Cultural Marxism The Downfall of Western Civilization
Donald Trump’s success in the polls has stunned many who consider him “an unelectable boor and narcissist,” as The Economist puts it. More likely, Trump’s contempt for the customary constraints on politicians is finding favor. Here’s how Yale University’s Stephen Morris defined political correctness: “Because certain statements will lead listeners to make adverse inferences about the type of the speaker, speakers have an incentive to alter what they say to avoid that inference.” The range of ways to provoke “adverse inferences” is constantly swelling. [5] For a candidate, political correctness — making sure no chance remark can be construed as racist, sexist, ageist, offensive to a religion, elitist or otherwise insensitive — can be a ball and chain. Many of today’s mainstream political leaders, both in the U.S. and in Europe, grew up with a much shorter list of pitfalls; avoiding censure demands extreme self-discipline. [5] One could see this as an unfair advantage, but it’s actually a trade-off. What Trump says about Senator John McCain’s military record or women or immigrants is a turnoff for many voters, which is why his negative ratings are so high. As European populists know, this can win favor but also circumscribes your potential popularity. [5] In politics, the advantages of talking like a real person — inevitably loopy on some issues, bigoted or backward on others, because real people are never perfect — are questionable, especially in a winner-takes-all electoral system like the U.S. [5]
When Donald Trump announced for President, he made some strong statements about the immigration problems facing our nation. He said that Mexico was “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.” In essence, Trump noted that Mexico was not sending their scientists and scholars to America. [10] In the aftermath of Trump’s comments, Macy’s dropped his clothing line; NBC “fired” him from the show “Celebrity Apprentice” and said they would not air the Miss USA or Miss Universe pageants. The illegal immigration comments were also too controversial for Univision, another leftist network which dropped the beauty pageants from their broadcast schedule. Fortunately, the Miss USA pageant was picked up by the Reelz channel, so Americans will still be able to watch a show with a 64 year broadcasting tradition. Sadly, Macy’s and the networks succumbed to the pressure of Hispanic groups and the insidious influence of political correctness. [10]
His latest incendiary comment, about one of the Fox News moderators from Thursday’s Republican presidential debate, led to a scolding by some of his rivals and the party, and condemnation by organizers of the RedState Gathering. The billionaire businessman lashed out against Fox News’ Megyn Kellyfor her questions during the campaign’s first debate. She had asked the candidate about his use of derogatory language toward women and whether it reflected the “temperament of a man we should elect as president.” [6] Many politics watchers view Donald Trump as a clown who throws out un-PC verbal bombs in lieu of actual policy positions. Maybe he is, but he’s also proof that every extreme movement provokes an equally extreme backlash. “What I say is what I say,” Trump said, in response to Republican debate moderator Megyn Kelly asking him about his propensity for calling women insulting names [9] Referring to Kelly’s questions, Trump told CNN in an interview late Friday, “There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” Soon after the interview aired, RedState’s Erick Erickson dumped Trump from the event’s Saturday lineup. He said that “while Mr. Trump resonates with a lot of people with his bluntness, including me to a degree, there are just real lines of decency a person running for president should not cross.” [6] Addressing the audience at the RedState Gathering, Erickson decided to read out some of the “entertaining” hate mail he had received from angry Trump supporters, including one who claimed he was “so sick of political correctness that I may puke” and appeared to refer to President Obama as an “ass” and Democrat candidate Hilary Clinton as a “whore”. [6]
Here is Donald trump’s take on political correctness:
I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I’ve been challenged by so many people and I don’t, frankly, have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time, either. — Donald Trump
Rush Limbauch agrees. He thinks that Trump Resonates Because Millions of People Are Sick of Political Correctness, Phony Outrage and Phony Apologies. This is what he said to a caller who was complaining about Donald Trump’s lack of sensitivity and his lack of manners:
There’s a percentage of the population that is totally fed up with the political class, including the media. […] We’ve learned that stand-up comics do not even play college campuses anymore because political correctness is so ingrained that nothing is seen as funny. Well, that isn’t healthy, and it isn’t good, and I know some of this is also a two-way street. Do you notice nobody ever demands people on the left apologize for anything? – Rush Limbauch
Barry Farber also approves in a paper he wrote for WND:
We’re all deeply in debt to Donald Trump. Trump has just struck a resounding blow against a different – but very real – kind of cancer, namely “political correctness.” Trump’s blow is the most severe blow to political correctness in the whole of that toxic, malignant, civilization-rotting doctrine’s tyranny. This is historical! It’s thrilling! […] Many millions of decent people let themselves get sucked up the poisonous pipes of political correctness. I say to them, “Get out right now!” If the Trump boat is still afloat, it means the political correctness boat is sinking. [13]
Appearing on Meet the Press, Donald Trump corrects misrepresentations made by the establishment media.
Trump’s fellow GOP candidates, as well as political pundits across the country and average citizens on social media, didn’t think much of those blunt statements. New York University student Quinn McNeill was one of the unimpressed: “Well, Mr. Trump, I don’t know what your watch says but mine says we have PLENTY of time for political correctness,” she wrote on The Odyssey, a “grass roots” content platform that claims to be the most widely read news site on university campuses across the country. A lot of people — especially college students — do seem to have a lot of time available for the subject. And that, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt write in The Atlantic this week, is indeed a serious problem for the country. [16] The new hyper political correctness is not just something grumpy conservatives rail against. It has liberal academics worried too, because they see a generation of young Americans refusing — like old man Trump, but in exactly the opposite way — to take on the emotional maturity of adulthood. Lukianoff and Haidt believe that the result, not to put too fine a point on it, is eating away at our democracy. “A movement is arising, undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense,” Lukianoff and Haidt write in their no-punches-pulled essay. [9] [16]
