A Stretch
What was once taking things too far eventually is accepted as normal.
Hey Friends,
Wearing yoga pants in public used to be out of the question.
If you were caught wearing them, everyone knew you had given up. You looked like you escaped a house fire and immediately went to the grocery to shop for bread and avocados.
Going to the gym and going to church required two different standards of etiquette. Today they don't. For a while, the old among us dissented. They wore their pleated khakis and jeans devoid of stretch, and talked of when people cared about decency. Before long, an errand never required decency. First, it was drug stores, then coffee shops, then movie theaters, and before long, even some job interviews were pants optional.
Today, the former critics are wearing tights in their high-powered careers, and athleisure is the fastest-growing fashion category for men and women.
Judges are hiding spandex under their robes, and leading professional women are wearing high heels with what could have one day been their pajama pants. Until this newsletter, you'd forgotten this change had even taken place, because we've been desensitized to it. Wearing Lycra in polite society is no longer something to notice, much less criticize.
We're on a similar path in another timeline for political disagreement. In 2016, Trump did his level best to put Hillary in jail. In 1984, by comparison, you might have thought Reagan was trying to help Walter Mondale beat him in the election, and make love to him afterward.
Ten years ago, it would have been strange to arrest a political opponent for doing their job. It was unheard of to use the Marines to tamp down domestic protests. For now, it's still unusual, so when it happened last week with a little restraint, we still objected.
First, we acknowledge that senators and congressmen had interrupted a press conference or interfered with an arrest. We said that among the protesters, some of them burned Waymo cars and damaged property. And that seems reasonable. A little bit of military suppression is okay if public discourse is plagued with civil disobedience and even some crime.
If the changes are subtle enough, we might not even notice. First, it's a candidate, then a congressman, then a senator, then an unruly crowd. And eventually a silent one.
It may seem like a stretch, but eventually, that stretch is our new normal.
That's it for this week.
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Have a great weekend!
