WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.870 I want you to uh... Take a second and imagine 00:00:02.870 --> 00:00:05.730 something for me. OK. Imagine you have just lived 00:00:05.730 --> 00:00:09.849 through a catastrophic, world -altering pandemic. 00:00:09.990 --> 00:00:12.730 Just devastating. Right. And at the exact same 00:00:12.730 --> 00:00:15.169 time, you've been weathering the fallout of a 00:00:15.169 --> 00:00:18.210 massive, devastating global war. Your entire 00:00:18.210 --> 00:00:20.989 way of life, the basic rhythm of your day -to 00:00:20.989 --> 00:00:23.070 -day existence has been completely turned upside 00:00:23.070 --> 00:00:25.530 down. Everything you know is just gone. Exactly. 00:00:25.649 --> 00:00:28.589 And then amidst all that sheer exhaustion and 00:00:28.589 --> 00:00:31.760 honestly profound uncertainty, asked to step 00:00:31.760 --> 00:00:34.039 into a voting booth and choose what comes next 00:00:34.039 --> 00:00:36.600 for your country. Which is a huge ask. It really 00:00:36.600 --> 00:00:38.700 is. What do you even vote for? When the dust 00:00:38.700 --> 00:00:41.500 settles, what do you actually want? Yeah. Welcome 00:00:41.500 --> 00:00:44.679 to the Deep Dive. Today, we are exploring a concept 00:00:44.679 --> 00:00:47.960 that perfectly captures that exact feeling. We're 00:00:47.960 --> 00:00:50.359 talking about Warren G. Harding's 1920 presidential 00:00:50.359 --> 00:00:53.780 campaign slogan, return to normalcy. It's a classic. 00:00:54.039 --> 00:00:56.539 It is. And we are working from a fantastic source 00:00:56.539 --> 00:00:59.420 text today, a detailed, comprehensive Wikipedia 00:00:59.420 --> 00:01:02.280 article that breaks down the history, the linguistics, 00:01:02.579 --> 00:01:05.219 and the lasting political impact of this incredibly 00:01:05.219 --> 00:01:07.819 potent phrase. It's a great read. Our mission 00:01:07.819 --> 00:01:10.340 for this deep dive is to explore how a single, 00:01:10.719 --> 00:01:14.040 seemingly made -up word defined an entire post 00:01:14.040 --> 00:01:17.739 -crisis era sparked a surprisingly fierce national 00:01:17.739 --> 00:01:20.359 grammar debate and create a political blueprint 00:01:20.359 --> 00:01:23.079 that, well, Campaigns are still actively using 00:01:23.079 --> 00:01:25.260 today. Yeah, it is great to be here with you 00:01:25.260 --> 00:01:28.040 to dig into this as you can see I've I've set 00:01:28.040 --> 00:01:31.120 my backdrop today to a 1920s historical archive. 00:01:31.159 --> 00:01:34.219 Oh, I see Yeah, think dusty bookshelves brass 00:01:34.219 --> 00:01:37.659 lamps CB atone newspapers. The history we are 00:01:37.659 --> 00:01:40.879 exploring today is just so rich It is incredibly 00:01:40.879 --> 00:01:43.519 fascinating to observe how the psychological 00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:46.739 need for familiarity that craving Yes that desperate 00:01:46.739 --> 00:01:49.480 craving for comfort after a massive unprecedented 00:01:49.480 --> 00:01:52.079 crisis can come completely and totally steer 00:01:52.079 --> 00:01:54.760 the course of an entire nation. We are looking 00:01:54.760 --> 00:01:57.000 at something that goes far beyond standard political 00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:59.379 theory here. It taps into something deeply fundamentally 00:01:59.379 --> 00:02:01.920 human. Okay, let's unpack this. To really understand 00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:03.780 the immense power of this phrase, we have to 00:02:03.780 --> 00:02:05.980 look closely at the state of the world in 1920. 00:02:06.219 --> 00:02:08.759 The context is everything. The historical context 00:02:08.759 --> 00:02:11.870 here is absolutely everything. The United States 00:02:11.870 --> 00:02:14.050 and the world at large had just been dragged 00:02:14.050 --> 00:02:16.590 through an absolute nightmare. First you had 00:02:16.590 --> 00:02:19.030 World War I, which wasn't just a military conflict. 00:02:19.509 --> 00:02:21.530 It fundamentally shattered the global order. 00:02:22.110 --> 00:02:25.830 It introduced mechanized slaughter, trench warfare. 00:02:26.169 --> 00:02:29.030 Mustard gas. Right, and a scale of devastation 00:02:29.030 --> 00:02:31.229 that people previously thought was just impossible. 00:02:31.479 --> 00:02:33.840 And if that wasn't enough, you had the Spanish 00:02:33.840 --> 00:02:36.520 flu pandemic sweeping the globe. It was terrifying. 00:02:36.780 --> 00:02:38.960 Bringing sickness and death right to people's 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:41.819 front doors. It was a silent terror that closed 00:02:41.819 --> 00:02:44.840 schools. Shuttered businesses. And atomized society. 00:02:45.219 --> 00:02:47.419 Yeah. Life had been completely upended. Yeah. 00:02:47.860 --> 00:02:51.310 And then on May 14th, 1920, Warren G. Harding 00:02:51.310 --> 00:02:53.550 gives a speech and drops a line that would change 00:02:53.550 --> 00:02:56.090 the trajectory of the decade. He proclaimed that 00:02:56.090 --> 00:02:59.889 America needed not nostrums, but normalcy. Nostrums? 00:03:00.129 --> 00:03:02.409 Yeah, a nostrum in that context, meaning a fake 00:03:02.409 --> 00:03:05.310 medicine or a quick untested fix. And he didn't 00:03:05.310 --> 00:03:07.819 just say it once either. Two months later, during 00:03:07.819 --> 00:03:10.479 a homecoming speech, he doubled down, reaffirming 00:03:10.479 --> 00:03:13.240 his endorsement of normal times and a return 00:03:13.240 --> 00:03:16.060 to normalcy. What's fascinating here is the underlying 00:03:16.060 --> 00:03:20.099 why of that specific strategy. Harding explicitly 00:03:20.099 --> 00:03:22.539 recognized that the perspective of humanity had 00:03:22.539 --> 00:03:25.360 been fundamentally altered by these dual traumas. 00:03:25.539 --> 00:03:28.919 It wasn't the same world. Not at all. His solution 00:03:28.919 --> 00:03:31.240 was just as much psychological as it was political. 00:03:31.740 --> 00:03:34.500 If you look at the rhetoric of the era, he wasn't 00:03:34.500 --> 00:03:37.259 offering a grand utopian vision of the future. 00:03:37.520 --> 00:03:40.460 No shining city on a hill. Exactly. He was offering 00:03:40.460 --> 00:03:43.060 a very specific, highly targeted kind of relief. 00:03:43.639 --> 00:03:45.840 He argued that the way forward was actually to 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:48.800 look backward, to seek normalcy, by restoring 00:03:48.800 --> 00:03:51.479 life to exactly how it was before the war. Just 00:03:51.479 --> 00:03:53.939 hit rewind. Pretty much. He was speaking directly 00:03:53.939 --> 00:03:56.639 to a traumatized electorate and saying, essentially, 00:03:57.439 --> 00:03:59.020 don't you just want things to be quiet again? 00:03:59.199 --> 00:04:01.120 But wait, I have to push back on that a little 00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:04.860 bit. Sure. Was normalcy actually a real actionable 00:04:04.860 --> 00:04:07.639 policy or was it just a brilliant empty marketing 00:04:07.639 --> 00:04:10.060 slogan? That is a fair question. Because saying 00:04:10.060 --> 00:04:12.780 you want things to be quiet doesn't exactly tell 00:04:12.780 --> 00:04:16.639 me how you are going to govern a rapidly industrializing 00:04:16.639 --> 00:04:19.120 nation. So what does this all mean when the rubber 00:04:19.120 --> 00:04:21.560 meets the road? That is the crucial question. 00:04:21.740 --> 00:04:24.300 And the historical record shows it was absolutely 00:04:24.300 --> 00:04:27.060 a concrete platform. Harding's conception of 00:04:27.060 --> 00:04:30.360 normalcy translated into three main policy pillars. 00:04:31.100 --> 00:04:33.920 Deregulation, a specific brand of civic engagement, 00:04:34.540 --> 00:04:37.019 and strict isolationism. Okay, so there was substance 00:04:37.019 --> 00:04:39.980 there. Oh, absolutely. To fully grasp the weight 00:04:39.980 --> 00:04:42.339 of that platform, you have to look at what Harding 00:04:42.339 --> 00:04:45.819 was actively... rejecting. He was pushing back 00:04:45.819 --> 00:04:48.040 hard against the prevailing political winds of 00:04:48.040 --> 00:04:50.800 his predecessors. Woodrow Wilson had just exhausted 00:04:50.800 --> 00:04:53.300 the nation by trying to build the League of Nations 00:04:53.300 --> 00:04:56.459 and trying to entangle the U .S. in incredibly 00:04:56.459 --> 00:04:59.459 complex European diplomacy. Harding looked at 00:04:59.459 --> 00:05:02.379 that global idealism and said, no more. We're 00:05:02.379 --> 00:05:04.300 locking the front door and tending to our own 00:05:04.300 --> 00:05:06.319 house. So it was a total rejection of the global 00:05:06.319 --> 00:05:08.660 stage. Exactly. And it was also a rejection of 00:05:08.660 --> 00:05:10.740 domestic exhaustion. What do you mean? Well, 00:05:10.759 --> 00:05:12.800 before Wilson, you had the energetic domestic 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:15.300 activism of Theodore Roosevelt. You know, the 00:05:15.300 --> 00:05:17.620 progressive trust busting, the constant executive 00:05:17.620 --> 00:05:21.220 action. The public had essentially lived through 00:05:21.220 --> 00:05:24.180 two decades of high octane, activist government. 00:05:24.759 --> 00:05:26.839 Harding favored a return to the earlier, much 00:05:26.839 --> 00:05:28.980 more hands -off laissez -faire policy of the 00:05:28.980 --> 00:05:31.939 United States. He wanted to shrink the government's 00:05:31.939 --> 00:05:35.019 footprint at home and just let business run itself. 00:05:35.220 --> 00:05:38.740 Give everyone a break. Exactly. I want you, the 00:05:38.740 --> 00:05:41.139 listener. to really think about the mechanics 00:05:41.139 --> 00:05:43.899 of that appeal for a moment. Think about your 00:05:43.899 --> 00:05:46.740 own life today. Yeah, we can all relate to this. 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:49.420 When you are feeling completely overwhelmed by 00:05:49.420 --> 00:05:51.959 information overload, or when the global news 00:05:51.959 --> 00:05:54.560 cycle just feels entirely chaotic and unending, 00:05:55.180 --> 00:05:57.959 the appeal of just going back to basics, of shutting 00:05:57.959 --> 00:06:00.000 the door and returning to a simpler time, is 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:02.920 a profoundly powerful draw. It really is. Harding 00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:05.889 weaponized that exact human impulse. He turned 00:06:05.889 --> 00:06:08.230 the desire to tune out into a legitimate political 00:06:08.230 --> 00:06:10.310 philosophy. Here's where it gets really interesting, 00:06:10.629 --> 00:06:13.009 though. You would think a comforting, almost 00:06:13.009 --> 00:06:15.170 sleepy message like that would be universally 00:06:15.170 --> 00:06:17.490 embraced by an exhausted public. You'd think 00:06:17.490 --> 00:06:20.189 so. But it actually sparked a massive controversy. 00:06:20.610 --> 00:06:23.050 And the controversy wasn't even about the deregulation 00:06:23.050 --> 00:06:25.750 or the isolationism. It was about the grammar. 00:06:25.930 --> 00:06:27.709 The grammar debate is my favorite part of this 00:06:27.709 --> 00:06:30.029 whole thing. His critics practically laughed 00:06:30.029 --> 00:06:32.750 him out of the room. They accused him of just 00:06:32.750 --> 00:06:34.949 fumbling the English language and making up a 00:06:34.949 --> 00:06:37.769 clumsy neologism on the spot. A total fake word. 00:06:37.870 --> 00:06:41.209 Right. They argue that he was trying to say normality 00:06:41.209 --> 00:06:43.649 and just didn't know any better. They tried to 00:06:43.649 --> 00:06:47.110 paint him as this uneducated provincial guy from 00:06:47.110 --> 00:06:49.930 Ohio who couldn't even speak properly. And that 00:06:49.930 --> 00:06:52.009 is where the linguistic history becomes so critical 00:06:52.009 --> 00:06:55.629 because that elitist backlash actually backfired 00:06:55.629 --> 00:06:57.930 spectacularly. We totally did. Think about the 00:06:57.930 --> 00:07:01.410 optics of this. You have a bunch of highly educated, 00:07:01.790 --> 00:07:04.250 Peace Coast intellectuals, essentially grammar 00:07:04.250 --> 00:07:07.449 policing a candidate from Ohio. An ultimate unforced 00:07:07.449 --> 00:07:11.009 error. Truly. By attacking his vocabulary, his 00:07:11.009 --> 00:07:13.750 detractors inadvertently made Harding look like 00:07:13.750 --> 00:07:16.670 a regular, relatable person to the average voter. 00:07:17.209 --> 00:07:19.709 It framed him as an outsider being bullied by 00:07:19.709 --> 00:07:21.920 the establishment. Which is a populist dynamic 00:07:21.920 --> 00:07:24.399 we still see playing out constantly today. All 00:07:24.399 --> 00:07:27.459 the time. That is such a sharp insight. The grammar 00:07:27.459 --> 00:07:29.959 police made him the man of the people. And the 00:07:29.959 --> 00:07:32.160 best part is, Harding didn't even back down. 00:07:32.259 --> 00:07:34.819 No. He was a former newspaper editor, so he actually 00:07:34.819 --> 00:07:37.480 knew his way around words. He fired right back 00:07:37.480 --> 00:07:39.740 at his critics, stating publicly that the word 00:07:39.740 --> 00:07:42.360 normalcy was in his dictionary, but the word 00:07:42.360 --> 00:07:45.100 normality wasn't. And if we look at the historical 00:07:45.100 --> 00:07:48.629 evidence, Harding was actually right. Really? 00:07:48.870 --> 00:07:51.750 Yes. The linguistic historians point out that 00:07:51.750 --> 00:07:54.670 there is clear, contemporaneous documentation 00:07:54.670 --> 00:07:57.629 proving normalcy had been listed in dictionaries 00:07:57.629 --> 00:08:00.949 as far back as 1857. So it wasn't made up at 00:08:00.949 --> 00:08:02.790 all? Not at all. It was an accepted variant. 00:08:03.189 --> 00:08:05.569 But here is the absolute best detail from the 00:08:05.569 --> 00:08:07.470 research. You ready for this? Hit me. Before 00:08:07.470 --> 00:08:10.430 Harding used it in his campaign, normalcy was 00:08:10.430 --> 00:08:13.389 essentially an obscure math term. Wait, math? 00:08:14.129 --> 00:08:17.009 Like algebra? Geometry. You are kidding. No. 00:08:17.149 --> 00:08:19.389 It was used in geometry to describe the state 00:08:19.389 --> 00:08:21.709 of being at right angles. Right angles, haha. 00:08:21.910 --> 00:08:24.610 That is amazing. I know, I get way too excited 00:08:24.610 --> 00:08:27.560 about this stuff. He took this incredibly niche, 00:08:28.139 --> 00:08:31.220 completely forgotten mathematical word and entirely 00:08:31.220 --> 00:08:34.360 hijacked it, turning into the defining cultural 00:08:34.360 --> 00:08:38.139 and political buzzword of the 1920s. I honestly 00:08:38.139 --> 00:08:41.320 love that detail. A geometry term becoming the 00:08:41.320 --> 00:08:44.100 linguistic vehicle for a nation's postwar trauma. 00:08:44.759 --> 00:08:47.500 It is such a brilliant piece of historical trivia. 00:08:47.580 --> 00:08:49.899 It really is. But what I find so striking about 00:08:49.899 --> 00:08:52.919 this whole campaign is the PR execution, because 00:08:52.919 --> 00:08:55.289 he didn't just give speeches about a return to 00:08:55.289 --> 00:08:57.909 a quiet life, he gave the public a visual representation 00:08:57.909 --> 00:09:00.809 of it. Yes, Steve Optics. And he did it by utilizing 00:09:00.809 --> 00:09:03.590 a PR strategy that is so highly memorable and 00:09:03.590 --> 00:09:05.629 honestly so modern. When you look at the newspaper 00:09:05.629 --> 00:09:08.210 archives from the campaign, Harding is constantly 00:09:08.210 --> 00:09:10.750 photographed with his dog, Laddy Boy. Laddy Boy. 00:09:10.990 --> 00:09:13.429 Yeah. It's a wonderful detail. But it's important 00:09:13.429 --> 00:09:15.389 to understand the calculated mechanics behind 00:09:15.389 --> 00:09:17.330 it. It wasn't just a cute photo op. Well, it 00:09:17.330 --> 00:09:20.240 was cute. But featuring Laddy Boy... who was 00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:22.860 an Airedale Terrier, by the way, in the newspapers, 00:09:23.460 --> 00:09:25.279 wasn't just about showing off a pet to get some 00:09:25.279 --> 00:09:28.500 easy press. It was specifically designed to instill 00:09:28.500 --> 00:09:32.419 a cozy domestic image that directly reinforced 00:09:32.419 --> 00:09:35.759 his broader vision of normalcy. Oh, wow. Think 00:09:35.759 --> 00:09:38.440 about the stark visual contrast the public was 00:09:38.440 --> 00:09:41.159 experiencing. Voters had spent years reading 00:09:41.159 --> 00:09:43.899 grim newspaper headlines accompanied by photographs 00:09:43.899 --> 00:09:47.940 of trench warfare, gas masks and massive infirmaries 00:09:47.940 --> 00:09:50.909 filled with flu patients. Just heavy, heavy imagery. 00:09:51.370 --> 00:09:53.850 Exactly. And now, Harding has provided the press 00:09:53.850 --> 00:09:56.649 with headlines featuring a very good boy playing 00:09:56.649 --> 00:09:58.870 fetch on the lawn. It's brilliant. It was an 00:09:58.870 --> 00:10:02.240 intentional visual manifestation of peace. quiet 00:10:02.240 --> 00:10:05.120 and domestic tranquility. It told the voter the 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:07.379 crises are over. We are back to worrying about 00:10:07.379 --> 00:10:09.879 normal everyday things. And the craziest part 00:10:09.879 --> 00:10:12.639 of all of this is how flawlessly that entire 00:10:12.639 --> 00:10:15.080 package worked. The math term, the rejection 00:10:15.080 --> 00:10:17.700 of globalism, the dog on the lawn, it all resonated 00:10:17.700 --> 00:10:21.019 deeply. Harding didn't just win the 1920 presidential 00:10:21.019 --> 00:10:24.759 election. He secured a massive mandate. The historical 00:10:24.759 --> 00:10:27.519 record highlights that he won with a staggering 00:10:27.519 --> 00:10:30.679 60 .4 percent of the popular vote, though some 00:10:30.679 --> 00:10:34.070 historic text, note it at 60 .3%. A rounding 00:10:34.070 --> 00:10:36.769 error, really? Right. Regardless of the decimal, 00:10:36.870 --> 00:10:40.259 that is an absolute undeniable blowout. The public 00:10:40.259 --> 00:10:43.080 overwhelmingly bought what he was selling. They 00:10:43.080 --> 00:10:45.019 didn't want the complexities of the League of 00:10:45.019 --> 00:10:47.000 Nations. They wanted the dog. They wanted the 00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:49.139 quiet. They wanted the normalcy. If we connect 00:10:49.139 --> 00:10:51.259 this to the bigger picture, we see that this 00:10:51.259 --> 00:10:54.460 concept, this specific rhetorical tool, absolutely 00:10:54.460 --> 00:10:58.080 did not die in 1920. Not even close. The appeal 00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:00.419 of a return to normalcy becomes a recurring, 00:11:00.419 --> 00:11:03.379 cyclical theme in American history whenever there's 00:11:03.379 --> 00:11:06.200 a period of massive upheaval. The research cites 00:11:06.200 --> 00:11:08.580 Chalmers M. Roberts, a prominent journalist for 00:11:08.580 --> 00:11:10.519 the Washington Post, who made some brilliant 00:11:10.519 --> 00:11:12.820 historical connections regarding this exact phenomenon. 00:11:12.899 --> 00:11:15.820 What did he find? Roberts compared the 1920 desire 00:11:15.820 --> 00:11:18.500 for a return to normalcy directly to the national 00:11:18.500 --> 00:11:21.940 mood during the 1946 midterms. And if you look 00:11:21.940 --> 00:11:25.120 at 1946, it makes perfect sense. The country 00:11:25.120 --> 00:11:27.799 had just emerged from the incredible trauma and 00:11:27.799 --> 00:11:30.139 total mobilization of World War II. They were 00:11:30.139 --> 00:11:32.600 exhausted all over again. Right. The exact same 00:11:32.600 --> 00:11:35.919 psychological craving for a baseline. Precisely. 00:11:36.240 --> 00:11:38.779 Roberts also compared it to the 1992 presidential 00:11:38.779 --> 00:11:41.700 election, which came right after the collapse 00:11:41.700 --> 00:11:43.820 of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. 00:11:44.019 --> 00:11:46.500 Wow. So the pattern holds. It does. In every 00:11:46.500 --> 00:11:48.639 single one of these instances, you have a population 00:11:48.639 --> 00:11:51.100 that has been subjected to a sustained period 00:11:51.100 --> 00:11:54.419 of high -spakes abnormal geopolitical tension. 00:11:54.730 --> 00:11:57.350 They are tired of holding their breath, and they 00:11:57.350 --> 00:11:59.509 invariably look for a leader who promises that 00:11:59.509 --> 00:12:01.830 it is safe to exhale, to turn their attention 00:12:01.830 --> 00:12:05.389 back inward to domestic life. It's such a pervasive, 00:12:05.769 --> 00:12:08.769 powerful idea that it even bleeds into our entertainment 00:12:08.769 --> 00:12:11.629 and how we fictionalize history. Oh, yeah. Just 00:12:11.629 --> 00:12:13.429 as a quick pop culture note from the articles, 00:12:13.669 --> 00:12:15.990 the acclaimed television show Boardwalk Empire 00:12:15.990 --> 00:12:18.889 actually highlights this exact moment in history. 00:12:19.210 --> 00:12:21.789 Fantastic show. Yeah. The 12th episode of the 00:12:21.789 --> 00:12:24.529 series takes place entirely during this 1920 00:12:24.529 --> 00:12:27.090 election, and the episode is literally titled, 00:12:27.590 --> 00:12:31.169 A Return to Normalcy. It shows just how defining 00:12:31.169 --> 00:12:33.870 that phrase was for the era. It became the cultural 00:12:33.870 --> 00:12:36.629 shorthand for the 1920s. It absolutely did. But 00:12:36.629 --> 00:12:39.730 it is fascinating to see how this 1920s playbook 00:12:39.730 --> 00:12:42.769 survived well into the modern era. When you look 00:12:42.769 --> 00:12:45.350 at the historical record, campaigns still tap 00:12:45.350 --> 00:12:48.289 into this exact sentiment today. For instance, 00:12:48.570 --> 00:12:51.009 historians note that Joe Biden's 2020 campaign 00:12:51.009 --> 00:12:53.549 relied on a very similar rhetorical promise. 00:12:53.970 --> 00:12:56.169 Yes, the source text draws a very clear line 00:12:56.169 --> 00:12:58.250 there. Exactly. And we should be incredibly clear 00:12:58.250 --> 00:13:01.009 here. We are just looking at how the source text 00:13:01.009 --> 00:13:03.190 connects these historical dots. We aren't taking 00:13:03.190 --> 00:13:05.570 any sides or endorsing any political viewpoints 00:13:05.570 --> 00:13:07.909 left or right. Of course, just strictly analyzing 00:13:07.909 --> 00:13:10.370 the history. Right. Specifically, the articles 00:13:10.370 --> 00:13:12.690 point out that Biden's campaign was explicitly 00:13:12.690 --> 00:13:15.049 associated with a return to normalcy regarding 00:13:15.049 --> 00:13:17.490 his promises to end the divisiveness. of the 00:13:17.490 --> 00:13:19.889 preceding years, as well as his central focus 00:13:19.889 --> 00:13:22.830 on tackling the COVID -19 pandemic and restoring 00:13:22.830 --> 00:13:25.269 a baseline of functionality. That's a perfect 00:13:25.269 --> 00:13:27.409 example of the cyclical nature of this rhetoric. 00:13:27.990 --> 00:13:29.730 Furthermore, the analysis connects Harding's 00:13:29.730 --> 00:13:33.190 original concept to other major pervasive modern 00:13:33.190 --> 00:13:37.370 phrases. Like what? Well, the idea of establishing 00:13:37.370 --> 00:13:40.320 a new normal. which is a term we have all heard 00:13:40.320 --> 00:13:42.620 ad nauseum in recent years, is fundamentally 00:13:42.620 --> 00:13:44.980 concerned with trying to emerge from abnormal 00:13:44.980 --> 00:13:47.240 periods, just like the electorate was trying 00:13:47.240 --> 00:13:50.600 to do in 1920. Oh, that makes sense. The historical 00:13:50.600 --> 00:13:52.980 analysis also links the underlying sentiment 00:13:52.980 --> 00:13:56.419 of normalcy directly to the slogan, make America 00:13:56.419 --> 00:13:59.700 great again. Another massive era defining phrase. 00:13:59.960 --> 00:14:02.500 Exactly. And again, when you strip away the specific 00:14:02.500 --> 00:14:05.179 partisan politics of these modern examples, you 00:14:05.179 --> 00:14:07.139 find that all of these concepts share the exact 00:14:07.139 --> 00:14:10.080 same rhetorical DNA. The same playbook. Yes. 00:14:10.220 --> 00:14:12.799 They all acknowledge a current period of abnormality, 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:15.500 crisis or decline, and they all promise the voter 00:14:15.500 --> 00:14:18.419 a restoration of a better, more familiar and 00:14:18.419 --> 00:14:20.360 more comfortable time. It really is incredible 00:14:20.360 --> 00:14:23.159 how cyclical it all is. Tracing the lineage back, 00:14:23.220 --> 00:14:24.980 you realize that so much of modern political 00:14:24.980 --> 00:14:27.700 messaging is just echoing a century old playbook. 00:14:27.779 --> 00:14:30.960 We're just repeating the cycles. So. To synthesize 00:14:30.960 --> 00:14:33.679 our journey today, we started by looking at a 00:14:33.679 --> 00:14:36.899 world utterly traumatized by unprecedented global 00:14:36.899 --> 00:14:40.460 war and a devastating invisible pandemic. We 00:14:40.460 --> 00:14:43.679 saw how a politician, Warren G. Harding, correctly 00:14:43.679 --> 00:14:46.659 read the room and capitalized on that sheer public 00:14:46.659 --> 00:14:49.159 exhaustion. You saw the fatigue. He did. He took 00:14:49.159 --> 00:14:52.179 an obscure, forgotten geometry term, normalcy, 00:14:52.600 --> 00:14:55.279 and elevated it into a defining political philosophy 00:14:55.279 --> 00:14:59.139 built on deregulation and isolationism. He successfully 00:14:59.139 --> 00:15:01.580 navigated a national grammar debate that actually 00:15:01.580 --> 00:15:03.659 made him look more relatable to the common voter. 00:15:03.840 --> 00:15:05.779 The ultimate backfire for his critics. Seriously. 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:08.419 He sold his vision to the masses with carefully 00:15:08.419 --> 00:15:10.600 orchestrated pictures of his dog, Laddie Boy, 00:15:10.899 --> 00:15:13.840 and he rode that profound human craving for comfort 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:17.799 all the way to a historic 60 -plus percent landslide 00:15:17.799 --> 00:15:20.279 victory. And that is exactly why digging into 00:15:20.279 --> 00:15:22.539 history like this is so crucial for you. Yes. 00:15:22.720 --> 00:15:24.759 Understanding the story of 1920 helps you see 00:15:24.759 --> 00:15:26.580 right through the rhetoric of modern crises. 00:15:27.370 --> 00:15:29.649 news today and hear politicians promising a return 00:15:29.649 --> 00:15:32.370 to the good old days or pledging to restore things 00:15:32.370 --> 00:15:34.710 to exactly how they used to be, you now know 00:15:34.710 --> 00:15:37.090 the exact playbook they are using. You can see 00:15:37.090 --> 00:15:38.690 the strings being pulled. You know it was written 00:15:38.690 --> 00:15:41.529 over a hundred years ago and you understand the 00:15:41.529 --> 00:15:44.889 powerful deeply ingrained psychological strings 00:15:44.889 --> 00:15:47.090 it is attempting to pull. It completely changes 00:15:47.090 --> 00:15:49.830 how you listen to a stump speech. You stop hearing 00:15:49.830 --> 00:15:52.169 just the words and start seeing the psychological 00:15:52.169 --> 00:15:54.769 architecture underneath them. This raises an 00:15:54.769 --> 00:15:56.370 important question, though, and I want to leave 00:15:56.370 --> 00:15:59.669 you with a final lingering thought to mull over 00:15:59.669 --> 00:16:02.950 long after we wrap up today. All right. We have 00:16:02.950 --> 00:16:06.629 established that the promise of normalcy is incredibly 00:16:06.629 --> 00:16:09.950 powerful. It wins landslide elections. Clearly. 00:16:10.690 --> 00:16:14.929 But. If normalcy is just a subjective memory 00:16:14.929 --> 00:16:17.830 of a time before a crisis, is returning to it 00:16:17.830 --> 00:16:21.389 actually possible? Oh, wow. Or do profound crises 00:16:21.389 --> 00:16:24.090 like global wars and pandemics permanently alter 00:16:24.090 --> 00:16:26.669 us, meaning the normal we are trying so desperately 00:16:26.669 --> 00:16:29.590 to return to is just a fiction we invented to 00:16:29.590 --> 00:16:32.649 comfort ourselves? Oh, that is a heavy and genuinely 00:16:32.649 --> 00:16:35.529 fascinating thought to end on. The idea that 00:16:35.529 --> 00:16:37.990 normalcy is just a fictional comfort we build 00:16:37.990 --> 00:16:39.870 to get us through the hard times. I'm going to 00:16:39.870 --> 00:16:42.110 think about it. Definitely. Thank you so much 00:16:42.110 --> 00:16:44.269 for joining us on this deep dive. We absolutely 00:16:44.269 --> 00:16:46.929 love unpacking these complex historical threads 00:16:46.929 --> 00:16:48.809 with you and seeing how they connect to the world 00:16:48.809 --> 00:16:51.870 we live in today. Until next time, stay curious.