One Man's Political Correctness...

Listening to news and analysis following the shocking election of Donald Trump last week, I heard someone suggest that the number-one fatal mistake that Clinton made was that she used the word “deplorable” when referring to Trump supporters.

Never mind that she was talking about one subset of Trump's supporters, for example, those from the alt-right who have a habit of gleefully sharing Internet memes featuring Pepe the Frog or monkey caricatures of Obama.

That distinction, of course, got lost, and it seems every last Trump supporter felt insulted by her remarks. No doubt that was not Clinton’s intention, but it did open herself up for misinterpretation. It was political malpractice in the extreme, so the commentary went, to use such a derogatory term for any voter.

That got me to thinking. Looking at it that way, it was political in-correctness that did Clinton in. She applied an offense, impolite term to a large group of people. She painted a lot of folks with the same broad brush. She forgot to be politically correct.

This is hugely ironic, of course. Folks who constantly warn that America is endangered by “political correctness”, folks who shrug off the notion that there’s anything wrong with Trump calling illegal migrants “rapists and murders” or Syrian refugees “terrorists” or women “fat pigs”, these same folks take offense, YUGE offense, when called “deplorable” by Hillary Clinton. And, oh yes, “irredeemable”.  

Should they take offense? Maybe so. Actually, who could blame them? Should hard-working undocumented workers from Mexico take also offense being called “rapists” by Donald Trump? Well, heavens forbid no, because that was just Trump speaking his mind, and as we all know “speaking your mind” is the highest form of expression. Clinton, on the other hand, was just being condescending and rude. 

Logical, right?

The thing that has bothered me for so long about the right's obsession with the “political correctness” boogieman and Trump's willingness to give it the middle finger is this: using measured language and holding back your most primal thoughts might actually serve a purpose in a society where not everyone is a clone of yourself. It might help moderate the temperature of personal interactions. It might help maintain social harmony. It might help people get along.

Maybe you desperately want to tell the guy sitting in the pew next to you in church that he’s an “asshole”, because deep down inside that’s what you think he is. Maybe you're dying to tell your wife to for God's sake please lose some weight. 

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be like Trump and throw off the shackles of political correctness and just say out loud what’s on your mind?

Such liberating free speech can have consequences, however. Your fellow congregant might stand up and punch you in the nose. Your wife might exact revenge in unspeakable ways. American voters might discover more reasons to despise Hillary Clinton. And Donald Trump might succeed wildly and get himself elected president.* Things work differently for him, it seems.

Last week on Facebook, I called Trump supporters “gullible” and was promptly told to “shut up”. Maybe I deserved that. What I said was insulting, especially if his supporters didn't really believe his endless casual lies, but supported him for purely cynical reasons. 

But it was what was on my mind at the time. I was just saying what I thought. I wasn't holding back. 

Well, that's not entirely true. What was really on my mind was far worse. So, now I have a dilemma. In the future, should I be more politically correct and refrain from saying anything remotely insulting about anyone who voted for Trump. Or should I take the less politically correct road traveled by Donald Trump himself and call many of them ignorant (as opposed to merely "gullible"), or even racist? 

I always thought I was much more comfortable with the first option, but maybe I should get with the times and go with the other one.

* By the Electoral College, not the popular vote. 

Buyer's Remorse?

I think it’s great how some figures of speech in English perfectly sum up a concept in just a couple of words.  Though I’m sure Finnish and practically any other language have expressions that are just as pithy and colorful, I’d like to think that English is especially inventive this way, being as it is a hugely cosmopolitan and vibrant language.  Examples of such vivid word-parings that come to mind are “bar fly”, “mission creep”, and one of my all-time favorites, “pillow talk”. 

Lately, I’ve been seeing another such phrase sprinkled all over some of the political blogs I read:  “buyer’s remorse”.  This is the regret that someone feels after – sometimes immediately after – purchasing something that at first they were probably pretty excited about.  Usually it’s used in the realm of car buying, which has also given us “sticker shock” (the unpleasant jolt you feel when you first see the selling price of a car). 

Everyone has experienced the let down (another succinct phrase) you feel after realizing the wonderful piece of merchandize you finally got your hands on doesn’t quite live up to your expectations.  This has been my standard reaction to any laptop I’ve ever owned. 

However, the “buyer’s remorse” I’ve been hearing about over the last couple of weeks has nothing to do with commerce.  It has all to do with Barack Obama.  Various progressive commentators in the media and blogosphere have started expressing more than mere disappointment with the President’s performance.  They have moved on to outright regret over voting for him. 

The notion recently gaining some currency among these bloggers is that they backed the wrong horse in 2008 and that Hillary Clinton may have been the better choice.  Regrettably, I’m starting to feel the same way. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I think President Obama is a good and decent man.  And honest.  I have no reason to think otherwise.  I think he’s a smart guy and is much better suited for the job than John McCain would have been.  I also think he’s getting a raw deal (another good phrase) from many of the critics who blame him for not being an economic miracle worker. 

Or, on second thought, maybe I agree with them.  I confess that, with the economic collapse that the US was facing in 2008, I was hoping Obama would be the second coming of FDR.  I can’t claim to be a student of the New Deal, but I’ve always had a lot of admiration for Franklin Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression, admiration passed on to me from my father who lived through those times and seemed to think a lot of FDR, despite not exactly being Democrat himself. 

When Obama was sworn into office, I was hoping he was going to rise to the occasion and guide the US through these troubling times the way FDR did in the 30s.  Instead, in the face of the conservative backlash following his election, Obama has proven to be far too accommodating to his opponents and, let’s be honest, far too weak a leader to get his agenda across to the American people.  With the exception of health care reform, that is.  That was a huge achievement, but even then it was only a halfway measure, a compromise – maybe a necessary one, but still a compromise nonetheless and one that didn’t gain him any friends among conservatives. 

In almost every confrontation with Republicans, Obama has been far too willing to give ground.  Perhaps he does this in the name of being practical or in the spirit of bipartisanship, which was a centerpiece of his campaign.  I, for one, wasn’t inspired by his promise to reach across the aisle to the other party, and it’s clear his conciliatory instincts haven’t exactly served him well. 

In the 2008 race, I was torn between voting for a history-making first black president or a history-making first female president.  I wanted to vote for both and, in a sense, I did.  I voted for Clinton in the primary, and was then happy to be able to vote for Obama in the general election.  And I was naturally thrilled that he won. 

At the time, I would have imagined that a Clinton presidency would have triggered an even fiercer backlash, given the history of the 90s and the strong hatred that Republicans still seem to feel for the Clintons.  Now, it’s hard to imagine how the backlash could have any worse, and I can’t help think that Hillary – as tough as they come and no stranger to political tangling – would have at least fought back. 

Still, I haven’t completely given up on Obama.  I wouldn’t want to see Clinton challenge him for the nomination next year, and I’ll certainly vote for him no matter what.  I just hope that, in the meantime, Mr. Obama begins to show more conviction and toughness and a willingness to finally give the Republicans a good dose of what can be summed up by another apt phrase:  “whoop ass”.