The best/most used new word for 2024 may well prove to be “Normies.” Unless you are addicted to Fox News or MSNBC, you aren’t likely to know the word — more to the point, most Normies probably haven’t heard they’ve been so labelled.

Pollsters and demographers have coined the term to identify normal American voters. These are people who don’t obsess on politics and harbor generally moderate views when they rarely think about public policy. These are men and women occupied with raising kids, running shuttle service to and from soccer games and gymnastic meets. They have bills to pay, jobs to help with and unnumbered nagging demands on their time — Normies.

Pundits theorize 70% to 80% of us fall into this category, while a mere  10% to 15% are progressive zealots on the left or MAGA alarmists on the right steering the shriveling husks of our two major political parties. It is arguable none of us are truly normal when you scratch deeply enough. Few of us enjoyed perfect parents in perfect marriages and psychic wounds haunt most of our lives. Nonetheless, Americans master those traumas and strive to be better parents themselves. We are more likely to help a neighbor on a weekend than join a protest. We don’t need a guru to tell us anger drains our positive energies and throttles our happiness. If we’re lucky, this begins to look a lot like maturity.

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The din of political argument is more than annoying, it’s downright depressing and ultimately a waste of time. A Smithsonian historian, who subscribes to the notion of cyclical patterns in American politics, recently pointed out presidential elections featuring a repeat contest between the same candidates from the previous election foretell a major realignment during subsequent years. This premise strikes me as dubious, particularly when I noted he dropped the Eisenhower vs. Stevenson rematch of 1956. I am more of a “black swan” adherent myself. Politics is unpredictable because life is unpredictable. Nor am I inclined to suspect a divine chess master has our destinies all worked out. There’s always ample opportunity for random ignorance, incompetence as well as free will, all defying conspiracy theorists’ efforts to explain everything. Stuff happens. A search for collusion is generally a fool’s errand.

Normies may be getting fed up with fringe nonsense. A myriad of still relatively formless organizations are sprouting in hopes of encouraging substantive dialogue across the festering “divide” in our politics. Their emergence harkens us to the possibility of better days ahead.

The Concord Coalition, together with several allied “balanced budget” advocacy think-tanks, have been conducting two-day workshops with intentionally bipartisan groupings of average citizens. Usually held over a weekend, a 6-hour tutorial is offered on Saturday where expert speakers walk participants through the federal budgeting process. Following a generous breakfast and optional religious services, panels reconvene late Sunday morning to create their budgets. Liberals and conservatives reach agreement on a balanced federal budget in an average of two-and-a-half hours. This contrasts with a U.S. Congress which has failed to prepare a budget on time in more than 30 years, despite having nine months to reach agreement. Let’s hear it for Normies!

I am most familiar with the Civility Leadership Institute founded by former four-star general Wesley Clark — briefly a presidential candidate 20 years ago as a Democrat. Located in his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas, the institute assembles classes of about 30 individuals with backgrounds in community organizing and/or political engagement. Each cohort includes a broad range of political opinion and a diverse representation from the American quilt. I’ve participated for two years. The institute provides a several-day program examining how to hold “difficult conversations.” It also touches on familiarization with personality types and how these predispositions influence communication processing. Time in Little Rock is supplemented with monthly Zoom lunches featuring both famous and not-so-visible policy activists. It was through these “refreshers” I learned of Braver Angels, a membership organization with a national reach and an annual convention. Its title links to Abraham Lincoln’s appeal to the “better angels of our nature” at his second Inaugural.

Colorado has a chapter that sponsors regular dialogue and debate among groups populated from both the right and left on matters generating current public dispute. Their nationwide attention to restoring trust in the election process produced a surprisingly sensible and thorough set of recommendations. Liberals acknowledged the legitimacy of voter ID, while conservatives conceded government should be responsible for issuing free ID to those, including the elderly and disabled, who would not otherwise have a driver’s license. They also agreed a verifiable paper trail should be available for auditing machine counts when necessary. They have promoted recommendations which emerged from a 2022 panel that made recommendations for modernizing Congressional practices — a report that passed largely unnoted. Simply obtaining a copy of it has proven challenging.

I’ve started receiving missives from a group called “It Starts With Us” pursuing similar goals. In New Mexico, a citizens’ initiative has developed a grassroots discussion process that focuses on a single subject annually in order to develop and transmit detailed legislative recommendations to their legislators. Their reports are taken seriously, successfully influencing sticky issues like water policy and growth controls. Colorado may need a similar public discussion of property taxes as the legislature largely ignored the message delivered by voters with the defeat of Proposition HH and adopted an ‘HH Light’ during its special session which resolved little. When sponsors are required to defend their actions with the admonition, “It could have been worse,” they’ve surely missed the mark.

With a Republican Party flirting perilously with collapse and a Democratic majority in need of hearing aids, Colorado would benefit from expanded citizen involvement. Politics may feel like a contact sport, but that’s a choice forced by the most passionate partisans. As Yeats observed so aptly, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” It’s past time to suit up the Normies.

Miller Hudson is a public affairs consultant and a former Colorado legislator.