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Trump and the problem with the new normal

Twenty years ago, Nasa scientists asked the sociologist Diane Vaughan to study the causes of the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster. Vaughan responded by developing a concept she called "the normalisation of deviance". This posits that disasters cannot always be blamed on a single, catastrophic decision by a leader; instead, they often occur because people inside institutions start to make numerous small decisions that stealthily change their concept of normality.

In the case of the Challenger story, Vaughan discovered that in the months before the shuttle crash, mid-level engineers had repeatedly breached safety guidelines in tiny ways. No alarm was sounded, partly because these breaches seemed so small. But there was another issue: because the engineering team kept "getting away" with breaches, these slippages started to seem "normal". Or, to put it another way, the engineers' definition of what was acceptable quietly changed as standards slipped - until the Challenger crashed, and ripped their complacency apart.

"Social normalisation of deviance means that people within [an] organisation become so much accustomed to a deviant behaviour that they don't consider it as deviant," Vaughan observed. "Each time [with the Challenger team], evidence initially interpreted as a deviation from expected performance was reinterpreted as within the bounds of acceptable risk."

It is an intriguing concept to ponder, as it has applications in many other areas of modern life. Since Vaughan published her study, consultants have used this "normalisation of deviance" theory to explain incidents ranging from maritime disasters to museum thefts.

I am starting to wonder how far the idea could be applied to politics and, in particular, to events in today's White House. In some respects, the situations are quite different: the Nasa engineers worked in a large, clearly delineated bureaucracy and they knew they were not supposed to break the rules; breaches were furtive and small. The team around President Trump, by contrast, has come to power pledging to be anything but bureaucratic, and some advisers - such as Stephen Bannon - glory in unleashing boundary-busting policies in revolt against the so-called establishment.

But in one sense, at least, Vaughan's concept is very apposite: the more that the Trump team keeps breaking the rules, in big and small ways, the more that a certain "normalisation of deviance" occurs. And the more that the Trump team is seen to get away with these breaches (in the sense that it avoids disastrous consequences), the more people start to assume that it will continue to do so.

A year ago, the idea that a US president might tweet ad hominem attacks against his foes in the early hours of the morning would have been almost unimaginable. So would the prospect of having a president sideline his own secretary of state, declare that key policy initiatives were "too complicated" to grasp, refuse to release his tax returns, claim that his predecessor had been spying on him (even though the intelligence services loudly deny this), employ officials who had close ties to Russia and/or clear business conflicts - or make statements that are swiftly proved to be false.

You only need to look at Trump's recent interview in Time magazine to see how he keeps breaking boundaries. And the more this occurs, the less it shocks. "Deviance" starts to seem almost normal or, at least, predictable; doubly so because many Republicans (not to mention consultants or CEOs) now have a vested interest in "normalising" this deviance, if nothing else because they desperately hope that any sense of normalisation will help to get the White House policy-making machine back on track. "[These dramas] are just noise," one senior Republican recently told me. "They will fade over time."

Perhaps so. But there is another scenario that might unfold too. As those deviant breaches keep piling up, a tipping point might eventually be reached. After all, the fact that people have "got away" with breaching rules for a while, without unleashing disaster, does not guarantee that they can continue to do so for ever. Sometimes a small crack can dramatically widen when people least expect it and cause the structure to collapse - not just in space engineering but in politics too.

The Trump team, of course, vehemently denies this could ever occur (and blames any criticism on the "dishonest media"). But if you want a reminder of how much unpredictable "deviance" is flying around, take note of this: betting companies, such as Paddy Power, now offer slightly better than even odds that Trump will win a second term; however, they also offer pretty much even odds that he will be forced to resign (or be impeached) before his first term ends. That is not logical; nor remotely "normal".