At the Times, Thomas Edsall writes an interesting column. Here's one graph...
Quote:In the current presidential campaign, Republicans have escalated their attacks on liberal dogma – including college speech codes, bans on hate speech, exclusionary language, trigger warnings and sensitivity training.
http://nyti.ms/1nxOrA8
And that's true. I've written here about the notable current resurgence in the right wing accent on this issue. Georgeob, for example, has been levying the charge...um...promiscuously, shall we say.
Now, of course this has been a staple in right wing rhetoric for two plus decades (and I've written about that history here too). Almost always, it is defined as a uniquely left or liberal failing or blind spot. Reflection upon manifestations of the thing in the right wing mind is exceedingly rare. I'm
actually not sure I've ever seen a single instance of it. When, for example, the Catholic League's Bill Donohue's head explodes in flames at criticism of certain church orthodoxies or at accounts or dramatizations of those bits of history where his church has behaved with atrocious depravity, he is just defending the sacred from vicious speech acts.
But all of that is not what I want to talk about. Rather, I've been trying to figure out why we are presently seeing this resurgence of the politically correct meme. Two of the big users are Trump and Cruz but I'd wager most if not every one of the candidates in the last GOP debate threw it out into the tautly vibrating air of that room.
So, what's up? I'm not sure, but I'd guess two things. First, it serves as an all-purpose means to reject any speech act which one would rather not see nor hear in the public domain. Mentions of racism, for example. One can see how it is used as a tool to discount a whole range of policy prescriptions which liberals might (and will) advance in the election. Another example - global warming. "There's nothing there. A faux issue. Just liberal political correctness run amok", is the underlying message.
Which gets us to the second reason we're seeing it, I think. Sexism. With a female likely the Dem candidate, and with all of the attending electoral disadvantages for the GOP (readily acknowledged by conservative strategists and writers with integrity) how does the GOP go about minimizing those disadvantages? With the suggestion that voting for a woman is merely a herd-like irrationalism, merely adherence to the politically correct.
Does this make sense, boys? (Oh, and of course, girls too).
