The work of a MacArthur-grant-winning psychologist explains how the unthinkable becomes acceptable—and how the change can be reversed. The beauty of norms is that, unlike ingrained hatreds, they are flexible. They shift quickly; with the right pressure from the right people, they can shift back. But the response, crucially, must be broad, and it must come from sources of authority across the political spectrum. Otherwise, behaviors we think of as socially stable may prove to be far more fragile than we’d like to believe. What can we do to counteract the rise of violent and hateful new norms? Hand-wringing and anger from within “the resistance” is of limited value for those of us who want to push back against the Trump Administration’s new normal—the use of emotionally riling speech and epithets, threats of media bans, and so on. "