October 17, 2018 – Wednesday
P.C. in D.C.? How One Party Is out of Touch with America
Raise your hand if you’re tired of political correctness. According to a new study, you’re not alone. About 80 percent of the country is sick of being P.C. — which could be bad news for the party pushing an entire agenda of it.
The study, “Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape,” may have set out to show how divided the country is. Turns out, Americans aren’t as nearly split as the media would have you believe. Yes, people have strong opinions, but it’s the political class that is driving the narrative. There are only about eight percent of Americans in the ‘hard-Left’ camp — almost all white (80 percent), all well-educated, all voting, all giving money to campaigns, and all active on social media, Axios points out. There are another six percent on the “hard-right” who are just as white (88 percent), just as educated, voting, helping campaigns, and active on social media.
That 14 percent of America – half liberal and half conservative — who are dominating politics. Arthur Brooks explains in a New York Times column that “The good news is that once you get outside these two elite groups you find a lot more independent thinking and flexibility. This is not a 50-50 nation. It only appears that way when disenchanted voters are forced to choose between the two extreme cults.”
Roughly two-thirds of Americans, Brooks points out, “across four political types, fall into what the authors call ‘the exhausted majority.’ Sixty-one percent say people they agree with need to listen and compromise more. [And] 80 percent say political correctness is a problem.” The country has different opinions, to be sure, but they’re equally frustrated with the growing P.C. climate.
On yesterday’s “Washington Watch,” Daily Wire commentator Michael Knowles attributed a lot of this to President Trump’s refusal to acquiesce on common sense. “The opposition to P.C. has accelerated in just the last two years,” he explains, “thanks, probably, to a very un-politically correct president. In the beginning of the 1990s, you already had 53-54 percent opposition to political correctness. By 2016, surveys were putting that number somewhere around 73 percent. Now it looks like it’s around 80 percent. People have had it.”
What changed? “I think the reason for this — I think what finally broke the camel’s back — is the transgender ideology,” Knowles says bluntly. “It’s an ideology that a man is not really a man or can become a woman — and vice versa. When you tell [a] guy that he has to allow other men to follow his daughter into the changing room at the local pool because there’s no such thing as biological sex that is a bridge too far. And I think it forces people to have to choose between their own… eyes and the cult and ideology of political correctness… I think it’s finally pushed people over the edge.”
That’s a bad sign for the far-Left, which has made P.C. the cornerstone of their radical ideology. The election of 2016 was, in large part, a referendum on that thinking. Forced to choose between a continuation of Barack Obama or a man who refuses to bend to the political winds, Americans chose Donald Trump. “Now we have a president and a Republican Party that isn’t going to kowtow to that ideological vocabulary anymore. I think it’s a breath of fresh air, and I think the more they use blunt and honest language, the better Republicans will do politically.”
The Left’s fringe is used to getting its way. Unfortunately for them, this administration doesn’t know the meaning of the word surrender. If the president doesn’t agree with their fanatical ideas on gender, sexuality, religion, diversity, or immigration, he says so. He doesn’t tremble at the thought of offending someone in public policy. He pursues what he thinks is right, fair, and safe. And liberals have absolutely no idea how to respond, except to pitch a fit.
Michael is right. “We’ve reached a tipping point on political correctness.” And if President Trump has proved anything, it’s that the way to bring about real equilibrium is standing up to it!
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.