Last week, President Trump visited the U.S. Capitol for a meeting with Republican members of the House of Representatives. Videotape captured the sound of a female congressional intern yelling, “Mr. President, f*** you” from across the other side of the rotunda, as Trump was walking through the Capitol.
The echoed obscene outburst is a current example of prevalent vulgarities in public discourse and the present degradation of the political process. Many modern politicians and political leaders (both men and women) seem unashamed to dish out vile obscenities — in public and in private.
For instance, the new leftist-chairman of the Democratic National Committee Tom Perez, who sets the style and substance of the party’s platform and policies, recently went on a disgusting profanity-laced anti-Trump rant. Trump, also, has been known to have his share of “salty language” in public and private, though his courting of certain Evangelical leaders has tamed this somewhat.
These outbursts of profane epithets are not only obnoxious and offensive to many but also tend to further the corrosion of civil dialog regarding public policy.
Of course, the epidemic of public profanity is not limited to the political domain. It seems to have infected and corrupted many levels of our society. One conservative commentator said that if he did not include a few profanities in his campus colloquies, his millennial masses would think him “unreal” and “irrelevant.”
Media celebrities often show a lack of good taste and use profanity to shock and awe their fans, as well. I’m sure you saw or heard about actor Robert De Niro’s recent raging “F-Bombs” thrown at Trump while De Niro was introducing Bruce Springsteen at the recent Tony Awards.
Then, last week, far-left actor Peter Fonda ignobly tweeted a sickening suggestion for his followers, “We should rip Barron Trump from his mother’s arms and put him in a cage with pedophiles and see if his mother will stand up against the giant a****** she is married to…”
Donald Trump Jr. defended his little half-brother, urging the aging actor to pick on someone his own size. Melania Trump notified the Secret Service of the not-too-veiled threat.
Rebel Media’s Sheila Gunn Reid is a journalist and commentator from Canada and revealed how Fonda’s frothy and vile posting about Barron Trump has also infected CBC “comedy” writer Pat Dussault. This Canadian leftist despicably dragged Donald Trump Jr.’s 4-year-old daughter into the debased dialog, tweeting, “don’t worry, we’re coming for Chloe too.”
The twisted and seemingly depraved Fonda continued his repulsive rants on Twitter last Tuesday by calling for the caging and public rape of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen! He suggested she “should be pilloried in Lafayette Square naked and whipped by passersby while being filmed for posterity.”
As sick as this seems, singer Nancy Sinatra tweeted encouragement for Fonda’s profane vitriol, urging him to continue speaking his mind about the public rape of a female Trump administration official. “Say how you really feel, Blues baby,” she tweeted. So much for feminism and egalitarianism, et al.
Fonda’s Twitter threats may have incited unstable people to violence toward these victims of his vulgarity. Secret Service agents are reported to have visited him and may be the reason for his subsequent, more civilized, apology.
Online public forums generate their own disgusting vitriol. Attempts by many to present a position or clarify a comment or response online often result in obnoxious and offensive epithets by often anonymous data-revolutionaries. Some internet forums have resorted to software subsystems, known as profanity filters, in attempts to modify or remove coarse or crude words deemed offensive.
Perhaps we all need to question the words in our verbal or written communications. Maybe you don’t drop the “F-bombs” or use the “C-word” and you keep a special watch over hurtful or racial insults and the “N-word.” Congratulations!
However, the New Testament says our society’s profanity problem is really a matter of the heart. “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bears what is good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bears what is evil. For of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” Luke 6:45 (MEV)
Vulgarity does not enhance political dialog nor genuine communication and is detrimental to our children, youth, and culture.
May I make three short suggestions for a less profane and polemical election season and future society?
First, let us all soften our hearts and our rhetoric by consciously avoiding verbal attacks on others.
Secondly, let us resist responding to others with coarse and crude communication that is rude or even lewd.
Finally, let us all try to use our words to build people up and not tear them down.
Gary Curtis is a Santa Clarita resident.
