This phrase was coined by Joel Salatin, farmer, author, food activist, and public speaker, in reference to today's unhealthy food system. However, the phrase is perhaps even more fitting for the current political situation in the United States. Folks, what Donald Trump has been saying and doing ain’t normal, certainly not for the president of the United States. It’s not that something like this hasn’t happened before; it has. But it wasn’t normal then, and when it happened, the outcome wasn’t good.
The newspaper, television, and social media blogs generally focus on “the news,” what’s happening hour by hour, day by day. After so many hours, days, weeks, and months of the same kinds of ridiculous, bizarre, even frightening, things happening, they become accepted as “normal.” They become just get passed over as “another normal day in Trump World.”
Besides, all the major news sources today are owned and controlled by a handful of corporations and a few billionaires who have a stake in maintaining the economic status quo and are afraid of getting sued or their licenses revoked if they offend Trump.
Trump has been making bizarre comments for at least as long as he has been prominent enough to be quoted by the press. I won’t bother to provide examples, because to list a few would tend to mask the fact that there have been so many. The New York Times keeps an online list of Trump’s lies since taking office, and there are many. https://www.nytimes.com/.../06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html There are other lists of Trump’s potentially illegal and unconstitutional actions, most of which are currently working their way through the federal court system. https://cohen.house.gov/TrumpAdminTracker
At times, Trump comes across as rational, even presidential. At other times, however, particularly when he is fired up by a crowd or agitated about something, he seems to lose control of his thoughts and rambles on incoherently about whatever comes to mind. He often starts spewing obvious lies and vilifying or threatening his perceived adversaries. Folks, that ain’t normal, even if his outright lies, incoherent quotes, and angry threats don’t last longer than one news cycle.
On Tuesday, December 2, Trump said the U.S. was at a “tipping point.” He said, “We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.” He called a Minnesota congresswoman garbage: “Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.” Trump was referring to some 260,000 Somali immigrants—about three-fourths are naturalized citizens. “These aren’t people that say, let’s go, come on, let’s make this place great. These are people that do nothing but complain. They complain, and from where they came from, they got nothing.” “Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”
Folks, this ain’t normal. What is normal is to complain about the character of a president who calls his constituents and their elected representatives “garbage.”
Over the past few weeks, Trump’s threats and actions have moved beyond bizarre and embarrassing to become dangerous. On November 20, Trump verbally attacked six Democratic legislators who posted a video telling members of the U.S. military they have a right to and must refuse any illegal orders. Trump called them traitors and suggested they should face execution. He called it "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!" in a Truth Social post. In another post, he wrote, "Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???"
Trump ordered the FBI and the military to open investigations of the legislators, claiming they were encouraging military personnel to defy the chain of command by refusing to obey “legal” orders. His press secretary suggested there was no basis for suggesting that Trump might give an “illegal” order, since all of his orders were legal. She conveniently ignored the fact that the legality of Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago and Portland is currently being decided by the Supreme Court, after conflicting rulings by the two district court systems.
In addition, there have been persistent questions regarding the legality of Trump’s orders to destroy boats suspected of carrying illegal drugs in international waters off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia. On November 29, a Washington Post article reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered Special Operations to kill two survivors of a September 2 strike that had already destroyed a small boat off Venezuela. Even in times of declared war, it is a war crime to kill enemy soldiers who have survived battles.
On November 30, former judge advocate generals (JAGs), military lawyers, in the Former JAGs Working Group issued an unanimous statement considering “both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both,” and “anyone who issues or follows such orders [to] be prosecuted for war crimes, murder, or both.”
On November 26, two members of the National Guard on duty in Washington, DC were shot, allegedly by an Afghan refugee who had been granted asylum for his work with the CIA. A day later, on Thanksgiving Day, Trump went on one of his worst-ever rant about immigration. Once again, using a despicable act by one individual to condemn immigrants and immigration in general. He wrote “A very Happy Thanksgiving salutation to all of our Great American Citizens and Patriots who have been so nice in allowing our Country to be divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at, along with certain other foolish countries throughout the World, for being ‘Politically Correct,’ and just plain STUPID, when it comes to Immigration.”
He blamed immigration for crime and other social ills that, as president, he has been unwilling to address. He claimed that most immigrants are “from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels,” and that they are supported extravagantly by taxes paid by U.S. citizens. It blamed refugees for the nation’s “[f]ailed schools, high crime, urban decay, overcrowded hospitals, housing shortages, and large deficits.” None of this is true.
He concluded, “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”
“These goals will be pursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations... Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation. Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for—You won’t be here for long!” It’s not normal for a president of the United States to threaten to lock up or deport anyone he doesn’t measure up to “his ideas” of what America stands for.
Trump has been pursuing the idea of stripping immigrants of their naturalized citizenship since his first term as president. From 1990 to 2017, immigration records show that only about 11 people a year lost their citizenship, usually for some omission or violation in applying for citizenship. If denaturalization is allowed for failing to love America, not being an asset to the United States, the next logical step is to deport anyone Trump deems unworthy of citizenship, including natural-born citizens.
Folks, this ain’t normal, but it’s not unprecedented. When Hitler came to power in 1933, the German government began by stripping Jews, Roma (derogatorily called Gypsies), and then perceived political opponents of the Third Reich of their German citizenship. This paved the way for the confiscation of their property, their civil rights, and eventually for taking their lives.
So intelligent, advanced human societies, like the U.S., have started down this road of lies, threats, and illegal actions of political leaders before. We know where this road ends. It’s still not too late to turn back. But, as Trump’s thoughts become more deranged, his words angrier, and his threats and acts more dangerous and inclusive, time is running out. But first, more people, including the press, must wake up and realize: FOLKS, THIS AIN’T NORMAL.
John Ikerd