Time to Sweep ‘Political Correctness’ into the Dustbin of History

If you are old enough to remember America clearly from the 1990s forward, then you witnessed the transformation of “political correctness” in real time.

Prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall in ’89 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in ’91, Americans spoke of “political correctness” as a communist disease.  It was something that existed in those unfree countries stuck behind the Iron Curtain.  It was a way to differentiate the West’s “truths” from the Soviets’ state propaganda.  We knew about the secretly produced samizdat that was passed around in underground communities in Soviet-controlled Europe.

We knew that East German teenagers were listening to anti-communist messages on Radio Free Europe.  Some of us knew Russian émigrés whose sardonic sense of humor often took biting aim at what was “true” and what was “officially true” in the Soviet Union.  In other words, there was what people living behind the Iron Curtain knew to be correct, and there was what those people said out loud to avoid being arrested, thrown in prison, or even shot.  That was how Americans first learned about “political correctness.”

For most of the ’90s and early into the aughts, Americans referred jeeringly to “political correctness.”  Before someone told a bawdy or racist joke (or any kind of joke that played on stereotypes, more generally), it was fairly common to hear the speaker start with, “This isn’t ‘politically correct,’ but…”  It was another version of the, “Not safe for work,” warning that people get before opening up links in emails when those links might bring loud and visually inappropriate videos onto a computer screen.

Television sitcom characters even referenced “political correctness” when saying something provocative.  In the same way that Soviet citizens darkly mocked state-imposed “truths,” Americans mocked society’s unofficial “speech police” who had a way of popping up in neighborhood associations, PTA meetings, and backyard barbecues to inform gatherers when discussion of a subject had crossed some invisible line into “sensitive territory.”  This was before everything was “racist,” “sexist,” or “homophobic.”  Nobody had heard of “Islamophobia.”  A “trans” referred to a communication or car part.  Invoking “political correctness” was one way that Americans flaunted free speech by proving that no subject was off-limits.

Then “political correctness” became something ugly.

Sometime after the 9/11 Islamic terror attacks and during America’s mission to fight those Islamic terrorists “over there” so that we wouldn’t have to fight them “over here,” new language rules started to percolate through American society.  Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan had plenty of colorful words to describe Americas’ enemies on the battlefield, but when they got back home, an increasingly vocal class of “progressives” in workplaces and on college campuses were quick to tell returning veterans, “That’s not politically correct.”

Democrats who had voted for the “Global War on Terrorism” decided to throw those risking their lives under the bus.  They didn’t spit on returning combat veterans, as they had during the Vietnam War era, but they made turncoat John Kerry (a dishonorable man who stabbed warriors in the back to advance his political career) the 2004 Democrat nominee for president.  Democrats also stopped hiding their proclivity to sneer condescendingly at servicemembers for fighting and dying for something as “icky” as patriotism.

To their surprise, returning veterans began to notice that while they were fighting Islamic terrorists “over there,” the federal government continued to resettle large segments of the Islamic world “over here.”  Military argot ends up becoming “politically incorrect” pretty fast when family members of overseas enemy combatants become next-door neighbors in the states.

In the first decade of the millennium, two other “progressive” issues began to dominate American culture: “affirmative action” programs and so-called “gay marriage.”  White and Asian Americans continued to bring court cases against universities and workplaces that explicitly discriminated against applicants because of their race.  Gay and lesbian couples continued to bring court cases demanding identical legal standing to married couples.

In the former line of cases, those defending racial preferences in admissions and hiring decisions needed new ways to convince Americans that racism in the twenty-first century was somehow just as bad as it had been when Democrats made black Americans eat in the back of restaurants and drink from separate water fountains.  In the latter line of cases, those insisting that the ancient institution of marriage recognizing the sacred union between one woman and one man be redefined to include members of the same sex (this was well before “gender” replaced sex, the LGBTQIA+ movement required the whole alphabet, and an eruption of pronoun-people began policing everyday speech) needed new ways to shame opponents.

All of a sudden, everything became “racist” or “homophobic.”  “You can’t say that,” transformed from a joke into a command.  “Trigger warnings” and “microaggressions” became ubiquitous.  Television shows, book introductions, and college syllabi all warned Americans that they might be exposed to “troubling” or “offensive” language that might inadvertently “traumatize” those who may or may not have had a distant relative who may or may not have experienced hardship.  Off-color jokes were strictly verboten.  Everything a white person said was scrutinized for signs of “unconscious racism.”  From classrooms to cubicle spaces, Americans were walking on eggshells because leftists were spreading eggshells everywhere.

What we were witnessing was larval “political correctness” transforming into the insect swarm of “hate speech” restrictions and prosecutable “hate crimes.”  “Politically incorrect” jokes are no laughing matter when the state starts cataloguing them as “aggravating factors” and “sentencing enhancements.”  It’s pretty difficult for young students to stand up in classrooms to argue against “affirmative action” when the professor and half the classroom are all hissing, “That’s racist!”

In fact, with “microaggressions” and “unconscious biases” now spreading like a virulent disease, it pretty much became impossible for white heterosexuals (especially those dreaded males!) to say anything about racism, ethnicity, or sexual orientation unless a member of a “protected class” first sanctioned the proposed commentary.  It turns out that it’s remarkably easy for proponents of racial preferences and the redefinition of marriage to win public arguments when the other side is silenced for “politically incorrect” speech.

As leftists all over the world celebrated the replacement of President George W. Bush with President Barack Hussein Obama — a man who almost comically appeared to be Bush’s diametrical opposite — the oppressive era of modern “political correctness” settled into American culture like a parasite under the skin.  Obama became the avatar for “political correctness” and the supreme judge of what was okay to say.  If you looked as if you could have been Obama’s son, you could do or say no wrong.  If you enforced the law while being white, you were most likely going to be suspended, laid off, or sent to prison.

The “Age of Woke” had officially arrived.

American leftists chose the Soviet model.  They silenced political opponents by making non-leftist beliefs fireable offenses and punishable crimes.  They taught an entire generation that masculinity is “toxic,” that the Founding Fathers were “patriarchs,” and that America is “systemically racist.”  They leaned into online censorship and viewpoint discrimination.  In other words, the biggest supporters of “political correctness” have been the country’s most divisive, sexist, racist, anti-Christian, anti-American, and discriminatory group of people ever to exercise so much political and cultural power in the United States.

This soft oppression has been eating America alive like a cancer that just won’t go away.  But a backlash has certainly begun.  A growing share of American society has decided to laugh in the face of all those who cry, “That’s offensive!”  They got a major boost when rhetorical pugilist Donald Trump won the presidency three times.  “Wokesters” who insist on criminalizing that last sentence as “misinformation” can’t hear this advice enough: Calm down.  Breathe.  Learn to take a joke.