- reverse pyromania
- Posts
- Trump Can Say "Fuck"
Trump said fuck to the press yesterday. (via Atrios) “Fuck” occupies an interesting place in American slang, and I’m certainly don’t know enough about American linguistics to write intelligently about it in the general sense.
But in this particular instance and context — being used by a President or major political leader — I would say that the word is accidental and not essential. In other words, it’s not the word, it’s Trump’s attitude when he uses it. The essence is that Trump and his followers, the whole Trumpist ethos, is that they’re the top turds on this shitpile and they do whatever they want. When Trump says “fuck” it’s like every other transgression. Whatever else you can say about it, it’s authentic.
I’m going to contrast Trump’s usage with two examples of what I guess you could call deviant speech. Let’s start with fan favorite Matt Yglesias. I think he captures kind of the vibe or conventional DC wisdom about the use of “bad words”.
Nonetheless, it’s a real problem for a movement trying to operate in electoral politics to maintain language-policing as a core value. You need to communicate in a way that is clear and broadly accessible. To an extent, you need to accept people as they are and try to find ways to appeal to them, not just try to reform their practices. You need to accept that social norms change and that this change is often for the better, but also empathize with people who are older or old-fashioned and find change a little bit disconcerting. And most of all, you need to focus on real policy issues rather than words.
So in this case, using bad words is a form of atonement and compliance for Democrats. We did something bad (language policed) and now we need to show that we connect with people and really care about policy by using “bad words”. Yglesias starts with a finance guy who feels liberated because he can say “pussy” and “retard” now — what “real policy issues” would a finance guy have in common with Democrats that should make us want to cater to him by letting him use slurs like that? Yglesias essay also references cancel culture, which of course is in full operation today as “cancelled” Andrew Cuomo is leading in most polls as “liberal” NYC has a mayoral election.
The other center-left person who I’ve seen use fuck is Elissa Slotkin.
In the first of a series of speeches about the Democratic Party’s path out of the wilderness, the Michigan senator said she will span everything from strategy to tactics and tone, acknowledging public perception of the party as “weak and woke” needs to change. She is urging Democrats to “fucking retake the flag” with appeals to voters’ sense of patriotism, to adopt “the goddamn Alpha energy” of Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell and to embrace an “airing out” of potential 2028 presidential candidates in a broadly contested primary.
This is a form of what I’ll call “butching up” by using “fuck”. Maybe it’s authentic for her, but, again, implicit and explicit in her usage is that the political issue here is that Democrats aren’t more like Republicans. Well, the Republican President said “fuck” almost without thinking because he’s secure in his power. Again, it’s accidental, not essential.
That’s probably more than needed to be said about it, but just saying “fuck” and tolerating finance bros who use slurs isn’t going to get the Democrats anywhere.
Reply