I think people are confusing "normalized" in the sense that people have to figure out how to go about their days without either losing their minds or being incapacitated by sudden crying jags, and "normalized" in the sense that, oh, this is just how we live now, okee doke. https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1262828575805202433

Folks have figured out that you cannot live in the state of high alert that we were all in for WEEKS. You can't. Aside from anything else, there's no time for 24/7 Pandemic Alert - the kids have to be fed, the laundry has to be done, you have to answer that email about the thing.

There are certainly powerful forces hoping we'll "normalize" (be ok with) thousands of deaths every wk from a thing we don't understand & which might yet kill us or our kids - that hasn't happened & I don't think it will, bc bodies keep hitting the floor - & don't @ me w/ "guns"

There's no constituency for "let a virus keep ripping through nursing homes," there's no part of the Constitution that can be interpreted to mean deaths by virus are anyone's right, & this came out of NOWHERE. Gun deaths became "normalized" over decades - & actually?

Americans aren't resigned to gun deaths either. The opposition to the gun lobby has grown & grown & includes a CLEAR majority of Americans. That we have been prevented from saving ourselves from gun violence by craven political players doesn't mean we've "normalized" it.

Learning to live alongside a horrible, frightening, anxiety-producing reality isn't "normalizing" it - it's learning how to live alongside a horrible, frightening, anxiety-producing reality. My horror, fear, & anxiety won't bring those numbers down. People learn how to modulate.

And it's probably useful to bear in mind that it's (mostly) women who do (most) of the "normalization" work in horrifying times, because women are the ones tasked with caring for life's smaller, more intimate moments, and humanity's smaller, more intimate needs.