The 'Normal' Election
'Mainstream' and 'weird' in 2024
“He has ascended while advancing some ideas that fall well outside the traditional political mainstream.”
—The New York Times on JD Vance, August 3, 2024
There are some precincts of academic life where there is no higher praise than to call someone or something “transgressive.” Progressive ideology is, by definition, one of dissatisfaction with the status quo, and for some the conscious violation of norms is an important act in the work of making change. There is of course a spectrum in how far one is willing or comfortable with the act of transgression, which may range from a tweak in a genre convention to incendiary provocations like Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ (1987) or Kara Walker’s A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby (2014).
American politics has traditionally been about finding the middle of a given road, even if the long-term goal is to shift where that middle may be. In recent years, however, partisan polarization has pushed both sides to extremes. This happened on the left in the realm of defunding the police and transgender policies in schools. But recently the right has been pushing back in overturning DEI initiatives and the avowed embrace of sexual difference in sports and traditional gender roles in family life.
One of the more striking developments in the presidential election of 2024 has been the struggle of each side to define the other as aberrant. In a way, this isn’t surprising, because, again, politics is about capturing the center. But implicitly or explicitly claiming the mantle of “normal”—regarded as suspect by those who tend to consider it an instrument of oppression—has been largely ceded to the right, which is less self-conscious in defining what’s acceptable. But ever since vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz used the term “weird” to describe MAGA Republicans last month (“These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away. They want to be in your exam room”), there has been a determined effort for the left to define the right as outside the mainstream—a word that has not typically been part of the New York Times lexicon—on issues such as abortion. As progressive columnist Jamelle Bouie explained earlier this month, “Pete Buttigieg, the secretary of transportation, said [Donald] Trump was getting ‘older and stranger.’ Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania called Trump ‘weird’ at a rally for Harris, as did Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, who also said that Vance was ‘erratic.’”
As some observers have noted, Democrats run the risk of the pot calling the kettle black. Drag queen reading hours for toddlers or sex changes for children are generally not considered conventional behavior, however earnestly some activists may wish to make them so. Someday they might be: yesterday’s outrage has often become tomorrow’s common sense. But perhaps the embrace of traditional normality is a healthy development in American politics and national life as a whole. Conventions may indeed restrict. They also liberate us from distracting self-obsessions that short-circuit the pursuit of the common good. Tolerance is important. But so is a thoughtful articulation, and willingness to honor, limits.