At the risk of exposing myself as a stuffy, bourgeois traditionalist who doesn’t “know what time it is,” or whatever your preferred rationalization may be, Republicans of an earlier age had a point about the “coarsening of American culture.” The 1990s-era GOP probably couldn’t conceive of the licentiousness that would come to typify pop-cultural products a couple of decades after their warnings. There was also plenty of wisdom in Andrew Breitbart’s admonition that “politics is downstream from culture.” And as the culture has grown more comfortable with salty language, politics has followed suit.
For quite some time, individual politicians — in particular, those possessed of an unveiled contempt for conventional propriety — have sought to convey passion and zeal by liberally deploying four-letter words. The president isn’t above such vulgarity, nor are his opponents. If these crass displays could once be written off as earthy expressions of candor, that is no longer the case. Donald Trump’s opponents seem to have embraced profanity as part of a strategic effort to rehabilitate their party’s tarnished brand.
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