Paul Mirengoff of Power Line takes issue with Victor Davis Hanson’s comparison of Trump’s tough talk and crudity with that of Johnson, Clinton, and Kennedy. Mirengoff argues Trump is much more public with his coarseness, and he is correct.
What Mirengoff misses is that our entire society has become much more open with crude talk. I give as illustrative examples the quite open use on TV of “frickin’” as a too-obvious synonym for the F word, and the truly gutter language in the so-popular Game of Thrones, where almost no anatomical, sexual or excretory reference was barred, and no taboo left unviolated.
Decades ago his intimates reported Lyndon Johnson was easily the equal of Trump in nastiness, but he managed not to do it in public lest he be anathematized. I’d guess old soldier Ike could cuss with the best of them, but “kept it clean for the ladies.”
What has changed is our notions of what is tolerable in public. Those boundaries have expanded a lot in the last couple of decades, and not for the better in my personal view. Trump is very much a man of these times, deal with it, Paul.
