Not “normal”

In a speech announcing his decision to leave the Senate, Jeff Flake (R-Arizona), spoke today of “the new normal”:

We must never regard as “normal” the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country — the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve.

None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded as normal.

Amen. Jeff Flake and I would agree about very little in the way of policy. But on this point we would agree. Something I wrote in a February post: “Nothing about this presidency is normal. And nothing about this presidency is for getting used to.”