The Trump circus is not just some grand distraction—the president’s seeming propensity for decision-making by tantrum is indeed worrisome and his decisions to date really do pose dangers to democratic governance in the US, flawed as it is. His Russian connections warrant thorough and unimpeded investigation. But the anxious buzz of the times—“this is not normal”—is white noise blocking out discussion of actual policy and, particularly with regard to what the US does overseas, serving to normalize the same old imperial consensus.
