“I dunno, I think this is all ok. We got the first black president out of the way. We got the first woman out of the way. Now we got a billionaire president out of the way. Maybe soon we can get back to normal again.”
– some dude at my gym one morning
So I’m changing in the locker room and this guy says that to his buddy. At first, I could feel my face flushing with anticipated righteous anger at what he might say about our first black president.
But then it teeters to worse as he segues to, I presume, Hillary, though she doesn’t quite fit in the list as she wasn’t elected. Perhaps for this guy’s ilk, just running for president — and getting libeled to no end — is good enough for a woman?
Finally (and here is where the guy’s perspective tilted a bit in my mind) he includes Trump in his list along with the prologue: maybe we can get back to normal again.
Indeed, good sir. Maybe one day we will.
But problematic in that hope is the idea that this is all just an aberration, from which we can hope to return. It assumes that “normal” was some time before, and whatever this is now must have sprouted in error.
Is it? I would agree that things were more “normal” only a couple years ago. Further still “normal” was the election cycle and administration before that. Remember when Republicans were saner in the time of Bush 2? I never would have imagined saying that I miss Cheney, but there you go.
No, I’m afraid “normal” is a pipe dream now. This is the new normal, Mr. Gym Guy. Better get used to it.
