"Return to normalcy" was a campaign slogan used by Warren G. Harding during the 1920 United States presidential election. Harding would go on to win the election with 60.4% of the popular vote.

1920 election

In a speech delivered on May 14, 1920, Harding proclaimed that America needed "not nostrums, but normalcy".

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and the Spanish flu had upended life, and Harding said that it altered the perspective of humanity. He argued that the solution was to seek normalcy by restoring life to how it was before the war. Harding's conception of normalcy for the 1920s included deregulation, civic engagement, and

isolationism Isolationism is a political philosophy advocating a national foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality and opposes entang ...

. He rejected the

idealism In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysics, metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely con ...

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of P ...

and the activism of Roosevelt, favoring the earlier isolationist policy of the United States. Although detractors of the time tried to belittle the word "normalcy" as a neologism as well as a malapropism, saying that it was poorly coined by Harding (as opposed to the more accepted term '' normality''), there was contemporaneous discussion and evidence that ''normalcy'' had been listed in dictionaries as far back as 1857. During the campaign Harding, a newspaper editor, addressed the issue of the word's origin, claiming that ''normalcy'' but not ''normality'' appeared in his dictionary. Harding's position attracted support during the 1920 presidential election, which he won with 60.3% of the popular vote.

Other usage

Chalmers M. Roberts of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'' compared the desire for a "return to normalcy" in 1920 to the 1946 midterms following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

and the 1992 presidential election following the Cold War. The 12th episode of '' Boardwalk Empire'' takes place during the 1920 election and is titled " A Return to Normalcy". The phrase "return to normalcy" became associated with the 2020 presidential campaign of Joe Biden, specifically referring to Biden's promises to end the "divisiveness of the Trump years," as well as his campaign's focus on tackling the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

References

External links

"Normalcy"''The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy'', 3rd ed.
edited by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., et al. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. .
"A Time for Normalcy"
by Evan Jenkins, ''Columbia Journalism Review'', January/February 2002. American political catchphrases United States presidential domestic programs Warren G. Harding {{US-history-stub

1920 election

Other usage

See also

References

External links