"America entered 2023 with two big problems and two leading theories about what was causing them. Over the preceding three years, the murder rate had reached levels not seen since the mid-1990s, which was widely attributed to reductions in policing following the protests over the murder of George Floyd. The inflation rate was even worse, by historical standards, peaking in 2022 at 9 percent, the highest number since 1981. This, in turn, was believed to be the result of Congress and the Biden administration pumping too much money into the economy. Each theory implied a solution to its respective crisis. To bring crime back down, America’s cities would have to empower their depleted and demoralized police forces. To tame inflation, the Federal Reserve would have to crush consumer spending by triggering a recession. Both theories now appear to have been wrong. Over the course of 2023, police forces kept shrinking, yet overall violent-crime rates plummeted to their lowest levels since the 1960s. And the economy boomed even as inflation came just about all the way down to the Fed’s 2 percent target. In surveys, most Americans say that crime and inflation are still rising, but they’re wrong. Call it the Great Normalization: The twin crises largely evaporated, and no one is totally sure why."