{"id":1314728,"date":"2019-09-17T21:56:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T03:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/purcell-column-our-cursed-2020-campaign-f-bombs-away\/"},"modified":"2019-09-17T21:56:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T03:56:00","slug":"purcell-column-our-cursed-2020-campaign-f-bombs-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/purcell-column-our-cursed-2020-campaign-f-bombs-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Purcell column: Our cursed 2020 campaign: \u2018F-bombs away!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n

<\/p>

Tom Purcell<\/strong>
<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Some presidential candidates, past and present, sure have cursed up a storm.<\/p>\n

The Washington Examiner notes Julian Castro said the \u201cBS\u201d word on HBO, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan called on Republicans to \u201cget their \u2018s-word\u2019 together,\u201d Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard used the \u201cb-word\u201d to describe President Trump, and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand told a group of activists that \u201cif we are not helping people, we should go the \u2018f-word\u2019 home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the queen mother of today\u2019s cussing campaigners: Beto \u201cf-bomb\u201d O\u2019Rourke.<\/p>\n

He has used the \u201cf-word\u201d as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection \u2014 pretty much everything but a dangling participle, whatever the \u201ch-e-double-hockey-sticks\u201d that is.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke has been struggling in the polls since Mayor Pete \u201cTrump \u2018P.O.\u2019d\u2019 our allies\u201d Buttigieg stole his thunder. O\u2019Rourke\u2019s cursing appears to be a ploy for attention, which is all it\u2019s getting him.<\/p>\n

I agree with political observers who cite two reasons for the increasing use of salty language.<\/p>\n

Emma Byrne, author of \u201cSwearing is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language,\u201d tells Smithsonian there is a science to why we curse. She says \u201cpeppering our language with dirty words can actually help us gain credibility and establish a sense of camaraderie\u201d \u2014 if it\u2019s done properly.<\/p>\n

She distinguishes between \u201cpropositional swearing, which is deliberate and planned, and non-propositional swearing, which can happen when we\u2019re surprised, or among friends or confidants.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke\u2019s swearing comes across as contrived \u2014 a sign of weakness from an unserious candidate trying to make headlines.<\/p>\n

That brings us to the second reason for politicians\u2019 increasingly salty language: President Trump, who, according to Factba.se transcripts, has cursed publicly at least 87 times since 2017.<\/p>\n

The thinking is that Trump\u2019s \u201ceveryday Joe\u201d cursing has lowered the bar for political discourse, but that other politicians emulating him fail to understand that he\u2019s a master of non-propositional swearing, which \u2014 at least among his supporters \u2014 may actually boost his political status.<\/p>\n

When Trump curses, says Byrne, it comes across as a \u201csign of honesty\u201d from a non-politician who \u201ctells it like it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s enough to make a Trump opponent curse.<\/p>\n

Trump certainly isn\u2019t the first president to use profanities. Time reports that after a Revolutionary War battle, George Washington \u201cswore \u2026 till the leaves shook on the trees.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the 1948 election, President Truman acquired the nickname \u201cGive \u2018Em Hell Harry\u201d \u2014 at a time when \u201chell\u201d offended no small number of Americans.<\/p>\n

Once his now-infamous tapes went public, President Nixon turned out to be a master of naughty words.<\/p>\n

And Lyndon Baines Johnson \u2014 perhaps our most gifted presidential user of curse words \u2014 had a reputation for verbal obscenity.<\/p>\n

In the past, political leaders cussed in private, not in public. Today, though, it\u2019s not just politicians swearing more \u2014 it\u2019s everyone.<\/p>\n

A 2017 study by San Diego State University psychologist Jean M. Twenge showed a dramatic increase in cursing, which she attributed to America\u2019s growing individualism, \u201ca cultural system that emphasizes the self more and social rules less.\u201d She explained that \u201cas social rules fell by the wayside, and people were told to express themselves, swearing became more common.\u201d<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t bode well for our cussing politicians. The more that they and everyone else use taboo terms, the less taboo those terms become \u2014 and the less impact they have.<\/p>\n

If the use of salty language in our increasingly strident political discourse troubles you, here\u2019s a key takeaway from the 2020 campaign season:<\/p>\n

We\u2019re all cursed.<\/p>\n

Tom Purcell is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Send comments to Tom at Tom@TomPurcell.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Purcell Some presidential candidates, past and present, sure have cursed up a storm. The Washington Examiner notes Julian Castro said the \u201cBS\u201d word on HBO, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan called on Republicans to \u201cget their \u2018s-word\u2019 together,\u201d Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard used the \u201cb-word\u201d to describe President Trump, and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1314728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 15:41:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1314728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1314728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1314728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1314728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}