David Mamet is an American treasure. His plays, screenplays, books, and films are a master class in American idioms. “Mamet speak” as his manner of writing dialogue is marked by a cynical, street-smart edge with frequent profanity.
Some critics suggested that Mamet would ride the Chicago CTA bus and record the conversations of ordinary people. In fact, Mamet was raised on Chicago’s South Side when it was largely populated by Polish and Irish second-generation immigrants. His language was the language of the street; raw, tough, sometimes brutal, always descriptive.
When he began writing in the 1970s, perhaps no writer but Mamet could make the “F-word” seem natural and normal. At the time, it was a shock to hear the word uttered in public, much less on the stage or in a movie. Mamet didn’t include profanity to shock the audience. He included it because that’s the way ordinary people speak.
Nowadays, the former admitted “red diaper baby” is a Donald Trump-supporting conservative. He has a rather dim view of the use of profanity by the left to rant against Trump.
“Today’s late-night television gagsters and their political counterparts dredge for laughs or votes, telling our president to ‘f**k off’ or ‘piss off.’ This, though no longer the thrown gauntlet prefatory to violence, still signals the end of rational discourse,” Mamet writes in The Free Press.
Remember when Barack Obama first entered office, and the use of the word “racist” to describe opposition to his policies became a tidal wave of accusations? It was incredible. Speaking against a black president became an occasion to be accused of race hate.
At the time, I wrote, “I never thought it would be possible, but the power of the word, ‘racist’ to shame whomever it is applied to has lessened considerably in my lifetime.” In my youth, calling someone a “racist” was the kiss of death, politically speaking. It put the person being tarred with that word outside the bounds of propriety.
No more. Its use in political combat has become de rigueur for Democrats. It has even lost its power to “end rational discourse,” although Democrats like to believe it still does.
“When one has nothing left in the golf bag save ‘f**k you’ and, having been uttered, that’s no longer available, what is left save ‘and I really mean it’”?” asks Mamet.
Which is where we find ourselves today. Stephen Colbert was canceled not because he was no longer funny, but because his audience noted it and so his show lost a lot of money. His suggestion that our president “go f**k himself” is like the jeering of the depleted boxer before his opponent steps in and sends him to the canvas.
President Donald Trump isn’t responsible for the demise of his various detractors. They are. Adam Schiff told the president to “piss off.” Had he possessed either power or a plan, the phrase might have been a warning—as it is on the streets. In fact, it was merely the unfortunate mewing of the reduced.
President Trump and his cabinet, on the other hand, exhibit that quality the stoics taught us that men most revere: reserve. Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Zohran Mamdani said of Trump, “I am his worst nightmare.” Who do we like in a fair fight?
Yeah. And Trump is nearly 80 years old.
The Democrats have an “authenticity” problem. That’s what their polls and focus groups tell them, anyway. They think they’re being clever by using profanity and obscenities to talk like people who actually work for a living.
As Politico put it, “one unifying thread as they try to invigorate their connection to the American voter has been a reach for profanity.”
I noted Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) picking up on the trend last March:
“Somebody slap me and wake me the f**k up because I’m ready to get on with it.” Just a few days earlier, when asked of her message to Elon Musk, she told him to “F**k off.”
Rep. Crockett has become the Democrats’ “go-to girl” for potty mouth quotes. The problem is that the preacher’s daughter doesn’t sound any more “authentic” when hurling F-bombs than any other Democrat.
“Authenticity” can be the goal only of the inauthentic. Only those removed and fool enough to think they can get over on actual people by imposture try to “project” authenticity, which can mean only “to lie in a way someone you paid told you would be effective.”
As a native South Sider, I not only indict their pusillanimity, but their delivery: They can’t quite mean it when they swear, and those who can mean it, use it, or know what it means, find it unfortunate. When Zohran says of Trump, “I am his worst nightmare,” an actual American response is not “Oh, yeah?” but “Oh, dear.”
Related: The Left’s Feeble Attacks on Trump’s Violent Crime Crackdown
Maybe Democrats should take a course in learning how to populate their speech with what Mr. Spock used to refer to as “colorful metaphors.” It doesn’t really matter. All the Democrats’ use of profanity means is that they’ve run out of ideas to share and anything else intelligent to say.
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