In praise of political swearing

Trump is not the only politician whose profanity was part of their appeal

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Mark Wilson/Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons)

Like all schoolchildren in the 1990s, I was once a dedicated scholar of the Motion Picture Association of America and its ratings system. More specifically, I tried to learn everything I could about what bad words you could get away with using in a film of a certain rating. "Damn," for example, was acceptable in a PG film like the first Star Wars. So was "s---" in limited quantities. "B----" usually took things too far; "bastard" was all right generally. Mel Brooks somehow managed to sneak a single glorious "f---" into the PG-rated Spaceballs.

It was to these pre-adolescent researches that my mind returned when I saw a recent article in The New York Times detailing President Trump's use of what Nabokov dismissed as "schoolboy words of four letters." It would not have occurred to me that Trump's profanity raised the eyebrows of anyone over the age of eight or younger than about 85. This is why I read our paper of record:

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.