In Brief: The War on Normal
Inflation, recession, crime, and border invasions are only the half of it.
Leftists destroy everything they touch. That’s one of Dennis Prager’s favorite maxims. And political analyst Gilbert Sewall builds a case for just that.
The eagerly anticipated midterm elections, now in a countdown, will no doubt reveal vast electoral dismay and division. Inflation, recession, crime, and border invasions are half of it. The Democratic-inspired War on Normal is the other.
However impressive GOP victories might be, the fifty-year-old progressive hegemon will endure. Identity hustles, handouts, lawlessness, and cultural rot won’t disappear after the midterms. Disparate impact, non-binary fantasies, and Supreme Court oppositionists in primal breakdowns will persist.
Beyond November, cunning propagandists with opportunities at thought control unprecedented in human history will seek to discredit their adversaries. Militants will intimidate authorities. The commercial republic and its assets are the prize.
Norms deal with social basics: family, education, beliefs, and public duties. Norms do not have to align with the Ten Commandments, the hopes of the Founders, classical Athens or renaissance Florence. Norms can be vile or outlandish, and they vary by social class, region, ethnicity, and system of belief.
When politics comes unglued from consensus and the possible, and what works surrenders to what side are you on, when the principle of loyal opposition gets tossed, partisan hate pops up like a toadstool.
This is especially true of Team Left. For example, he says, “Where the rich and powerful live, pride flags, climate apocalyptics, public masking, and nonstop Trump hate are habitual and in places almost obligatory.” It is the Trump hate that most defines a certain segment of the population these days. But it goes back many years.
Barack Obama’s 2008 promise to bring harmony preceded organized black rancor and white shaming. “They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic,” said Hillary Clinton in 2016, memorably anathematizing those rejecting the Democratic Party’s race, class and gender agendas.
There’s a bit of a problem on both sides, though, he says.
Progressives have no monopoly on invective, and the appeal of a savior — or despot — takes many shapes. Donald J. Trump’s bitter-end partisans are not domestic terrorists, but they are not politically “normal” by pre-woke standards. And whatever they are, they are not by nature conservative or even constitutionalists.
Even so, that’s not where the real trouble and destruction lie. “It’s on the progressive left where political magic elevates to faith,” he says. And that zealous faith leads to seizing control over much of life. Sewall argues, “They seek something besides social justice, and have designs for you, me and the children.”
