Profanity In Politics

While certainly not a puritan I do have a beef about profanity in politics.

As one who has enjoyed listening to perhaps too many hours of President Nixon’s White House tapes I should be disabused of any notion that hard cursing does not occur in places of power.  Voters would like to think we elect people with a larger vocabulary and a higher level of communication than what we find (at times) sitting in the Oval Office.

This weekend the papers reported–with the conservative Wall Street Journal leading the way–that Trump had a cursing tantrum Friday in the White House.   The Hill adds to the story. 

Trump reportedly opened a meeting Friday with congressional leaders with an incendiary rant before saying he preferred the word “strike” to refer to the ongoing government shutdown, according to multiple reports.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump began Friday’s heated closed-door negotiations with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and newly minted Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) with a 15-minute, profanity-laced rant. Sources familiar with the meeting also confirmed the account to CNN and the Daily Beast.

In addition a Democratic freshman member of congress made headlines for cranking up the rhetoric about Trump by using a term that does not get posted on this site.   The remark from Rashida Tlaib was simply out of bounds.  Not only for good taste and civility, but also for the political equation which now surrounds it.

Many people I know–be they my age or far younger–did not grow up where profanity was the norm.  In my home mom hated to hear even words like ‘damn’ and ‘hell’ coming from our elected officials as she thought those people were to set examples for others in the nation.

Coming from a broadcasting background where words matter, and working in a legislator’s office where conduct was always viewed or heard by someone, means perhaps I see this issue as more prescribed than others in society.  But it really should not be so.  We all should care about the use of language by elected officials.

I contend it should not be hard to conduct ourselves in society with word choices given the entire dictionary one might use to make a point.   Everyday people use words wisely, and so I have to laugh when I sometimes hear that someone is ‘unable to speak freely’ as there are too many rules about needing to use politically-correct speech.  That is just a cop-out for acting with civility in modern-day society.

Words have weight and if we are to live in a society where the hope of coming together is to exist at all we need to be aware of the impact of the words we use.    I use to speak before groups of constituents when working in the state assembly and was always aware of the audience I was in front of to push the right message by using the right words.  I used words hours at a time when working in radio and never felt the need to resort to ones that were laced with vulgarity.

The use of words is key to everything we do.  Being an adult is knowing how to employ the best use of words.  It also means understanding the power our words carry for both good and bad.

Perhaps Trump can sit for a few minutes this weekend and page through a dictionary so next week he need not sound like a sailor on leave.

Oh, forgive me.  Trump was not able to be in the military–he had bone spurs!