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comes next—for business, the economy, and our collec-
tive battle against COVID-19—is more urgent than ever.
And the key to understanding may lie in this insight: After
the turmoil of the past 12 months, some things are now
permanently New; some things are still Normal; and the
challenge is to recognize and navigate between the two.
For a case in point, look no further than the election
of President Joe Biden. He’s a lifelong centrist, a self-
consciously traditional pol who might as well have “Normal”
silk-screened on his hygienic face masks. But the fact that
the Democrats now have narrow control of both houses of
Congress for at least the next two years is undoubtedly New:
It’s a power shift with ramifications for Wall Street, global
trade, and our relationship with China. That it follows the
most contentious election in contemporary times, marked
by the outgoing President’s desperate attempt, through
misinformation, to reverse the results of an election he lost
definitively, only adds to our anxiety about this New moment.
The reboot in Washington is absolutely top of mind for
Ian Bremmer’s clients. The founder and president of the
Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm, says that
every customer wants to know, “How different is Biden?
How much can he govern? Is the U.S. actually facing some
structural challenges that are deeper than we thought?”
Wall Street appears to be betting that life under Biden
will be the best kind of Normal. From Election Day through
Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, the S&P 500 rose 14.3%.
In fact, the Biden boost was more than twice as strong as
the Trump bump from four years ago, when the S&P roseYou’ve heard the phrase roughly 10,000 times
by now. There’s no doubt the expression has been pop-
ping up in your inbox regularly. It’s very likely, in fact, that
you’ve said it yourself more than once: “The New Normal.”
Sure, it’s catchy and alliterative. And it taps into the
sense of dislocation that we all feel after a year of uncom-
mon upheaval, sacrifice, and, for many, forced isolation.
But what, exactly, does it mean?
“There is this almost religious fervor with which we talk
about the new normal,” says Amy Webb, the founder and
CEO of the Future Today Institute, a management con-
sulting firm. “And I’ve been curious for a while now: What
is driving us to seek that out? And I don’t actually think
the answer is that people want to know what the future
is so they can plan for it. I think, instead, that desire to
know the new normal is really our collective desire to have
things stop changing so much.”
The psychological imperative to slow down and normal-
ize the path forward is a perfectly understandable response
to the jarring turbulence of the past year. Most disruptive
of all, of course, has been the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which has
already infected some 100 million people around the world
and taken the lives of more than 2.1 million. The pandemic
has exacted an enormous economic toll, but it has also ac-
celerated the development of new technologies and trans-
formed the dynamics of how we work and live, introducing
variables that are hard to predict long term.
As much as we might like to hit “pause,” however, it’s not
really an option. If anything, the need to understand what
WHAT COMES NEXT BY BRIAN O’KEEFECoping With the NewNormal. Are you feelingoptimistic, or anxious?If the answer is ‘both,’you’re ready for 2021.