Hypernormalization Is the New Normal
(Guardian UK) Donald Trump is dismantling government checks and balances in an apparent advance toward a “unitary executive” doctrine that would grant him near-unlimited authority, driving the US toward autocracy. Billionaire tech moguls like Elon Musk are helping the government consolidate power and aggressively reduce the federal workforce. Institutions like the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, which help keep Americans healthy and informed, are being haphazardly diminished.
Interesting, as a new word joins the lexicon.
The article goes on to say, It’s “the visceral sense of waking up in an alternate timeline with a deep, bodily knowing that something isn’t right – but having no clear idea how to fix it”, Harfoush tells me. “It’s reading an article about childhood hunger and genocide, only to scroll down to a carefree listicle highlighting the best-dressed celebrities or a whimsical quiz about: ‘What Pop-Tart are you?’”
“Donald Trump is not something new,” we are told, calling him “the final pantomime product” of the US government, where the powerful are abandoning any pretense of common, inclusive ideals and instead using their positions to settle scores, reward loyalty and hollow out institutions for personal or political gains.
Which, I suppose, answers my sense of inner discontent.
Perhaps yours as well. In my rather long life, I have never known my fellow citizens to be as disconnected from reality as we find ourselves today.
Perhaps it’s our fascination with access to information and entertainment as never before available. I find my unassailable, steady old self still at the computer as 2am slides by, captured by ‘shorts’ on YouTube that offer ‘just one more’ adrenalin rush before toddling off to bed. In days of yore, the choices were sitcoms, Johnny Carson monologues, and then bed at what was considered s reasonable 10;30 pm.
Most of my business years began at 6am and I’m more than glad to kiss that habit goodbye, but strange stuff is happening, and our collective unsettlement now has a name. Once named, we are stuck with it, clumsy as it may be. Hypernormalization doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
But neither do the current events that lead both friends and allies to fear America has lost its way, and is rapidly becoming a failed nation.
Your kids are deep into porn, and you’re late for your Jane Fonda Workout
But you’re hypernormalized, so I guess it’s okay.