No New Normal

As the election results came in on November 8th, my brain started to crash. Non-essential neurological processes were suspended. This was psychic exhaustion on a level I had never experienced. With system shutdown imminent, I retreated to bed. I fell asleep before the final election results had even been announced.

By 2:30 am, my brain rebooted, and I awoke in the darkness. I noticed immediately that I had received a software update while I slept, though this was no upgrade. No doubt you’ve experienced a moment when you’ve grown up in an instant, when you realize that the life you once thought of as “adult” was really just advanced adolescence. Some of these moments are transcendent — choosing to get married, finding out that you’re going to be a parent, bearing down in a moment of crisis and succeeding. Others are heartbreaking, when relationships fail, money’s short, or lives come to an end.

Like many of the 65 million Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton — many liberal and some conservative — the election of Donald Trump caused me to grow up once again. My model of reality had suddenly become hopelessly obsolete and needed to be reprogrammed, immediately.

There are so many layers to this particular election — policy, tribe, gender, race, culture, truthfulness, history — that it’s easy to be disoriented with outrage. While my desperation that morning was a response to all of those factors, I realized over time that my feelings were dominated by a larger realization: for the first time in my life, I confronted a world where I didn’t know the rules that applied to me or, more importantly, anyone else. The old cliche that America “is a place where anything is possible” is meant to suggest sunnier possibilities than institutionalized bigotry, trade wars, voter suppression and war, but all of these — and more — seemed inevitable on that morning. With Donald Trump as president, a man who believes that he’s incapable of doing wrong, isn’t anything possible?

Since then, I’ve been in a funk, and the only thing that gives me hope is the simple belief that if the people running this country aren’t going to live according to the rules of the game, rules that we’ve all honored until now, then there’s only one thing we can do: change the game.

Growing up, my class made annual pilgrimages to the Cleveland Museum of Art to stare at paintings I couldn’t imagine anyone liking. Though bored by the art, I was nevertheless fascinated by how odd — indeed, crazy — it was that the museum allowed a group of elementary school kids, kids who carved their names in their desks and wrote on bathroom walls, to walk around with priceless paintings that often weren’t even protected by glass. We could have destroyed any of those paintings in a heartbeat. Why didn’t we?

Even as a kid, I could sense the social force field that kept us at a distance, protecting the priceless art. I understood that this force field was generated by a communal logic that essentially boiled down to this: “if people did the things that I’m imagining, the world would be a crazy mess, so we’ve all agreed not to do that kind of stuff”.

This system of behavior — of social norms — is partly enshrined in our laws, but mostly it’s reflected in our cultural traditions. There’s no law that says I can’t lie to you about my career as an Olympic bobsledder while chatting in a cafe. There’s no law that precludes me from saying for a year that I might invest in your company and then simply not do it. And there’s no law that requires me to be faithful to my wife and kids.

Our American life is bound by social norms that allow us to trust each other in life, business and yes, even politics. These norms are the rudder that keeps society from spinning out of control. They mean that we can trust what people say (within some range of what “truthful” means), that people will act in a way that considers the welfare of others, and that people will generally choose long-term stability over momentary gain. Norms remind us that, one way or another, we’re going to be held responsible for our actions.

Social norms exist outside of ideology or party and, even in our highly charged political sphere, people generally color within the lines. I didn’t support George W. Bush’s policies, for example, but I didn’t doubt his intentions or consider his methods or behavior to be outrageous. He (largely) stayed within the norms, respected traditions, and honored shared expectations.

In recent years, the Republican Party — supercharged by the Tea Party — has become increasingly radicalized, as reflected in its occasional violation of political norms, including its threat to default on the national debt and unprecedented refusal to consider a Supreme Court nominee. Taken together, I’d argue that these “ends justify the means” actions have been corrosive to democracy, but they were mere skirmishes.

Now, war’s at our doorstep.

Because of a toxic combination of personality disorders and inherited wealth, Donald Trump doesn’t respect social norms. Over and over during his 70 years, he’s committed the kind of offenses that 99% of us will never commit once. He bankrupts businesses (six, plus other business failures). He makes promises that he doesn’t keep. He threatens and insults people. He refuses to pay people and dares them to sue him. He cheats on his wives. These are not rumors or claims — they’re well documented facts.

Instead of repeating the litany of Trump offenses here, let’s focus on a few examples that illustrate the larger point. Consider the 4095 lawsuits he’s been engaged in. That’s more than two lawsuits per week for 40 years. Many of the stories about Trump boil down to this: Trump hired me, he cheated me and then he dared me to sue him. Because he doesn’t respect the social norms that discourage us from strong-arming people and engaging in lawsuits, he’s left a wake of battered businesses and very busy attorneys.

A guy who’s insulted over 280 people/places/things on Twitter isn’t a guy who honors our culture of mutual respect. Trump is not limited to garden variety insults, however, as his many racist and sexist comments demonstrate his complete lack of restraint when it comes to hate speech. On this score, his behavior is unprecedented for a major political leader.

Why hasn’t Trump released his tax returns like every other major party presidential nominee in the last 40 years? Simple: because it wouldn’t serve his interests. And, he doesn’t care what society expects of him. The traditions regarding financial disclosure are reasonable and serve the greater good, but that doesn’t matter to Trump.

Finally, Trump’s threats to arrest Hillary Clinton and his unwillingness to agree to accept the results of the election represented a devastating assault on basic political norms. Trump seems to model himself on Third World strongmen, not American politicians.

I can only imagine that a ten-year-old Donald Trump, when visiting an art museum, would scribble on the paintings with a big fat Sharpie, blame it on his best friend, and then demand a new puppy from his parents to help him get over the trauma.

Yes, Trump is a bad guy, but my point is more specific. Donald J. Trump does not now, nor has he ever, held himself to the same social code that the rest of us live by. Not only would we be fools to assume that Trump will act in our best interests, we’d be engaging in magical thinking to assume that he even cares about our interests. Trump does whatever’s good for Trump, no matter what social norms he violates in the process.

A colleague at work whom you’ve known for decades has just been promoted to CEO. You know this guy inside out — he’s charismatic, he’s hard driving, and he’s a dirtbag. He threatens, he demeans, he bribes, he cheats. Some people on the staff believe he’ll rise to the occasion, but you know he can’t play by the rules — he never has. Plus, he views his great “success” to be proof that his methods work.

Now, with him as CEO, you have to face the very real possibility that he will destroy the business you’ve worked so hard to build, a company that supports thousands of people. He could burn it down in an instant, with a terrible contract, an underhanded deal, or even by funneling corporate funds to his personal accounts.

The clock is ticking. What will you do to protect the business?

As the returns came in on November 8th and the results started to tilt towards Trump, it took just a few minutes for the punditocracy to crank out a new narrative, one in which the electorate had silently realigned around Trump’s message without anyone noticing.

By morning, the Great Retreat had begun. Republican leaders — many of whom had been noncommittal if not disdainful of Trump — seemed giddy at the prospect of remaking our country, and were only too happy to do it arm-in-arm with their new pal. Past opponents for the Republican nomination completed their transition from viciously attacking Trump’s lack of moral compass (and more) to enthusiastic support, hoping to be rewarded for their loyalty. Meanwhile, many journalistic outlets that had held Trump’s feet to the fire for months pivoted to respectful and often breathless coverage of President-elect Trump’s every move.

It’s understandable that we’d collectively lose perspective in a moment of shock, but our country’s future requires that we snap back to reality. First, let’s recognize that Donald Trump did not gain a clear mandate to lead. He lost the popular vote — Hillary Clinton received 2.7 million more votes than him. Trump’s total margin of victory across the three critical states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania is about 80,000 votes, less than 1% of votes cast in those states. If half of those people voted for Clinton instead, she’d now be our President-elect.

So, keep reminding yourself: most American voters wanted Hillary Clinton to be president.

Further, Americans don’t support Trump’s views. 59% of Americans don’t want Trump to remove regulations intended to curb climate change, 67% of people support Roe v. Wade, and 55% oppose building a wall on the Mexican border. Trump won the presidency on a technicality, not because voters preferred him or his policies.

Most importantly, we must fully internalize this reality: Trump’s rejection of social norms means he represents a mortal danger to our society. The combination of presidential authority and his destructive habits means that, left unchecked, he will cause lasting damage to the society we’ve spent 240 years building. Meditate hard on this fact, because though it may sound like a cheap exercise in pessimism, it is quite clearly true.

The range of threats to the American way of life has just expanded radically. The unthinkable has become plausible.

Under Trump, America will likely support Vladimir Putin as he consolidates Russian power in neighboring countries. Under Trump, we are on a path to accelerate the erosion of voting rights of African-Americans (and other minorities), reversing 60 years of progress. Under Trump, the federal government will be be transformed into a money-making machine for The Trump Organization, at the expense of every American and global stability. Every action that Trump has taken since he was elected is consistent with these dark possibilities and many more.

Without some change in political climate, the Republican Congress seems unlikely to fulfill its duty to check the President’s power, so long as he scratches their back by supporting their agenda. Of course, in many spheres, the President needs no support or authorization from Congress, so Trump’s impulse becomes our reality without review, consultation or approval.

Consider this indication of Trump’s modus operandi. Recently, nearly a decade after Trump started work on a golf course in Northern Scotland, a local government representative said that “I have just seen him do in America, on a grander scale, precisely what he did here. He suckered the people and he suckered the politicians until he got what he wanted, and then he went back on pretty much everything he promised.” We’d be foolish to expect Trump to treat our country any differently.

Trump’s rejection of our national norms make our traditional political debates about taxation or social programs or the Supreme Court seem trivial. We must wake up. When someone can hijack the Republican tribe and gain uncritical support (89% of Republicans voted for a man who says he can get away with grabbing women by the pussy), tribal politics has become a cancer in the body politic. We will not survive this without aggressive therapy.

If you’re over 20, you’ve learned the Essential Rule of Romance: no one is going to change for you (with a few fortunate exceptions). If you’re over 30, you know why this is true: they can’t. Yes, some might want to, but it doesn’t matter, because, in the end, very few have the ability.

Donald Trump is not going to change for us. Neither is his strategy guru, the self-professed Leninist, Steve Bannon. Even if they wanted to change, they couldn’t. And, of course, they don’t want to — winning a presidential election has a way of deepening confidence, not eroding it. If you’re still waiting to find out who Donald Trump is, you’re either not paying attention or you’re holding on to naive beliefs about the capacity of a 70-year-old billionaire to change.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them; the first time. — Maya Angelou

Our society values forgiveness and embraces people who say they’re going to change for the best. In this moment, however, being gracious is dangerous.

So let’s not be suckers. We can ask Trump and his team if they’re racists, if they care about the poor and the middle class, if they’ll stand up to evil overseas, and they’re smart enough to tell us what we want to hear. Fortunately, we’re smart enough to know what they really think. They’ve shown us over and over again.

Psychologists use the term “motivated reasoning” to describe peoples’ tendency to conform their reasoning to pre-existing biases. We exhibit motivated reasoning every day, when we avoid critical information about friends and loved ones, when we embrace information that supports our agenda in business, and when we deny that we were elected president with the help of Russian computer hacking despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Over-promising politicians, con men and other bullshit artists like Bernie Madoff (4,800 defrauded investors), Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, the Iran-Contra conspirators, and Lance Armstrong activate our motivated reasoning so that we ignore damning evidence. In all these cases, millions of people believed the lies because they were more appealing than the truth.

No matter whom you voted for, every American wants to believe that everything is going to be okay, and that desire can lead us to ignore the clear signs of what’s ahead. If you find yourself using phrases like “he didn’t really mean what he said” or “that was a long time ago and he’s not like that anymore” or “he said that during the campaign but now he’s talking to people with opposing opinions,” then you’re engaging in motivated reasoning, and robbing yourself of the critical insights you need to face the changing face of “normal”.

There is no new normal. “Normal” can’t exist without norms, and our norms aren’t functional when the country’s leadership doesn’t respect the basic principles that the other 320 million of us live by.

There are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this: Deny your responsibility.
-Lyndon Johnson

Changing the Game

Mr. Trump has presented a way to Make America Great Again cheaply (i.e., bigly) — it’s a mirage. Now, it’s incumbent on all of us to take responsibility for advancing society while protecting us from the damage that a president who believes that any action is kosher if he can get away with it. Waiting to see what Trump does before acting would be like waiting to see if a tornado is going to break your way before you take shelter. If you see a tornado, get safe, now.

While Trump doesn’t have a clear sense of the limits of his presidential authority, we know he is not a dictator and he is not a king. While he might like to be a Putin-style autocrat, he won’t be able to pull that off in our country (particularly if we do our jobs). There are real limits to his power.

Further, while the closest I’ve ever gotten to Trump is sitting at the table next to his at dinner, I’m still willing to bet that he doesn’t have the hateful impulses that some of his strongman role models have. Maybe he’s 80% bad impulses, 20% hate. We need to help him restrain the 80% and direct that energy towards the one thing he cares about — adulation. He needs to understand what people really care about and what they expect from him, and that we’ll love him for not screwing everything up.

Every citizen has the right to make his or her voice heard on what America can be and should be. Donald J. Trump will soon have more authority than the rest of us, but he has no greater claim or greater interest in asserting a best path forward. To quote Bob Dylan, “A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with freedom”. Let’s each show that we value our freedom now.

We must acknowledge that having Trump in the White House will make it far more difficult to build the society we strive for, but let’s remember that there’s no Perfect Leader who will reflect the views of 320 million Americans. No matter who is President, we must engage. It’s just that now, given Trump’s failings, we must increase our engagement tenfold if we hope to safeguard against disaster.

What can you do? First, you must counteract what I call “voter information poisoning” (VIP). Then, armed with your new knowledge, you must crank up your social engagement and fight for our country’s future.

Voter Information Poisoning

I know, you’re already a news junkie, and you don’t think that you have to worry about VIP. In the cozy world before this election cycle, your past habits would serve you well, as social norms avoided The Big Lie. Can you imagine George W Bush claiming that “millions of people voted illegally” when there was no evidence to support his claim? Would Barack Obama claim that the “real unemployment rate” is 1% just to support his policies? In our new political reality, where it’s become standard operating procedure for our political “leaders” to lie and deceive, I’d argue that even the most news-addicted amongst us must up their game to find the useful information amongst all the noise, particularly when popular news sources like Facebook are promoting faux news along with real news.

Rigor and skepticism are now critical. When Trump or his oracles talk, dig deep. What are the verifiable facts that underlie the issue? Is the publication credible? Was Trump unequivocal, or did he say he “wanted to look into it”? Did he contradict himself the day before or day after, when speaking to a different audience? Who are his propagandist allies, and what are their interests (e.g., advancing their personal agendas, keeping their jobs, selling advertising, advancing their careers, earning future votes)? What are the opposing views on the issue, whether liberal, conservative, or otherwise? Does Trump have the means to do what he says? What are the details of his proposal? What do experts have to say on the matter?

Consider Trump’s “$1 trillion infrastructure program”, which is really just a system of tax breaks to developers like Trump and people in the construction business. His program doesn’t ensure that we get vital new infrastructure. Rather, it ensures that Trump’s buddies get rich. We must recognize that we’re now confronting a new information regime that aspires to the virtuosic levels of propaganda practiced in Russia and China. We cannot allow ourselves to be deceived.

This issue is not going to go away. As of March 2016, nearly 80% of Trump’s statements were judged by Politifact to be “mostly false” or worse, about three times as bad Hillary Clinton. The rate at which Trump lies is roughly the same as the rate at which he speaks.

Taking Action

Let’s not spend 4 years simply responding to Trump’s aberrant ideas and actions. Instead, let’s each define our personal agenda and then find ways to pursue it. Maybe you have a few key issues that matter to you; if so, focus on those. Or, if you’re drawn to a broader agenda, that’s great, too — you’ll find allies.

One agenda item I’d like to propose: let’s rid ourselves of the evil that has increasingly hidden inside the Republican Party, a small but aggressive tumor — distinct from the honorable conservative movement — that believes that its values and ideas are so superior to others’ that any means are justified if they advance their cause. We must relentlesly call out the doublespeak that this faction uses to obscure their true purpose, describing voter suppression as a battle against “voter fraud” and praising the Citizens United case as a victory for “freedom of speech”. We must get this tumor under control before it kills its host — our country.

Further, as we move forward, I hope we can be more mindful of the challenges that marginalized citizens across America are facing. These communities, many of whom looked to Trump for help, are being battered by globalization, ignored by the government, and devastated by opioids. The solutions to their difficulties cannot be found by turning the clock back to 1965, but that doesn’t mean that there is no solution other than callously saying “globalization happens”. We owe them our compassion and our aid.

It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of organized opposition, particularly when the opposition is the executive branch. The response to this is straightforward in concept: organize with others and apply pressure. The ultimate pressure is voting, but there are many other ways to let our elected officials know what we expect of them. Find a tribe (google will help) and get involved…

• Attend meetings
• Organize a chapter
• Send emails
• Call Congress
• Donate funds to organizations
• Post on Facebook and Twitter
• Join a boycott
• Blog
• March
• Vote

(Note: the more you can escape from your personal bubble on Facebook and social media, the better. It can sound great inside an echo chamber, but it’s a loss if no one outside is hearing you).

The Million Woman March is in DC the day after the Inauguration — if that matches your interests, that might be a great place to start.

Individually, we lack the ability to keep Trump in a box where he can’t hurt us. Together, the 65 million people who voted for Hillary Clinton have the muscle to avoid disaster and convince Trump to support what’s best for our country.

We must remember that many good people who initially supported Trump will, over time, recognize their mistake, and we want them to feel welcome when they’re ready to join our ranks. So, let’s focus our critique and energy on Trump and his cabal, not his past supporters.

The word “patriot” has always been loaded for me, a confusing jumble of gratitude, pride, boasting, and self-superiority. Now it seems like an invaluable term, the best way to describe the people who are willing to fight for the type of trusting, constructive society we need to keep America moving forward. As Trump’s folly becomes more and more clear, I’m hoping that patriots of all backgrounds can come together in growing numbers.

And we need patriot politicians, too, even Republicans, who can break free from their tribal compulsion and focus on helping their country before their team. We can all revert to our principled debates about marginal tax rates, social policies and the public safety net once we’ve made sure that Donald J. Trump and his billionaire buddies haven’t handed Eastern Europe to Vladimir Putin, accelerated global warming, eliminated womens’ right to choose, and destroyed the press freedoms that make democracy work.

This is a moment when our imagination will be pushed to its limit. First, we must stretch beyond our personal experience to imagine a person as false and self-interested as Trump. Then, we must reject the media construct of Trump. Finally, we must imagine our potential for collective action with an intensity and focus that has not been present in American life since the 1960’s.

Moving forward, we must be Americans first. It’s tempting for each of us to calculate the likelihood that our families are going to be harmed, but let’s remember this: when any group suffers, we all suffer. It is the height of ignorance, in this prosperous country and in this moment of possibility, to believe that one group can better serve its interests by hating another group than by lifting it up.

Now is the time to fight evil. Evil with a million dollar smile is still evil. Evil that owns a country club is still evil. Evil that is built on ignorance and narcissism rather than hate is still evil. Our mission isn’t to judge the evil. Rather, our responsibility is to stop it.

Evil thrives on apathy and cannot exist without it. Hannah Arendt

There are so many ways to be angry about the election and it’s outcome, but anger is a luxury we can’t afford. Every minute spent in outrage over the lunacy of Trump’s behavior and positions is a minute we’ve deluded ourselves into expecting something better from him. He doesn’t respect our social codes, our sense of decency, our concept of community. He doesn’t, he can’t, he won’t. Accept it.

We must acknowledge this new reality without flinching, study it, develop a plan, and move forward step-by-step. Our social norms are under attack, and until we can reassert them, we’ll wake up each morning wondering what “normal” to expect.

Join the discussion on Facebook. Please share your ideas on how you’re going to respond to our new political reality.

Find links to resources on how to take action at the No New Normal website.