In Praise of Political Correctness

Of all of the reasons for supporting Donald Trump, this is by far the stupidest:

If Hillary wins, we're going to see a further tightening of PC culture. But if Trump wins? If Trump wins, we will have a president that overwhelmingly rejects PC rhetoric. Even better, we will show that more than half the country rejects this insane PC regime. If Trump wins, I will personally feel a major burden relieved, and I will feel much more comfortable stating my more right-wing views without fearing total ostracism and shame. Because of this, no matter what Trump says or does, I will keep supporting him.

This attitude strikes me as so monumentally stupid, I've already written about it once before.  But I'm returning to it to make a couple of additional points.

First, if you feel 'burdened' by having to hide your political views, then perhaps you should re-examine those views to see whether there's a reason for you to be ashamed of them.  Whatever you believe --- even if you're a hardcore racist --- you should believe it without reservation, and be prepared to stand up for those beliefs.  If you're not ready to do that, it's probably because you know your 'beliefs' are wrong somehow --- selfishly motivated, bigoted, etc.

Second, if you feel that other people unfairly condemn you for your views, there are a lot of things you can do about that.  Ideally you would try to engage them in a dialog to try to come to a mutual understanding of your differences.  If that's not possible, you could simply change the subject.  At the extreme, you could never speak to that person again.  But hoping that your choice of President will improve the situation makes about as much sense as hoping that your choice of energy drink or hair color will improve the situation.

But the most important reason it's stupid to support Trump due to his 'political incorrectness' is this (via Digby):

An online survey of approximately 2,000 K-12 teachers by the Southern Poverty Law Center found toxic political rhetoric invading elementary, middle and high schools, emboldening children to make racist taunts that leave others bewildered and anxious.

“We mapped it out. There was no state or region that jumped out. It was everywhere,” said Maureen Costello, the study’s author. “Marginalized students are feeling very frightened, especially Muslims and Mexicans. Many teachers use the word terrified.” The children who did the taunting were echoing Trump’s rhetoric, she said. “Bad behavior has been normalized. They think it’s OK.”

Is political correctness annoying at times?  Sure.  Do some people take it too far?  Absolutely.  But that's a problem with the individual, not the concept of political correctness.

Fundamentally, if someone tells you you're being politically incorrect, what they're trying to say is: "Don't be an asshole".  When Donald Trump talked about blood coming out of Megyn Kelly's 'wherever', he was being an asshole.  When he mocked a reporter's disability, he was being an asshole.  When he made approximately half a million disparaging remarks about women, he was being an asshole.  If you're opposed to political correctness, basically you're in favor of being an asshole.  (When the concept of political correctness came into the world, it was politically incorrect to call someone an asshole, so you called them politically incorrect instead.)

Personally, I don't want the President of the United States to be an asshole, and I don't know why anyone would.  I also don't want a President (or presidential candidate, for that matter) promoting assholic behavior.  Just about everyone was bullied at some time or another when they were young, and I'm sure just about everyone can agree that we DON'T want our children to be bullies and assholes.

So why would you choose to support a candidate for President, 'no matter what he says or does', just because he's a really, really major asshole?