Refreshing
The Fox News person Megyn Kelly was on Fresh Air yesterday. She was surprisingly reasonable for a Fox News person.
As Donald Trump continues to court controversy via Twitter, Fox News host Megyn Kelly tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross that the president-elect “really does need to be aware of the power that he has when he releases these tweets.”
Kelly felt that power firsthand in August 2015, when she pressed the candidate about his derogatory comments about women during the first Republican primary debate. Trump responded with a Twitter attack, which was quickly followed up by a barrage of insulting tweets and even death threats from his followers.
“What people don’t realize about Donald Trump — and I don’t even know if Donald Trump realizes it — is that every tweet he unleashes against you … creates such a crescendo of anger,” Kelly says.
It was like that with Dawkins, until his medical advisers told him he had to stay off Twitter. He seemed not to realize that his tweets could inspire a whole big crowd of nasty people, Breitbart-type people, to mob the unfortunate person he had tweeted about. I once explained it to him, but he went on doing it. Powerful men with millions of angry fans really should learn this basic rule of Life On Twitter.
They talked about the ambiguities of “political correctness.”
GROSS: Yeah. And then he said to you, I don’t have time for political correctness. I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably not be based on the way you treated me but I wouldn’t do it. And he gets lots of applause for that, too. So did that surprise you? Did you feel like the audience was siding with Donald Trump against the women who he had insulted?
KELLY: Not in that moment. Not in that moment. I think, you know, my own read on it with a couple of days perspective after it happened was they were applauding him for being not PC and being strong, right? This is what voters related to in him all along, that he was strong and he was not afraid to take on a Fox News anchor even on a presidential debate stage. And I do think there’s a lot of people in our society who have had it with PC culture. And I, Terry, am one of those people.
You know, I think we have gone too far into the PC culture. But there’s a limit to how far we can take that. You know, you may find somebody refreshing until they drop the N-word on you and then you’re no longer feeling refreshed, you’re just feeling offended.
But then what is “political correctness”? If “the N-word” is no longer “refreshing” then what words are still refreshing? How about “bitch,” is that refreshing? Is “cunt”?
In other words are we calling it “refreshing” to insult people for being the wrong sex or color or class or age or size or sexual orientation? If so, what’s the difference between “refreshing” and “bullying”?
They talk about that, briefly.
You know, you may find somebody refreshing until they drop the N-word on you and then you’re no longer feeling refreshed, you’re just feeling offended. And where we draw that line as a society is sort of akin to what the Supreme Court said on pornography, you know, you know it when you see it. And it’s different for each person. But I would submit to you that Trump’s history of comments on women go well beyond the line if you look at them in their entirety past just the normal backlash to PC culture.
GROSS: Well, are you concerned that, you know, being anti-PC is being used as an excuse by a lot of people to justify saying really nasty, racist, sexist things?
KELLY: Well, you have to watch for that. I mean, there’s no question that’s a risk of the backlash to it. And I’m a Fox News anchor so I understand how these folks feel. I understand how flyover country feels, how Republicans feel about this. And my general sense is that they feel they’ve been lectured to enough on how they’re supposed to speak and how things that were very innocuous or innocent over the past several years were spun back to them as you’re racist if you say that, you’re racist if you do this, things, you know, that are not racist. And so they’ve gotten their backs up. And so when Trump came up as this PC buster, they said, yes, you know, he’s our champion. And he was given a permission slip for everything he said and did because of that.
I remember arguing with an aunt who had an unpleasant obsession with “the Jews,” years ago. She found me both annoying and absurd. I found her shocking. Stalemate.
Anyone whose primary complaint about the world is “PC culture run amok” is a dangerous weirdo.
It has never cost anyone anything not to call women “bitches” or use the N-word.
Here’s a key thing that Kelly doesn’t get. She clearly believes that half of the population agrees with her on this point (she doesn’t use that number, but she clearly feels that Trump’s victory marks a segment of society as being in line with that ‘anti-PC’ view). But while there’s more folks out there than there should be, there also are very much not as many as she thinks. We have to keep stressing that Trump won with the vote total that Romney lost with. We don’t have a society that’s half anti-PC; we have a society that’s about a quarter anti-PC, a quarter activist, and about half sick of the system to the point that they don’t give a fuck anymore. The silent majority exists, but they’re not deliberately aligned with the Right (though the Right benefits from their existence far more than the Left does–the abstainers invariably help the status quo).
And since we know the alt-right folks flocked to Trump in rabid fashion, we know that the mainstream conservatives abandoned him in equal proportion; those folks are out there, waiting to be kicked into gear. If we could find a way to get the Do-Nothings to actually feel they have a say, I genuinely believe the country would be better off; I’m certain there are more people in that disillusioned set who were turned off by Trump than by Hillary (and that those who were turned off by Hillary who were not just raging misogynists were turned off because they bought into the purity test lie–meaning that they could actually be lured into backing a candidate who hasn’t got thirty years of libel and slander against them; it’s not fair that they listened to the slander, but it’s not surprising, either).
I swear, if I hear anything more about “how the middle of the country feels”, I might scream…vomit…fly into a rage. Why are we supposed to be taking account of feelings of racism and sexism and other ugly isms just because it is associated with the middle of the country? When did the official memo come down that these people have some sort of particular wonderful that we need to make sure we don’t “lecture” to them, or “call them racist”? I LIVE in this country, Meghan, and I am ready to tell you…THEY are plenty ready to lecture ME about being…(1) a woman. This is only acceptable if you are willing to be an incubator and a sex toy. (2) A liberal. This isn’t acceptable in any context. (3) Artistic. That makes me deeply suspect. (4) Intellectual. Yes, I like to read, and I don’t read Zane Grey or…well, I’m not sure who it is I’m supposed to read, since I don’t read them, and I can’t remember their names…you know, that endless stream of lone hero books that use torture and objectify women? Fill in your own damn names, I don’t have any need to. (5) Non-religious. Oooh, that’s a big one. How dare I not believe in God? (6) Not a sports fan. Yes, that’s right, not liking football around here is going to get me a long, long lecture, longer than if I ate babies, I think. (7) Happy. That is the worst of it to all of these people – I am perfectly capable of being a happy, working, non-sports watching, non-incubating, intellectual, artistic woman. How dare I? And…I’m nice. I’m a damn nice person, and they absolutely hate, hate, hate that!
So Meghan, do NOT tell me again about how THEY feel. They have told me more than enough, and they have told all of us, ad infinitum, for the past two thousand years. They are not ignored, they are not pushed aside, they are not silenced. They are, in fact, louder than the rest of us, which is why we all keep talking about HOW SILENCED THEY ARE!
Rant over. Sorry for the emotional dump.
Epic!
[…] a comment by iknklast on Refreshing, in response to Megyn Kelly on “political […]
When I hear ‘Politically Correct’, I mentally substitute the phrase, ‘speaking of disadvantaged people respectfully'”. 99.99% of the time, that substitution shines a bright light on the character of the person with whom I’m talking.
“I’m so sick of this PC culture” => “I’m so sick of this culture where I’m supposed to speak of disadvantaged people respectfully”
Hmm. For me that filter would actually ask too much. I don’t expect that much of people in general. I think of it more in negative terms – not “speak respectfully” but “not abuse or insult.” So it would be more like
“I’m so sick of this PC culture” => “I’m so sick of this culture where I’m not allowed to abuse or insult people in despised categories.”