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This Is Not Normal
Townhall.com ^ | January 27, 2021 | Ben Shapiro

Posted on 01/27/2021 6:34:07 AM PST by Kaslin

For four years, we were informed by our establishment media that President Donald Trump's behavior was "not normal." The abnormality of Trump's behavior became a near rallying cry for the self-appointed heroes of journalism, who spent every waking hour poring over his bizarre tweets and his bloviating self-absorption. The media dedicated themselves to preventing Trump's supposed normalization.

Now, the media inform us, we have been graced by the most normal normal person to have ever normalled: President Joe Biden. Biden, they proclaim, is utterly boring, nondescript, barely worthy of coverage. His administration, too, is paradigmatically normal. Yascha Mounk of The Atlantic tweets, "It is so nice to have a boring President." Alleged media watchdog Brian Stelter asked this week whether Biden is "making the news boring again," adding, "The Biden White House is clearly a break from the chaos and incompetence of Trump world."

For his part, Biden obviously revels in this sort of coverage. This week, his favorite ice cream flavor (chocolate chip) was tweeted out as well as a retweet of first lady Jill Biden's announcement that Champ and Major, the new first pets, had entered the White House.

On a personal level, Biden is clearly more "normal" than Trump -- although treating Biden, a career politician worth nearly $10 million, as the height of normality is rather stunning. The goal for the establishment media isn't to point out merely that Biden is a sort of American Everyman. It's to use that supposed normalcy to disguise the fact that his agenda is absolutely abnormal.

The dirty little secret of the Trump administration is that despite Trump's personal abnormality, his agenda was well in line with past precedent, and with mainstream American opinions on everything from taxes to military policy. Trump did not radically shift American policy. Biden will. Within the first five days of his presidency, he issued 30 executive orders, compared with four for Trump, five for Barack Obama and zero for George W. Bush. Those executive orders included endorsement of radical reinterpretation of American history; killing the Keystone XL pipeline, along with its attendant estimated 11,000 American jobs; forcing the military to allow troops to undergo gender reassignment surgery; and forcing federally funded institutions to allow biological men who identify as transgender to compete alongside biological women, among others. He is reportedly pursuing an immigration plan directed toward reopening America's borders. He has staffed his Cabinet by intersectional box-checking.

Biden's policy is indeed radical. But because Biden is presented as a normal person, we're supposed to ignore all of that. We're supposed to simply be grateful for the "return to normalcy" -- complete with caving to the teachers unions that seek to keep schools closed indeterminately, reentering a long-dead deal with the Iranian theocracy, firing government staffers with whom he disagrees and lying openly about the vaccine distribution plan he inherited.

Meanwhile, our media pat themselves on the back. It's rare to see a profession declare itself irrelevant, but that's what many in the media are doing these days. According to Stelter, it's "refreshing" that Biden's team promises accountability and transparency. According to Margaret Sullivan of The Washington Post, the media must learn their lesson from the Trump era and cover Democrats more sycophantically.

Joe Biden may be a relatively normal guy. But none of this is normal. And pretending it is represents just another way for the media to reject legitimate criticisms of an administration seeking radicalism right off the bat.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: joebiden
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To: stanne

People are done Roth it.


Are you talking about David Lee Roth? I’m confused by that statement. Or is this about the Roth IRA?


41 posted on 01/27/2021 8:06:20 AM PST by cuban leaf (We killed our economy and damaged our culture. In 2021 we will pine for the salad days of 2020.)
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To: Kaslin

He’s Normal.

Abby Normal.

(Apologies to Mel Brooks)


42 posted on 01/27/2021 8:06:36 AM PST by jdsteel ("A Republic, Madam, if you can keep it." Sorry Ben, looks like we blew it.)
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To: cuban leaf

That is what you will find.


43 posted on 01/27/2021 8:09:29 AM PST by stanne
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To: Kaslin

He can be #NeverTrump and #NeverBiden at the same time, dude.


44 posted on 01/27/2021 8:20:10 AM PST by StAnDeliver (Eric Coomer of Dominion Voting Systems Is The Blue Dress)
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To: StAnDeliver

Dude? The last time I checked I was a she.


45 posted on 01/27/2021 8:27:18 AM PST by Kaslin (Joe Biden will never be my President, and neither will Kamala Harris)
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To: stanne

Thank you. I have said to many Trump critics that in light of the abuse that he endured from the media, never Trumpers, some White House staff, the deep state, Democrats, etc., I am surprised that he didn’t say and do more and I definitely “cut him some slack” with whatever he felt the need to say. He is a New Yorker! (Or was) Could any of these critics have kept their sanity and composure if faced with this kind of treatment which was very “abnormal” for a President of the United States? And through it all, he did do some amazing things for the country.


46 posted on 01/27/2021 8:31:56 AM PST by pegrae
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To: cuban leaf

I was skeptical too, about Donald Trump, but then he said something that made a lot of sense, and I changed my mind and voted for him in the 2016 election and again on November 3, 2020


47 posted on 01/27/2021 8:33:23 AM PST by Kaslin (Joe Biden will never be my President, and neither will Kamala Harris)
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To: Kaslin

The establishment media idea of normal is animal house they have no idea of what normal is.

note news


48 posted on 01/27/2021 8:35:51 AM PST by Vaduz (women and children to be impacIQ of chimpsted the most.)
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To: pegrae

What I will say to these inevitable trump criticizers is, regardless of his being from Queens or New York or whatever you are pointing out there’s is, as a New Yorker myself, who does he insult? Not me. He has never insulted me. Maybe someone like me doesn’t mind if Trump is impolite to people who ruin our country.


49 posted on 01/27/2021 8:39:07 AM PST by stanne
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To: Kaslin

I have never thought of child molesters as normal. To me he has always been an unimpressive idiot and a corrupt POS. Again not normal except maybe for a demoncrat. His son is way out there. The life he has lead is bizarre. His mannerisms are bizarre. His old age behaviours might seem normal but not for a President.


50 posted on 01/27/2021 8:43:10 AM PST by xp38
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To: Kaslin

“Dude” same as “guys” colloquial for “you”. Sorry.


51 posted on 01/27/2021 8:46:40 AM PST by StAnDeliver (Eric Coomer of Dominion Voting Systems Is The Blue Dress)
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To: Kaslin

Yep. Sometimes I liked what he said, just not the way he said it. However, even then I figured it was a tool he used for decades in business to get his opponents to underestimate him.


52 posted on 01/27/2021 8:55:02 AM PST by cuban leaf (We killed our economy and damaged our culture. In 2021 we will pine for the salad days of 2020.)
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To: Kaslin
Yes, he was and still is a “never-Trumper” and, to me, this bias has become even more pronounced now that Biden is his President.

All of the Trumpian things he criticized before are now his justifications for Biden’s “win”.

In other words, he was right about Trump then, and even more right now.

Whatever points he makes are lost in his based static and I feel like I waste time if I listen to him.

53 posted on 01/27/2021 9:42:10 AM PST by GBA ( Here in the matrix, “merrily, merrily ... life is but a dream.”)
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To: W.

Destroying boarders, providing citizenship to illegal aliens, banning speech, and starting a race war isn’t milquetoast.


54 posted on 01/27/2021 9:44:20 AM PST by Vision (Elections are one day. Reject "Chicago" vote harvesting. Election Reform Now. Obama is an evildoer.)
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To: Vision

He’s weak when it comes to supporting America!


55 posted on 01/27/2021 10:05:21 AM PST by W. (And now, more beer, and Les Nessman!)
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