Economy for Everyone
Guardrails: Dignity, due process, and the danger of normalization
guardrails | 2026-02-24 | facebook
Dignity and due process are baseline democratic guardrails, and normalization is what weakens them over time.
A simple line should be easy: human dignity, due process, and “no Nazi crap.” When leaders wave off signals and “jokes,” they make room for worse. This is about accountability, not name-calling.
What’s happening
Some signals are meant to be tested in public: slogans, winks, “just joking,” and the slow pressure to shrug and move on.
The danger isn’t one headline. It’s the drip: the cost of speaking up goes up, and the cost of staying quiet goes down.
Why it matters (plain language)
“Normalization” is how a democracy’s immune system gets tired.
If leaders won’t clearly condemn extremist signals and shut them down, they’re effectively saying: this is within bounds now.
That shifts the line for everyone else.
What good looks like
- A clear, boring standard: dignity and due process apply to everyone
- Leaders who condemn and stop enabling the crap they know is wrong
- Institutions that treat extremist flirting as a reputation and safety risk, not “culture war content”
One small action
Pick one place you have influence (work, school, community org) and say it plainly:
“Human dignity and due process aren’t negotiable. And we’re not doing Nazi-adjacent signaling here.”
No speech. No thread war. Just a boundary.
Receipts / context
- The Atlantic piece on normalization (linked in the original post): (add your canonical link here later)