Whew! For those of you who celebrated the end of a tumultuous 2019 and are facing the prospect of finding the energy to address what gives every indication of another raucous year, consider that we have just completed the first two decades of the 21st Century. The cultural, economic and political shifts we have seen over the past twenty years have been nothing short of astounding.
Some would say our nation has always been one of manifest destiny where we are being led to a future based on the amazing experiment our founding fathers set in motion over 250 years ago. Others would point to a host of traumatic events of the past twenty years – years that were both surprising and deserve serious pondering. Think about the cultural and political shifts that flowed from Black Lives Matter, the #Me Too Movement, the growing acceptance of the L.G.B.T.Q. population and the accompanying awakening triggered by these movements. Think about how segments of our government and the powerful business and religious groups more aggressively presented themselves as defenders of the slowly dying fact that our nation has, for far too long, been governed by old, white men who pretended to know what is best for the rest of us.
Think about the all-too numerous catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina of 2005 and the more recent hurricane that devastated Houston. Consider the raging fires in Australia and the shrinking polar icecap that will raise the water levels of our oceans and inundate a good portion of the east coast within fifty years. https://bit.ly/2TazDLc
All of this is by way of introducing my phrase of the year, the term I have come annually to consider as the thought by which we should view events that will circumscribe the coming year.
After much thought about the changes described above – not to mention the horrific impact of opioid addiction in much of this nation, the epidemic of gun violence and the havoc being heaped upon all segments of the political world by the advent of Trumpism – I have selected “the new normal” as the 2020 phrase of the year.
Some of you will recall that 2019 saw my reference to the “rule of law” as the guiding framework of the past year. It certainly turned out to be prescient in the face of a President and his Attorney General pontificating, despite a still living Constitution, that the executive can defy oversight by the other two branches of government. The rule of law will be challenged again this year and every year that Trump remains in office.
But the real changes in our world as cited above, warrant that we turn our attention to what has happened in our nation and our world in recent years and how we confront these new realities going forward. A little definition of “the new normal” would appear in order. According to the Urban Dictionary, the phrase is widely utilized in reference to the current state of being after some dramatic change has transpired; what replaces the expected, usual, typical state after an event occurs. The new normal encourages one to deal with current situations where the previously abnormal has become commonplace.
The phrase, though used in the early 1900s, became more widely used following the tragic events of 9\11. It referred to the recognition that the trauma of the series of events that toppled the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, transfigured the ways our nation was forced to realize that worldwide terrorism had come to our shores, despite the fact of a bombing at the base of the World Trade Center which occurred in 1993. To most of us, as a result of 9\11 a new normal creeped into our lives as evidenced by the fact that every building in NYC has a security desk screening all who enter, whereas you don’t see this evident in most cities around the nation.
Today’s “new normal” calls upon us to deal with some of the following: the increasing problem of growing income inequality in our nation; how our political and economic policy will deal with 98 million aging baby boomers; widespread unemployment that will arise as robots continue to threaten the jobs of millions over the next few decades. And, what happens when the water runs out for those living in the South and Midwest?
Our US Supreme Court will shortly be called upon to address this year a spate of hot button topics that could promulgate a host of “new normal” shocks to our conventional wisdom such as: whether Roe v. Wade will be eviscerated, changing every woman’s right to choose to have an abortion; whether Dreamers will be stripped of the protections provided to them by the Obama Administration; or whether civil rights laws apply to members of the L.G.B.T Q. community.
So, here is my advice to each of my friends and colleagues around the country. Let’s all acknowledge that there is much over which we have no control. Worrying about what we cannot control is a decidedly frustrating and anxiety-producing activity. The nature of our lives and, in fact, the future of our nation, lies within those actions over which we can exercise some control and, in the final analysis, those issues we deem worthy of our taking into our own hands.
One of those steps is following through on our sacred rite of voting for candidates who can bring about needed change and doing all in our power to get our friends and families out to vote as well. Let’s commit to ensuring that we send money to candidates who reflect our values and those that have made this country the land of greatest opportunity in the world. Let’s talk about the issues and understand them – from both sides – so that we can make decisions on what works best for our nation, our children and our grandchildren.
If we do all that, then we will have spent 2020 doing constructive thinking and performing worthwhile acts that will deal, in the most positive sense, with the “new normal” that will most decidedly be part of our lives for years to come.