The Classical Liberal Case for a Normie Politics

Why I won't 'take the red pill', nor go 'woke'.

Today, I'm going to try to reclaim the word 'normie', and make the case for embracing a 'normie politics'. Firstly, what does 'normie' mean? It is a term frequently used in online discourse, it is usually used pejoratively, and its origin is disputed. But basically, it means somebody that has not been exposed to the ideas of a certain sub-culture. In political circles, it generally means so-called 'normal' people who know nothing much about the politics of either the far-left or the far-right, and would be expected to outrightly reject those unusual ideas. For the normie, the flavors of politics range from the regular liberal to the regular conservative, and anything else would just be seen as whacky or even dangerous.

Therefore, to embrace a 'normie' orientation would just mean bringing the common sense of common people to the table, to help us make a judgement on what is real, what is sound, and what is a good solution. While this common sense is not always perfect, it is at least better than being enmeshed within a certain political subculture and its echo chambers, and getting a distorted picture of the reality as a result. In a society where the extremes are increasingly getting their way, normie-ism is perhaps the best tool to stop them in their tracks.

Contrary to popular opinion within elite progressive circles, normie politics doesn't mean we have to just assume that people are prejudiced, and pander to their biases. It also doesn't mean being close-minded and refusing to listen to new facts about life. Indeed, being sincere, truthful and reasonably open-minded are common sense values held by most people. Most people don't like people who second guess what others think and make a calculated move in taking a stance. This is why most people distrust politicians in general. A truly normie stance would be to not act like a politician. Instead, you should just speak your mind, while being open-minded about what others have to say too. But you should speak your mind without taking in prior distortions of reality, especially those that come from propaganda spreading within political echo chambers. Think of it this way: a normie is somebody who is not susceptible to political tribalism. The normie decides what is right or wrong based on their own values and instincts, rather than take tribalist political stances.

I'll give you a good example of a truly normie take on politics. In 2003, when I was 16 and in my first year of college, there were two hot button issues out there: the Iraq War and gay marriage. I decided to oppose the Iraq War and support gay marriage, just because I felt like it was the right thing to do. To put it simply, war is bad, and making people happy is good. I was new to politics back then, and didn't have any distorted preconceptions. I wasn't brainwashed to believe that perpetual war in the Middle East was somehow required to keep the West safe, or that gay marriage would threaten family values, simply because I had not been watching much news media before that point. Now, people who were brainwashed by certain echo chambers genuinely believed in those things back then. It wasn't their fault either: they had been deliberately guided into those views by propaganda, designed by those with an agenda, and lots of power, money, or both. The real normie, without prior exposure to this propaganda and forming certain preconceptions because of it, would not have seen things the same way.

Fast forward 21 years, and ideological propagada campaigns, fake news, and deliberately distorted narratives are literally everywhere. We're on a totally new level of un-reality, and frankly I'm worried for our future. A real normie would see through the problems with wokeness, but many on the left keep insisting that wokeness equals social justice. A real normie would also see through the scary authoritarianism of the populist right, but some people still insist that it is 'justified' as a push-back against the woke. The un-reality of each side is being weaponized to make the other side more extreme all the time, and too many people still can't see through all the madness. I'm particularly worried about those who push an oppressor vs oppressed narrative, those who pit free speech against social justice, those who ideologically deny scientifically valid views, and those who deliberately whip up fear and animosity towards certain minority groups.

Classical liberalism, and indeed the Western Enlightenment as a whole, is in danger of being drowned out by aggressive actors from both political extremes, and I believe embracing a normie politics helps us fight back. A normie is pro-fact, pro-science, and skeptical of narratives that don't line up with what they see in real life. A normie also has no time for elaborate theories designed to disarm our common decency and goad us into accepting inhumane extremism, and this is exactly what we need right now. Moreover, the desire for freedom itself, and a healthy skepticism towards moves to reduce individual freedom, are pretty normie too. What we need to remember is that, embracing normie politics doesn't mean you can't be guided by certain values. For example, I have strong libertarian sympathies. There is nothing un-normie about loving freedom, as long as you don't begin to think that driver's licenses are against freedom, or something totally against common sense like that.

Embracing a normie politics would also help us stay grounded in a practical, reformist path forward. Both the classical liberal belief in the power of rationality, and the Burkean conservative belief that change should be practical, gradual, and not rooted in abstract ideas alone, are totally consistent with normie values. Other essential ingredients of reformism, like compassion, willingness to compromise, and aversion to cruelty, are also part of normie values. This is why a reformist politics is basically a normie politics, and vice versa. This is why, while reformism functions on the philosophical level, and normie politics functions on a gut-instinct level, the two often arrive at very similar answers.