Biden loses sight of ‘normal’

Former President Donald Trump was defeated by the most boringly ordinary candidate that the Democratic primaries had to offer — no socialist revolution, no “big structural change,” just the candidate of “make America normal again.”

SOMETIME this summer, the Biden administration appears to have descended into the bowels of some Democratic consultancy, consulted the focus-group entrails and emerged with a strategy for the midterms: MAGAFY. Let’s roll the tape: Late last month, President Joe Biden spoke to Democratic donors about “extreme MAGA philosophy,” which he said was “like semi-fascism.” This escalated to a Sept. 1 prime-time speech in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, in which Biden exhorted American voters to save the Republic from “MAGA Republicans” who “do not respect the Constitution.” And last week he was tweeting that “Republicans have pushed an ultra-maga agenda.” Who knows how many new tiers of MAGADOM he will have introduced before November: MAGA Cum Laude, Executive Ultra Fascist Pro, the Magafascist Blackshirt Card.

Oh, but how dare I joke? Don’t I care about American democracy? Don’t I take Donald Trump’s assault on our bedrock institutions seriously?

In fact, I take it very seriously; it is the president and his advisers who are being recklessly cavalier, performing for their donor base and their followers on social media rather than undertaking the hard, patient work of actually rebuilding our frayed social norms.

This is self-indulgent