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Revenge of the Normies                                                                                    

Posted at: May/26/2024 : Posted by: Mel

Related Category: Society, Watching America,

Did you ever see the movie “Revenge of the Nerds”, 1984? The appeal of the movie is that the “beautiful people”, the Jocks and Cheerleaders at the fictional college have set themselves up as an elite group. The charm in the story arc is the eventual realization that not just “Nerds”, but nearly everyone has been preyed upon by the beautiful people leading to a campus revolution led by the nerds. Maybe this is what the 2024 Presidential election is really about. Are the “Normies” finally deciding they have had enough of being told everything they are supposedly doing wrong by a small class of elitists?

The “normies” are the modern equivalent of the mythical “silent majority.” They want to work, get married, have children – all those boring things typically associated with being or acting normal. This does not mean mass conformity, but it does have a lot to do with not being told all the time that everything you are doing is wrong. Most of the telling is coming from a class of individuals who have acquired political power, uber-wealth, or both. These elites have come to believe that they know what is best for you in both action and thought. But normies are focused on their own set of simple priorities.

Most normies live pretty close to paycheck-to-paycheck. This is not necessarily a bad thing as long as you have a steady job leading to steady paychecks. When President Biden brags about creating a record number of jobs during the first 3 years of his administration, normies know better. They know that these are the same jobs that were shuttered as part of the COVID lockdown. Returning to the same job you had pre-COVID is not job creation.

Living paycheck-to-paycheck means that most normies are very sensitive to inflation. If you managed to get a 4% raise that would seem wonderful most of the time. But during the last 3 years, groceries are up over 21%, baby food up 29%, electricity up 28%, natural gas up 30% and gasoline up nearly 100% as a national average. Dealing with these financial challenges daily makes it hard to accept that Bidenomics has made life better. Other categories including eating out, pet food, used cars, and apparel to list only a few that are all up substantially over real wages. Arguably, these product groups are up because of the supply chain broken by COVID-19, but that doesn’t mean it hurts less.

Most normies want to raise a family. In this phase worrying about their children’s education matters. If given the resources, most would choose to use private or charter schools, and only reluctantly accept the local public schools. At the kitchen table, there are always two big questions: How much homework do you have and what did you learn today? Sharing that there are 47 different genders and how to use all the socially appropriate pronouns is not what parents want to hear. Reading, writing, math, science and conventional history are what most parents hope their children are learning. Most normies are not against someone being in the LGBT spectrum, but it should not be the focus at school instead of the basics. Teachers should also not be allowed to keep secrets from parents about their children’s behavior. Helping a child through a potential gender identity crisis should include parents. Concurrently, parents know that young children idolize the words of their teachers. If a teacher starts discussing everything from gender to socialism, the child is likely to follow or want to participate out of admiration for the teacher.

Another thing that turns off normies is DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). Those are all words to aspire to and they should not be offensive. Unfortunately, DEI programs are generally taught by first breaking everyone into distinct groups. Then there are the lessons on how one group is oppressing the next, and so on, and so on. Most normies in kindergarten or Sunday school were taught “The Golden Rule”. Versions vary but most commonly share the principle of “treating others as you would hope they treat you.” This is not about being, black, Asian, Muslim, gay, Irish, female, Christian or Jew. This is about offering everyone respect without first separating them by religion, race, or some other protected characteristic. Most normies are confused by the notion of replacing the Golden Rule with DEI. Maybe, all that’s needed is a refresher on the Golden Rule.

Sports are something that most normies have done or their children are doing. For this very reason, they understand the notion of “Fairness.” There is nothing fair about a genetically born male with larger bones and more muscle mass competing in woman/girl-specific sports areas. This does not mean they are being denied a chance to compete, merely that they should participate in the boy’s division. Regardless of how someone identifies, for sports competitions to be FAIR this is simply common sense and most of us get that.

The recent Biden appointee to the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson recently concerning the First Amendment said that it is “hamstringing the government in significant ways.” While an elitist wants to control speech, an educated Constitutional scholar should understand that the first eleven Amendments are specifically written to limit the power of a central government. The voices of a normie can be very frustrating to an elite. It is disappointing that a Justice of our highest court does not understand the importance of free speech, but this is the same Judge who during her Senate hearing could not define what a woman was.

The elites are dominated by a group of individuals who have accumulated power, fiscal wealth or both. Because they surround themselves with “yes-men”, they start to believe their own fodder … an unfortunate side effect of wealth and power.

The elites, for their part, wish to change everything: the car you drive, the appliances in your kitchen, the definition of sex, the climate, our history, what you eat, and even the straw you use to enjoy your smoothie. For them there does not appear to be good and evil, or right and wrong, only oppressors and oppressed (aka; cultural Marxism). Every transaction or thought demands their intervention by an edict to protect a designated group of oppressed. In this model, “Social justice” translates neatly into “elite control.”

The evolution of this elite class is contradictory to their political origins. The modern Democratic Party rose to prominence during the pre-WWII Great Depression. Their focus was to protect the “little guy” or “average Joe” from the oppression of corporate management and develop government safety nets on their behalf. Now the elitist extreme of the Democratic Party presumes that the “average Joe” is not smart enough to make decisions for themselves. Therefore, people must be guided on what to eat, what car to buy and even how to think about challenging situations. For a grown adult, the notion of having all your decisions made for you is offensive.

Calvera (the bad guy in “The Magnificent Seven”:1960) “If God didn’t want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep.”

A fierce political conflict is raging over much of the democratic world. On one side we find the normies: ordinary people who defend, naively, the historic principles of democracy such as freedom of speech and assembly, the separation of powers, making choices in their own lives, etc. On the other side stand the elites, masters of the great institutions of wealth, knowledge, and power, who insist that extraordinary measures must be taken to save a depraved and self-destructive society from its history and its people—that is to say, from the normies.

The elites are driven entirely by the impulse to control. While they claim to be protectors of democracy, they hate it because they keep talking about how it is getting in their way. They insist that individual rights keep getting in the way of their best ideas for us. Nancy Pelosi is still considered one of the leading voices of the American Democratic Party. At a recent Oxford Union Society debate that Ms. Pelosi participated in, the subject was “Populism.” When talking about people who subscribe to Populism candidates such as Donald Trump she said: “These poor souls who are looking for some answers…we’ve given them answers but they are blocked by their views on Guns, gays and God.” The reference to “these poor souls” and “we’ve given them…” is a clear indication of how an elitist mindset has taken over the leadership of the Democratic Party. To be fair, this is not the whole Democratic Party, but the majority seems to be dominated or scared of an extreme leftist fringe of elites.

But all is not lost. While the normies may be by their very nature a disorganized crowd, they do periodically pour into the streets in large numbers and elect politicians loathed by the elites. Javier Milei did it in Argentina and Donald Trump could do it in the United States. The elites are creatures of hierarchy, who need a mob with pitchforks and torches to follow them. Historically, the peasants will get tired of running around burning castles and eventually go home where there are chores to get done.

Without their angry mobs to follow them, the elites will be left sounding like that lone crazy person at the corner. The world needs normies and farmers, elites serve no long-term purpose.

Old Man talking to Chris in the last scene of “The Magnificent Seven” (1960): “Only the farmers have won. They remain forever. They are like the land itself. You helped rid them of Calvera, the way a strong wind helps rid them of locusts.”

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