Why we should ‘normalize’ Trump
President-elect Donald Trump is being normalized before our eyes. On Monday, the Electoral College cast its votes in the customary way; despite pleas and demonstrations, only two Republican electors rebelled. Soon, Trump will have an entire cabinet list ready for nomination, just like an ordinary president. And on Jan. 20, less than a month from now, he’ll take the oath of office and give an inaugural address, with President Barack and Michelle Obama looking on in support (if not exactly approval). Just like normal. At every step, anguished opponents have appealed to the public, to the media and to Congress: Don’t normalize Trump.
In a narrow sense, they’re right: When Trump violates norms of public conduct — by lying about nonexistent voter fraud, refusing to accept evidence of Russian hacking or dismissing concern over conflicts of interest — nobody should pretend that’s normal.
But that kind of “normalization” isn’t happening. There’s been plenty of tough media coverage of all those issues, and even a few Republicans have been critical of their president-elect.
Often though, the demand for “no normalization” goes further, including:
If you’re a Democratic politician, don’t negotiate over Trump’s legislation. If you’re a high-tech executive, don’t meet with him. If you’re a reporter, don’t report his every utterance or chase his every tweet.
In short, don’t recognize Trump’s presidency as legitimate. “Not My President,” the signs and hashtags say. Too late; the battle over legitimacy is over. However flawed the election, Trump is about to be your president, whether or not you like it. He’ll propose legislation, and some of it will pass. His aides will write (or revoke) regulations, and some of their actions will stick. He’ll make decisions on war and peace, with life-or-death consequences.
That’s why we now need to return to the original, first meaning of “normalize,” which isn’t about describing something odd as if it were OK; it’s about actually changing something abnormal into a more normal state. We should demand that Trump normalize himself — he’s the only one who can.
We should demand that he do what he said he would do on election night: Try to unite the country. Speak out against racism and division.
We should hold him to his campaign promises: more jobs (including in the Rust Belt), a better (and cheaper) health care system, a better life for African-Americans.
That’s how a normal president gets judged.
We should ignore the abnormal advice of aide Anthony Scaramucci, who said this week: “Don’t take him literally, take him symbolically.” No dice. We should hold him to the standards of a normal president, including truthfulness.
For the media, treating Trump as a normal president means we should cover Trump and his administration as aggressively as we can. The media accord most presidents a presumption of honesty when they come into office; Trump forfeited that during the campaign. Newspapers and broadcasters should continue to use words such as “false,” “bogus” and even “lie” in reporting his tall tales.
What’s more, this is an opportunity for a renaissance of investigative reporting. An administration staffed partly with rookies and hotheads is going to have plenty of problems.
We should give Trump a chance — a chance to normalize himself, in the sense of complying with the norms every president should observe. Giving him a chance doesn’t mean giving him a break; quite the contrary. It means subjecting him to tough scrutiny, holding him to high standards and judging him against his own promises. In short, treating him like a normal president — whether or not he likes it.