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Donald Trump, the N-Word, and the GOP
It’s not okay for white people to use the N-word. I thought this was generally understood and widely accepted for … like a few decades now, but apparently I was wrong. (By the way, if you’re a white person, and you think you’re somehow a victim or being oppressed because you’re not allowed to use the N-word, I pity you.)
This has come up in discussion recently because word once again is circulating that there is a tape (or tapes, plural) of “Apprentice” outtakes that include Donald Trump (among other things) using the N-word.
This story isn’t new. It made the rounds in 2015 and 2016. (Anyone who is aware of Donald Trump’s history of overt racism wasn’t surprised.) I don’t know whether such a tape exists, but some are concerned about it because when Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked this week, she couldn’t guarantee it didn’t exist.
In anticipation of the existence of such a tape and its potential release, we’re already seeing rationalizations (including here on Ricochet) and explanations of how, if Donald Trump was caught on tape using the N-word, it’s either okay or it doesn’t matter.
Okay, so two things: First, it’s not okay. Second, it does matter.
If this tape does exist, and it comes out for all of us to hear, it’s going to do enormous damage to the Republican Party. Because what will certainly follow is legions of Trump apologists explaining how it’s okay.
At which point, the Republican Party will become the It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word Party. If you care about the electoral success of the Republican Party, you don’t want it to become the It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word Party.
Further, if you care about conservative governance in the future, to the extent that Donald Trump is associated with that conservative governance, it’s a big problem. If things like deregulation are associated with the Republican Party, and the Republican Party is the It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word Party, then deregulation becomes It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word-deregulation. All those conservative federal judges become It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word judges. Tax cuts become It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word tax cuts.
For Republicans, if you become the It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word Party, your brand will be irreparably damaged. For conservatives, if you become the philosophy of It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word, it will be the end of conservatism. Any claim of moral superiority will be gone. The decent people will have to separate themselves and find some other name to call themselves.
If a tape comes out, you don’t want to be trapped on the wrong side of things. Certain things are beyond the pale. This is one of them. If that tape comes out, don’t rationalize it, because what you hear will not be okay.
Published in General
We used to hear witticisms that debates in academia were so nasty because the stakes were so small.
Now we have an argument deriving from quasi-democrat posting to a center-right website to say that we should not support a POTUS known for the frequent use of coarse language, if at any time he can be shown to have uttered a word that 5 to 10% of the population uses fairly regularly but which 90 to 95% of the population considers to be in extreme bad taste.
Here’s lyrics to a song by Kendrick Lamar, who was a guest at the B. Hussein Obama White House: http://www.metrolyrics.com/control-lyrics-kendrick-lamar.html#/startvideo
Another guest was Sean Combs: https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/diddy/testimonialintro.html
Another was Killer Mike: http://www.metrolyrics.com/gangsta-lyrics-killer-mike.html
So I presume that Mr Obama, who had these vulgarians come as honored guests into the People’s House, will be disavowed by the left and by BLM?
And maybe by Fred?
Let’s stop being cowards in the face of Marxist PC speech codes. I don’t use the word ni–er and I don’t care to hear other people use it. It offends me. But using a bad word now and then does not make one a bad person.
So let’s stop making the arguments in academia look substantial, shall we?
I’ll say whatever I want in the privacy of my own home. Interpret that however you like.
Sorry. Who is the quasi-Democrat?
And let’s not use Wikipedia, which is as overtly leftist as any of the mainstream news media, as a citation for matters of opinion.
Good and timely post Fred. This is something that needed to be said on a subject we can all agree on, both conservatives and libertarians.
Moderator Note:
VulgaritySome of my best friends are [redacted].
Exactly. And I think that’s the party we are.
I think the reality is that there are a handful of sad shallow sorts who wish they could get away with using the word in question without dire social consequences, because they think it’d be sly and edgy — kind of like when the last president flipped off the country with his juvenile middle-finger-along-the-cheek routine. Some people are frat boys forever.
And there is another group of, I believe, well-intentioned people who are actually offended by the weirdness of the dirtiest word in the English language being forbidden to most people but blithely bandied about by the group which has the greatest reason to find it repugnant. And this group is probably largely offended because they’re told, ad nauseum, that they’re racists whether they know it or not. (I know I find that tiresome.) One can understand why they’d occasionally want to kick back.
And then there’s the group that thinks words are just sounds, and no word should be on the Thou Shalt Not list. These people are wrong, but can be forgiven for not thinking deeply about the nature of communication.
The point is, these are all small groups, and they don’t and never will make up a substantial part of the Republican party nor the conservative movement. There is no danger that they will achieve ascendance through the bad example of President Trump. And there is little danger that a prominent voice will emerge to defend the use of this particular word by our current President.
This peculiar word is a feeble echo of that peculiar institution of which Lincoln spoke. I think that truth communicates the reality of racism in America: it is dead. Time to take it off Democratic life support. And Republicans are leading the fight to do that.
It isn’t only lefties who virtue signal, is it Fred, Jamie et al.?
Can we not do that pls
One of the more interesting reactions to Trump’s vulgarity is some libertarians setting themselves up as speech police, sex scolds and Miss Manners of conservatism and the GOP.
Kind of a libertarian minstrel show.
Moderator Note:
Think of it like abridged swear words here, it's treated the same.You mean it’s not a separate word from the N-word that white folks can use with their black friends? I’ve been misinformed!
Let the free market sort it out, eh?
If you could point to the libertarian arguing for government restrictions on speech that would be most helpful.
There is no conflict between social standards of behavior and libertarian philosophy.
There have been some general posts here discussing use of the “N-Word.” In those threads, there also has been some discussion of the existence of this tape. And, in an even smaller subset, there have been “defenses” of Trump, indicating that it doesn’t matter. The discussion is front and center in those threads. This is a Main Feed post that reeeealy wants to suggest that the tape exists, although the author is too cagey and good with words to go there. In view of the other existing threads, I don’t see it as much more than pot-stirring. And a discussion based on the unproven–the tapes existence and the allegation that “apparently” it’s OK for whites to use that word–is as close to a straw man as you can get, if it isn’t.
Moderator Note:
See aboveWhy not?
I agree. I would say, however, that there has been a growing conflict in recent years between libertarianism as practiced and the idea of social standards of behavior. I think it probably takes the opportunity of criticizing the much-reviled Trump to bring forth a civility-based argument from the typical modern libertarian.
I think that’s the sub-text of the responses here. One can’t help but suspect that The Dirtiest Word in the English Language is merely a convenient tool for once again goring the favorite ox.
The racial divide will not be lessened by dogma concerning the improper use of the N-word.
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/word-association/n8615
Because you’re proving the point of the OP.
If such a tape actually existed I think we’d have heard it about a gazillion times on CNN by now, with as many links to it on Twitter and everywhere else.
Sorry. What’s the “dogma”? That it’s not okay for white people to use the n-word?
It amazes me that people who claim to hate a word are willing to imbue it with talismanic power by refusing to allow it to pass their lips.
Does linking to a Wikipedia page prove the page’s subject’s “overt racism”?
Especially when the page itself doesn’t say he is “overtly racist” but only collects insinuations by people who are criticizing things he said that are indirectly related to race if the critic wants them to be?
There are many different “modern libertarians” as there are many different “modern conservatives”. It’s probably best for both sides to avoid strawmen.
Because most people — even normal people — will find it offensive, and it reflects badly on our little community here.
It doesn’t matter that it shouldn’t reflect badly. It will reflect badly.
Now, a case can be made for breaking the rules. I’m in favor, for example, of drawing pictures of Muhammad, because I think we shouldn’t let the threat of being killed by Islamic extremists determine which ideas we can and can’t express.
But I don’t think resurrecting the casual use of the most offensive racial epithet is a cause we conservatives should be championing. It seems neither worthy nor productive.
Voldemort!
Totally disagree with your first line.
If it is not ok for white people to use the N-word, it is not ok for anyone to use the N-word.
I agree that the president would be foolish to speak with such low-brow language, but digging up years worth of audio just to find something to complain about is stupid beyond belief, and the height of – something I vowed I’d never say, until people started proving that it was necessary – an actual Trump derangement syndrome.
When you’ve got it bad, you lose just as much credibility as anyone who would suggest that Trump can go around saying whatever he wants. Right now, I’d be happy to take both sides, like ’em all up in a row, and run by with a 2×4 smacking some sense into everyone.
Love you Fred, but this is over-the-top faulty reasoning even by your standards.
In what way does some person on Ricochet or elsewhere saying they don’t care about this nonsense mean “the Republican Party will become the It’s-Okay-To-Say-The-N-Word Party”.
Things that are not racist:
2. believing that the Central Park 5 committed rape
3. doing business with Don King
4. saying that there are good people on both sides of the Confederate monument debate
That’s all that it is. Ni–er is no more vulgar than ch-nk or g–k or wh-tey or po-ak. It is the history of how slaves were treated in America that is vulgar, but we fought a war and expended over 600,000 American lives, most of them white-skinned people, to atone for that.
I attend a church in which more than 90% of the congregation has brown or black skin. I have never heard any of my co-parishioners say ni–er or ni–a or ni–uz nor any one of the other sophomoric equivalents of ni–er. I don’t expect that I ever shall.
One suspects that Mr Obama delighted in feting rap artists who gored white people in this way.
Two things. First, I liberally sprinkle “I think” and similar opinion-indicating phrases into my comments, to convey the idea that I’m expressing my personal opinions formed by my personal experience and observation. I’m not posing a logical argument. I’m noting what I’ve observed.
Secondly, observing that there are “many different” this or that isn’t particularly compelling, given that it sweeps every outlier into the fold and makes any discussion of anything pretty much meaningless. For example, you wrote:
Yet there are many “social standards of behavior,” some of which no doubt run afoul of some libertarian philosophy. I didn’t call you on that because I recognize that you were speaking broadly, and not intending to include every conceivable standard on the spectrum of social behavior.
Only poorly socialized and painfully geeky people do that, and I’m trying to improve myself.
Anyway, back to libertarianism. I think the movement has tended to reject, in recent years, the value of upholding social tradition and convention. That’s why I ended my decade of hard-core libertarian/LP activism and participation years ago: it just seemed to be increasingly disdainful of aspects of civility and convention that mattered a lot to me.