mean exactly what she says it doesn't mean. One could blame academic institutions, except we know who the academic is here and who runs the academies today. But look, see, some Republican did this 100 years ago. For certain most of the voters that remember it vote by mail, are dead, and vote Democrat.
Although Harding may have popularized it, the use of "normalcy" can be traced back to before he was born. It appears that its alleged non-standard status was just something claimed by Harding's political opponents to question his intelligence.
It's a perfectly good word that's generally used to refer to a general state of affairs, whereas "normality" is used with respect to a specific reference point such as "normal" behavior for a specific type of person.
In shorter short: "Normalcy" means "Suppression."
Cook in his old Bolshevik stance.
Mark said...
Look at all the results for normalcy and Joe Biden:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Normalcy%22+joe+biden
All the many stories about how Joe Biden promised a return to normalcy.
5/25/23, 9:02 AM
Mark seems to have rendered this entire post and thread moot, unnecessary and incorrect. Clearly as far as the modern American media is concerned, "normalcy" is a perfectly legitimate and commonly understood term, particularly in the context of politics, meaning precisely what Disantis meant when he used it.
How hard would it be, Prof, to just say: "Well*, I guess I got out a little over my skiis there. Turns out that "normalcy" is widely and commonly used in the context that Disantis used it"? Apparently way too hard. Disantis has to be wrong and probably a weirdo and Harding cultist. And just ignore the evidence provided to the contrary.
*heh. That just slipped in there somehow.
Holy SHIT! you Want Normalcy?
How about considering that bodies of water.. have to be bodies of water, not pastures???
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-delivers-blow-key-biden-environmental-policy-unanimous-ruling
The high court's unanimous 9-0 decision, which was delivered by Justice Samuel Alito, rejected the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) broad definition of Waters of the United States (WOTUS). The case centered on Michael and Chantell Sackett, two Idaho residents whom the EPA prohibited from building a home near a wetland years ago, citing the Clean Water Act (CWA) of 1972.
"The EPA classified the wetlands on the Sacketts’ lot as 'waters of the United States' because they were near a ditch that fed into a creek, which fed into Priest Lake, a navigable, intrastate lake.
The Sacketts sued, alleging that their property was not 'waters of the United States.'"
The ruling ultimately held that the federal government's WOTUS definition must be restricted to a water source with a "continuous surface connection" to major bodies of water.
THIS is the new "normalcy"...
"FBI Official Admits She Hasn’t Read Durham Report, Leaves GOP Lawmakers ‘Speechless’"
Yet NOTHING will be done about the corrupt FBI or any other corruption. They will just kick the can down the road...as usual.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/05/top-fbi-official-admits-she-never-read-durham/
Mark said...
Look at all the results for normalcy and Joe Biden:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Normalcy%22+joe+biden
All the many stories about how Joe Biden promised a return to normalcy.
5/25/23, 9:02 AM
Mark seems to have rendered this entire post and thread moot, unnecessary and incorrect. Clearly as far as the modern American media is concerned, "normalcy" is a perfectly legitimate and commonly understood term, particularly in the context of politics, meaning precisely what Disantis meant when he used it.
How hard would it be, Prof, to just say: "Well*, I guess I got out a little over my skiis there. Turns out that "normalcy" is widely and commonly used in the context that Disantis used it"? Apparently way too hard. Disantis has to be wrong and probably a weirdo and Harding cultist. And just ignore the evidence provided to the contrary.
*heh. That just slipped in there somehow.
Harding did hit on a theme that people were tired of all the agitation and tensions.
But these are the people who vote, and for them Ron DeSantis invokes traditional values. What the hell could that even mean to them? Probably little more than a man is a man and a woman is a woman, keep the married couple together, and take care of children, including not aborting them. Anything else still showing through from the junkpile of history?
Cut government spending, protect the right to own a weapon, protestant work effort, and leave me and my family the fuck alone.
Yeah, people have almost no cultural literacy...But these are the people who vote,
One might call them "deplorables".
That was back when the abnormality was George W. Bush. The idea of a President as weird as Donald Trump was nowhere in sight. It's hard even to remember what was supposedly so un-normal about Bush.
There will be a time in the not so distance future in which the MSM and the Left will be saying: "(The current Republican candidate whoever that is) is evil, racist and a threat to democracy. Why couldn't he be more like previous Republicans like Trump, Reagan, Bush etc. They always have. It's hard to remember what is so un-normal about Bush because there was nothing un-normal about him despite what the MSM and the Left said.
"But these are the people who vote, and for them Ron DeSantis invokes traditional values. What the hell could that even mean to them? Probably little more than a man is a man and a woman is a woman, keep the married couple together, and take care of children, including not aborting them. Anything else still showing through from the junkpile of history? "
Ms. Althouse, thank you for your statement. The callousness of it offends me deeply. But I defend your right to say it.
I will gather my treasured items from the "junk pile of history" and conceal them from others who will be damaged by them. Cruel Neutrality becomes Cruel Assumptions of the motives of others. Sheesh!
Count me also among the people who think "Harding" when they hear "normalcy." That's four so far on this blog alone (including Althouse), and I'm betting we aren't all "autistic," Yancey. Though maybe we are, with the caveat that "we" includes yourself as well.
Is that "cultural literacy" in the E. D. Hirsch sense? Possibly. What I remember of the Harding Administration is basically (1) Teapot Dome; (2) "Normalcy"; (3) The pardoning of Debs and other critics of the Great War; (4) Picked an exceptional VP. I really ought to have looked up his role in combating the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was an order of magnitude (at least) greater in scale than COVID.
Now, I owe even that small batch o'data mostly to my adolescent pash on Woodrow Wilson. Yes, yes, I hear you! But Wilson was a fairly popular figure on the left for a long time, and at 16 I was on the left myself. Suddenly stuff like his resegregation of the Civil Service has "come to light" (bollocks -- I knew that even in high school), and he's, gosh, out of favor with the progressives again. And that Progressive (in the 20s sense) kept going, so that even Coolidge signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact (you know, the one that outlawed war! Marvelous how that turned out).
But, really, folks, how old does history have to be before you can just write it off? I take it the Great War is still vaguely interesting to some people, but the 20s aren't, unless you're talking Weimar Germany or the Holodomor. FDR, though, is our Great Savior, and takes up a decade and a half anyway. But the last people who remember his Presidency even in their own infancy is dwindling. My parents were born in 1940 and 1945.
I thought you were all about getting back to normal. How's biden worked out for you concerning that marker? Maybe you can use chat GPT to post on meaning of normal in the context of biden's last few years as president.
A little wine at once warms them into candor and normalcy, and then grand airs fly off like a covey of partridges, not to return, at least the same evening.
—The Chicago Times, 14 Feb. 1875
The party appetite may have become etherealized, changed to babe-like normalcy.
—Vermont Watchman & State Journal, 8 Mar. 1893
They want money of over-full value. It is the return to normalcy in monetary value that they wish to prevent.
—The Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), 7 Sept. 1896
I also admit to being one who associates normalcy with Harding. The last of a nice run of Ohio presidents...He was a party loyalist who was a compromise candidate. I don't think he ever thought of himself as presidential timber; the job probably killed him.
I lived in Marion, OH, home and burial place of Harding. The HS is named for him. No one there knows any history and definitely not about him talking about Normalcy. And if the folks in Marion, OH don’t know, not more than 1% of voters know or care.
Michael, thanks! I can't remember whether it was you who posted above that there were multiple uses of "normalcy" in the 19th c., but if not, there are two of you.
This puts paid to Althouse's idea that this was just Harding's personal gaffe, and "normalcy" his own bumbling neologism. But if you've already typecast the guy as one of the worst Presidents in history, why not pin it on him?
It's....revealing that wordsmith Althouse declares "normalcy" a nonsense word, where her beloved OED cites its meaning and history.
But... like Paul Lazarro in an old Vonnegut movie, she defiantly proclaims, "No one fucks with Ann Althouse".
(yeah, I know you banned me, but maybe Meade shakes off the pain from the lashes applied daily across his back by reading comments Your Ladyship has forbidden)
One of the pleasanter aspects of chatting with ChatGPT is that it understands English well – that is, it isn't floored, like a lot of people would be, by several clauses included within a sentence.
Anyway I was chatting with ChatGPT (3.5) about the topic(s) of the present discussion.
ChatGPT tells me, for instance, that even though the term “normalcy” was criticized by “language purists” for Harding's usage of the term, the word is now well standardized in modern English – to wit:
“However, it is worth noting that the objection to Harding's usage was not universally shared. Many people accepted and embraced the term "normalcy," considering it a valid alternative to "normality." Over time, "normalcy" gained wider acceptance and became firmly entrenched in the English language, ultimately making its way into dictionaries.”
“Despite the criticism, "normalcy" gained widespread usage and acceptance, and it is now considered a valid word in modern English. It has become synonymous with "normality" and refers to the state or condition of being normal, typical, or ordinary.”
More generally, ChatGPT notes that the ‘-cy’ suffix ending in English can be applied across broad swathe(s) of words to modify their meaning accordingly. Morover, the word “normal” is not the sort of word which would be forbidden in English from having the ‘-cy’ suffix applied to it. To wit:
“"Normalcy" does not fall into the category of words that are restricted from combining with the "-cy" suffix. In fact, "normalcy" is a valid and accepted formation that follows the pattern of attaching "-cy" to an adjective, in this case, "normal."”
Anyway, I thought that provided interesting context.
"Count me also among the people who think "Harding" when they hear "normalcy." That's four so far on this blog alone (including Althouse), and I'm betting we aren't all "autistic," Yancey. Though maybe we are, with the caveat that "we" includes yourself as well."
Michelle, well the 95% of the commenters here are all in that right-hand tail of the bell curve of political historical knowledge, and it is four out of, let's say, 500 readers at best, so 0.8% of Althouse's readers (and all but certain to be less than that).
And I am not autistic, just misanthropic.
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