what do you guys think of all this talk about "normalizing" Trump?
It's amazing, because living in France, the US is currently remaking everything -with more money (and shallower writing, you dumb Yankees)- we are going through for 15 years, right down to the word for it (Normalization). I think it's less relevant for the USA because how you approach freedom of speech (Europe shunned more heavily what is considered extreme far right speech, arguably didn't work better) and of the strict bipartism setup : "Normalization" in Europe refers to traditional conservatives (or even center left) reaching / pandering to far right voters using dogwhistling or adopting some of the measures and rhetoric (on immigration, relation with Muslim citizens, law and order and economic protectionism). By that measure, it's already too late in the USA because the GOP has already corralled in and been taken over by the evangelists, the Tea Partiers and the White resentment vote. Republicans playing up to the Birther controversy 8 years ago was a clear sign of where things were headed.
In Europe, due to multipartism, the far right is often its own party. If this party is in position to make some good gains in an election, often comes up the question of the "legitimate" right and left wing party making an alliance to keep them out. The problem with this, of course, is that it feeds directly into the far right narrative that those parties are one and the same establishment, that their ideological differences are irrelevant and obsolete. This solution is losing steam at every election cycle because it's really a band aid to a systemic problem and the "legitimate" right wing parties (or to be precise : some of their elected officials) feel they are played for dunces by the left. They'd rather be elected on their platform with the people on their right than to pull out to help elect people from the other side of the aisle.
At last, keep in mind that in Europe far right parties are associated with the very real experience of the fascist and proto fascist regimes that were in power during WW2, and it is a significant stigma for them (that is fading away as the memories of the war are drifting into abstract history).
The two relevant questions for the USA and for the liberals are those :
- Should we even reach out to these voters ?
- Do some of their issues (economic protectionism, immigration policy, populism in general) have merit or are they poisonous by default and not even considered ? Are discussing those letting the far right set up the agenda of public talk ?
Myself, I've never been a fan of the "normalization" theory. You can't just leper 15%-20%-25% of the voters and pretend they are not there. You can't wish away that immigration and border control* is and will be a major debate. You can't just ignore and hope that some of the fears of the citizenry will pass naturally. It also stifles debate by casting suspicions constantly on legitimate political discussions and leaving to the far right the monopoly on some ideas (If you're a center left politician and you adress patriotism or law and order talk a little too enthusiastically, be prepared to defend yourself. Same if you're not on board with the global economy and Europe as it stands.).
But then again I'm not optimistic. Neither strategy seems to work, pandering to the far right is a sure fire way to let the inmates run the asylum. There's only so much cunning political moves you can make around the reality that those opinions are shared by a considerable number of your citizens. I fear people will only be disabused by seeing for themselves how bad those fuckers will be in office, but I'm not eager of that happening either because I'm fairly confident it will mean social violence, violence violence and the economy down the tank.
* Something which the EU itself is doing abundantly.
