Our crass political moment
I began noticing it after the September 11 attacks. The shock of it, its rawness, did something to American political discourse. Bit by bit, it became more crass, more coarse, less willing to abide by politeness and formality, dispensing with the norms which had governed before. We were at war, dammit, and as the occupant of the White House at the time was purported to have said, "the Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper." When the person entrusted with the Republic's welfare has such a dismissive attitude towards its foundational law, then one can expect our politics to begin to slide down.
But what has happened in the past decade has been nothing short of remarkable.
When the "grab them by the pussy" recording came out in 2016, that should have been the end for the GOP nominee to the presidency. Instead, we were treated to this scene:
Donald Trump recognized something his opponents were too slow in taking up: he was popular among his cult because he was crass and low-class, just like they were. He was a louche real estate developer from Jamaica, Queens, which if you know anything about New York City isn't exactly a hotbed of intellectualism. He gave them permission to be their worst selves, to loudly and proudly proclaim their degeneration. They were all deplorables, and were just fine with it.
It has only gotten worse since his descent down that escalator. Trump lanced the boil which held in all the pus of American decline, and has bathed in it along with his supporters ever since then. When he calls other countries "shit holes", he is merely projecting. His ascent to power has accelerated the symptoms which were already taking hold. Now all sides compete to see who can be the most outspoken, the most brazen, the least couth. Even Democrats get in on the act, like thus:
Breaking: DCCC announces the FAFO Fund: The Fuck Around and Find Out donor web that will expand the D’s coming majorities. https://t.co/rU5IsfBIWy
— Rachel Bitecofer 🗽🦆 (@RachelBitecofer) October 26, 2026
I guess we should be thankful that the DCCC didn't spell out "fuck" on its tweet.
But, of course, any move Democrats make towards Trumpian language pales in comparison to what Republicans do.
Last week we were treated to the spectacle of a Republican candidate for governor of Ohio releasing an ad mocking his opponent's sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather, aided and abetted by her biological mother. And then this came across my feed:
Tim Scott calls Annie Andrews "tranny Annie"
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 26, 2026 at 1:34 PM
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All the while Trump waxes rhapsodically about men's firm, muscular posteriors, and turns his useful idiot Nicki Minaj into a modern-day Sarah Baartman.
While I'm not in any way of the opinion that politicians should be given servile deference, I'm also old enough to remember when voters wanted someone in office who behaved properly and respectfully. Those days are gone. Now voters want bomb-throwers, "fighters" in the parlance of the left. They care nothing for intelligence, discernment, or moral clarity. They want to be entertained, like groundlings in the cheap seats at The Globe in 1603. It is the continuing devolution of a Western world which grew bored of peace and prosperity, which took its victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War and began to degenerate without the motive force of an external enemy. "Radical Islam" is too amorphous an adversary; medievalists in caves directing random attacks don't have the same threat level as a nuclear-armed superpower. 9/11 didn't unite the country, but drove its constituent parts further apart. The Republicans seized on the attacks as an opportunity to accrue more power to the state, power now being used by a man unscrupulous enough to not be encumbered with a love for democracy.
No, democracy is not dead. The results this past weekend from Brazil and Serbia, and earlier this year from Hungary and Poland, are testament to that. But the West's political climate is febrile, exacerbated by unregulated social media where lies are the common currency of platforms whose primary motives are profit. Winning in November, and then in 2028, are mere preludes to what needs to be done. I hope that citizens in the US and the West more broadly are prepared to finally engage in the struggle for civilization and decency.