Feeding the Angry Man
Political correctness has been the whipping-boy issue of the far-right wing for many years. No one touts aversion to PC behavior more than Donald Trump, in large part basing his presidential run on mocking all things politically correct. Expressing politically incorrect statements and views has become the defining standard of what I call the new Angry Man movement. (I use the term “man” because Trumping appeals more to men than women, although there are of course, though fewer, Angry Women too!)
This backlash against political correctness, although not new and has been percolating for years, has now erupted volcanically, given heat from the steaming bowels of Trump who belches more vitriol than an OxyContin-infused radio talk show host (talkin' bout you, Flush Phlegmball!)
But it's not all Donald's fault. Recently political correctness has been it own worst enemy. He's only taking advantage of some high profile examples of PC goofiness and unleashing festering grievances left over from the self-perceived left-behind.
Trump is the wind (bag) beneath the wings of the angry. Seething silent anger just below the surface of civility, these Angry Men have had to keep their feelings in check for decades, every day a lost day that brought them closer to inexorable defeat in the lingering culture war of the Sixties. Yes, the Sixties Culture War rages on in the shallow cranial recesses of the religious right, Nixon's old law & order hard hats, the “silent majority” and their “poorly-educated” progeny still offended by anti-Vietnam protests, “free love,” a casual embrace of drugs, and civil rights victories. (“I love the poorly educated,” Trump declared after his Nevada primary victory last February.)
Now comes Trump, loud and brash, like a constipated cow suddenly effluent from gorging in a field of rotting beans. Trump's emissions, sulfurically foul, are whiffs of lilac and roses to the noses of his Angries. Finally, someone who is not afraid to say out loud what they've been longing to say forever. Not just someone, but a someone who could hold the highest office in the land. A someone who could make the White House the white house again. (Well, maybe the gold-plated White House?) And his calling card? Attack political correctness. A task which liberals today sometimes aid and abet. From trigger warnings and safe space demands of sensitive babyfied college students to accusations of “cultural appropriation” by minorities, political correctness is fast becoming a favorite pick up line for the right wing. College students who demand a trigger warning that a reading assignment or lecture might contain something offensive to their sheltered little minds forget the reason they are in college in the first place…to expand their minds, be exposed to different ideas: to become educated. Is it really cultural appropriation when a white student is shamed by Black students for wearing dreadlocks? What about a Black student who bleaches her hair blond? (Note: I'm willing to be schooled on this issue from another point of view) Of course political correctness is not really “running amok” as so many pundits and columnists seem be declaring and warning. But egregious examples, amplified by media, social and traditional, feed into the meme/trope that we've gone too far, that we are too sensitive, need to lighten-up, quit worrying about offending everyone (except we whites in power) and just enjoy life. Yeah, make America great again, like before civil and voting rights, environmental regulations, Medicare, Social Security, child labor laws, food safety laws. Those were the days my friends…we thought they'd never end…
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