It was the 2040 Census that verified, indeed, that there were now more people in the Untied States who were clinically insane than those who were not.  And it was in 2044 that the Supreme Court ruled that, by definition, “normal” was decided by the majority.  Therefore, what once was considered to be crazy, was now the norm, and those who once were considered sane should now be considered extremely dangerous.  Institutionalization was recommended.  Speaking for the majority, Chief Justice Bidwell stated, “Shut up!  I’ll kill you all!  What are you looking at?”

Few “insane” people were ever locked up, though, because they quickly went underground.  After all, it is a lot easier to pretend you’re yelling at somebody who isn’t there than to pretend you’re not.  They learned to indentify each other with secret signals, and would often meet clandestinely, so, as one member recalled, “We could just sit around and be quiet without anybody yelling at us or trying to take away our socks.”

One of the things that the new majority insisted on doing was driving, which had long been a privilege of the sane.  By 2047, mostly because of all the people who had been run over, many of whom where indoors, it was determined that those people who had recently been in the majority no longer were. And once again, the definition of “sane” was revised to the pre-2040 status.

See, as well, the Shift of 2088, 2129, 2173, and 2222.