It’s one of the Democrats’ favourite attack lines: that Donald Trump is a crime against good taste and decorum. To be sure, with his often abrasive communication style, the former reality TV star and real estate mogul has seemed to revel in upsetting many of the assumptions underpinning US politics. Plenty of voters have appreciated this as a sign of the president’s willingness to take on the status quo, believing there is no reason to be polite towards a Washington establishment that has so comprehensively failed the American people.
But for a time, the Left believed there were political dividends in at least pretending to be polite. Joe Biden ran for the presidency in 2020 on a pledge to “restore honour and decency to the White House”. Kamala Harris said that, in voting for Biden in 2020, the American people had chosen “hope, unity, decency, science, and yes, truth”.
This was always a little rich. How, for example, Biden’s self-professed decency in 2020 squared with his decision to seemingly dismiss Trump supporters as “garbage” in 2024, only he can explain. But now even the pretence at politeness and moderation is over.
The Democrat contest to choose their nominee in Texas for next year’s US Senate race is turning into a microcosm of the national party’s struggle to define itself. One of the leading contenders, Jasmine Crockett, is widely being talked about as the progressives’ next big star. Not because she’s ever said anything particularly profound, or has an especially persuasive diagnosis of America’s problems and how to fix them. But because she’s made a habit out of speaking from the gutter, and has made vulgarity and callousness her political brand.
Consider this recent snapshot of some of her most talked-about comments. When reacting to the president’s address to Congress in March, she remarked: “Somebody slap me and wake me the f— up because I’m ready to get on with it.” That same month, she was asked “If you could speak directly to Elon Musk, what would you say?”. Her response? “F— off.” Over the summer, Crockett went on a characteristic rant against Trump. “Donald Trump is a piece of s—,” she told a crowd. “Okay, we know that. He is. He is. But in a functioning democracy, he still would not be able to get away with this.”
This is the sort of boorish energy that the activists of the Democratic party now apparently demand of their leaders.
The Left presumably see Crockett’s language as legitimate anger. There must be profanity and bottom-of-the-barrel insults laced into any candidate’s speeches so that they look like a fighter, a furious leader of the “resistance”. This graceless vitriol extends to almost any member of the opposing side. Crockett called Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas – who was paralysed in an accident decades ago and uses a wheelchair as a result – “hot wheels”, at a Human Rights Campaign event no less (she claims she was referring to Abbott’s busing of migrants). If you believe that Trump has been catastrophic for the country, nothing short of all-out war against your opponents is apparently justified.
But in Crockett’s case, it’s beginning to look merely like performance art. In March, she said, “Free speech is not about whatever it is that y’all want somebody to say. And the idea that you want to shut down everybody that is not Fox News is bulls—.” What does that even mean? It would be one thing if Crockett struggled with cursing and coherent sentences because of an underprivileged background or a lack of education. But she comes from a middle class family and went to law school. And with her strong poll numbers in Texas, Democrats have basically affirmed, “the nastier the better.”
Crockett’s behaviour seems to have rubbed off on more senior Democrats, who are increasingly worried about a new-guard mutiny and about being perceived as weak against Trump. “Donald Trump and the White House announced they’re going to spend 200 effin’ million dollars to build a large, fancy White House ballroom,” Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said in a video in August. Does anyone remember Schumer talking that way before? Trump obviously is no debutante when it comes to swearing, but at least he’s consistent and often humorous. I can’t recall seeing Crockett use her cursing for comedic effect.
In July, The Atlantic wrote a long profile of Crockett, and it was perhaps more revealing about what really motivates the Democrat than she anticipated. On her then-candidacy for a more senior job in Congress, she suggested her strongest selling point was her large social media following. The writer says Crockett “monitors social-media engagement like a day trader checks her portfolio”. During their interviews, she wore acrylic nails printed with the word: “Resist”. The lock screen on her phone is apparently a headshot of herself.
Between the frequent f-bombs and self-indulgent rants, Crockett seems to have upped the ante in this increasingly divided and coarse political era. Many Americans might well prefer a return to the politeness and mutual respect that they imagined defined earlier political eras (though it would be a stretch to say American politics has ever been exactly polite). But Democrats can no longer claim the moral high ground when it comes to manners.