Announcing "The Panic Button": an antidote to political gaslighting, complacency and moral paralysis
A current-events collaboration with actuary and politics nerd Micah Darnall, who just so happens to be my husband.
Last weekend, my husband Micah and I watched the 2021 movie Don’t Look Up, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio, in which a Michigan State University astrophysics doctoral candidate (Lawrence) and her supervising professor (DiCaprio) discover a planet-destroying comet that is on track to hit earth within six months. But the movie isn’t an adventure flick about how the good guys avert an astrophysics apocalypse - it’s a parable about normalcy bias.
What is normalcy bias, and why does it matter right now?
Normalcy bias is “a cognitive bias that leads individuals to deny or minimise the possibility and consequences of a disaster because they expect the future to resemble the past … people affected by this bias assume that life will continue as usual, even in the face of strong evidence to the contrary.”1 Research shows that about 70% of a population will revert to normalcy bias even while a crisis is unfolding.2
Normalcy bias isn’t all bad, because panic - even when it’s a perfectly reasonable response to the situation - can create dangers of its own. The upside of normalcy bias is that “people who are in this state are docile and can be directed without chaos,” making crowd control easier in situations where panic could lead to life-threatening behaviors like mobbing.3 However, as the characters in Don’t Look Up discover, normalcy bias can also paralyze a population and forestall actions that could minimize or prevent an impending disaster.
“Ugh, emotion is so cringe” and other ways we feel superior about burying our heads in the sand
In the movie, Lawrence and DiCaprio are rushed to Washington D.C. on an overnight flight to deliver the bad news to the president … only to find themselves spending hours on end in a White House waiting room. When the president does finally see them, her immediate reaction is to fixate on the 0.3% chance that the comet won’t collide with earth.
When the government tries to hush the whole story up, Lawrence and DiCaprio turn to the media and get a spot on a popular morning show. Lawrence loses her composure when she realizes that the gravity of their message is being buried underneath the casual banter of the hosts, and has an emotional meltdown that immediately goes viral.
The audience’s take-away is not “a planet-killing comet is headed straight for earth,” but, “hysterical woman loses her composure on live television.”
The high priests of normalcy bias
This movie was released in 2021, but the dynamic that Don’t Look Up captures feels disturbingly relevant in this moment, as many are beginning to accept that our constitutional republic has fallen off the deep end and doesn’t know how to swim.
Maybe you’re just starting to grasp how dangerous the current administration is. Maybe it was after the murders of Renee Good or Alex Pretti. Maybe it was when you saw the picture of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos standing outside his car while ICE agents detained his father, and eventually him. Maybe it’s been clear to you since January 6, 2021 or the 2015 primaries. But however long you’ve been here, I can guarantee that you’ve already faced counter-pressure, not just from MAGA devotees, but from the mild-mannered “calmer-downers.”
You know the ones I mean: the level-headed pundits soothing away your anxiety by reminding you that “the media always exaggerates,” and urging you not to get “swept up into the hysteria.” The ones saying, “Don’t rush to judgment,” and “wait for all the facts to come out.” The ones who cry “toxic empathy” whenever anyone has a normal, human response to the cruelty playing out on our streets. The ones who respond to every new abuse with “both sides!” then return to their normal broadcasting.
These are the high priests of normalcy bias: the ones who keep people morally sedated in the name of being “reasonable” and “objective.” Esther Inglis-Arkell points out that, while people affected by normalcy bias may behave more calmly under pressure, they also “tend to retard the progress of the 10-15% of people who act appropriately.” The really interesting part, though, is the way that people rationalize their normalcy bias, and in fact feel superior to people who are responding to a crisis with more urgency: “The main source of delay masquerades as the need to get more data.”4 (emphasis mine)
Seeking more information sounds like the right thing to do. But gathering information is only useful if the end-goal is to actually made a judgment and take appropriate action. We have had more than ten years to observe the patterns of behavior exhibited by President Trump, and the worst fears of the most “hysterical” nay-sayers, have more or less come true.
Who we are, and what you can expect from “The Panic Button”
Allow me to take a minute to introduce - or re-introduce - myself, and Micah, and explain why we’re doing this collaboration.
When we got married in the fall of 2014, we were both very conservative, very evangelical and held pristine, Republican voting records. Micah was already something of a political junkie, so Trump showed up on our radar before we even reached our first wedding anniversary. Like most people, at first we assumed he wasn’t a viable candidate. But as we watched friends go from laughing at the idea of voting for him, to seriously considering it, we became very alarmed, very fast.
Mistrustful of mainstream media by default, we tried as much as possible to get our information straight from the source, without editorial commentary, so we could make up our minds for ourselves. We doggedly watched hours of raw rally footage and read news articles from decades before his presidential run. When we did consult legacy media, we fact-checked their claims. If they published a soundbyte, we hunted down the context. And yes: sometime the media got it wrong. But what they didn’t have wrong, was that Trump was indeed a very, very scary candidate.
All through the primaries, we got loud about Trump on social media. We wanted to avoid a scenario where we, or anybody else, would have to choose between Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, or “throwing our vote away” on a third-party candidate. We thought, if people just knew, surely they wouldn’t choose this man to represent the Republican party.
We were, of course, very, very wrong. On the Sunday following Trump’s 2016 victory, church felt like the twilight zone. We were mourning what felt like the beginning of the end of America as we knew it (which I still stand by), while everyone around us - including all the ones who swore they were “holding their nose” to vote for Trump - openly celebrated and expected us to do the same. From that point on, we understood. “The heart wants what the heart wants,” and the heart of the Christian Right wanted Donald J. Trump in a way that was impervious to any argument or “bombshell” revelation, no matter how explosive.
Our experiences in the #NeverTrump trenches have taught us that the “smoking gun” is a myth. Just because you haven’t persuaded someone that the threat is real, doesn’t mean it isn’t. Our message here at The Panic Button is:
You’re not imagining it.
You’re not overreacting.
You can trust your eyes and ears.
And you’re not powerless.
Micah and I bring different skill sets to the table. My degree is in theology and my work with the Anastasis Center is in the area of applied theology and Christian ethics. I’m strong on communication, which is why most of the writing you’ll see here is in my voice. I love a good research rabbit trail, but I have to admit that my eyes will glaze over at the first sign of a pie chart. Micah is an actuary, which means he’s a lot better at all things math-related than I am. Micah understands government and politics and is really good at keeping up with current events, but communication is not his strong suit. Both of us are history nerds. If this combination inspires your trust or sparks your interest, don’t just push the panic button - push the subscribe button.
“Normalcy Bias,” Owen Ingram, Research Prospect, July 4, 2026
“The Frozen Calm of Normalcy Bias,” Esther Inglis-Arkell, Gizmodo, May 2, 2013
Ibid
Ibid
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