How does Donald Trump get away with his lies?
Trump’s attempt now to to distance himself from his birther conspiracy theoryoffers a clue.
Part of Trump’s political rise has been fueled by his anti-PC image — the idea that he rejects political correctness and speaks freely, uncowed by liberal dogma that prevents other Americans from calling things and people by their real name.
In fact, Trump himself benefits from — and depends on — political correctness to insulate him from sharp, valid criticism.
Consider the issue that Trump used as an entry into the Republican Party: birtherism, the false accusation that President Barack Obama was born outside of the U.S. and may secretly be Muslim.
This is, without question, “a racist smear and a lie.” Yet Trump for the past five years has been able to spread this debunked conspiracy theory .
Through the birther issue, Trump consciously appealed to “ racist tendencies among Republican primary voters, for political purposes”. As Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton observed, birtherism was clearly an effort to delegitimize our first black president — to expressly define him as “un-American”.
Trump has effectively used political correctness to shut down criticism of him and his supporters.
Trump’s birtherism claim found fertile ground in the Republican party. Polling last year showed that just 29% of Republican voters believed Obama was born in the U.S. Among Republicans voting for Trump in the primaries, 61% believe Obama was born outside the U.S., while only 21% acknowledge he was born in the U.S.
How does political correctness protect Trump in this context? Political correctness is defined as “the idea that people should be careful not to use language or behave in a way that could offend a particular group of people.” We typically regard this as the preserve of the political left — a weapon used to silence those on the right who say things that offend, or could offend, members of minority groups.
But Trump has effectively used political correctness to shut down criticism of both him and his supporters. It has become off-limits to describe people who endorse nakedly racist ideas as what they are: racists.
Trump walks-back long-debunked birther conspiracy — why?(2:09)Donald Trump delivered a "big announcement" Friday on the birther issue. He said President Obama is a U.S. citizen, and blamed Hillary Clinton. WSJ’s Jason Bellini has the Campaign Calculus.
Trump’s birther conspiracy is just one example of his own racism and prejudice — he has slandered Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists, endorsed a ban on all Muslim immigration to the U.S., reportedly referred to blacks as “lazy” while insisting he only wanted Jews working for him as accountants, and claimed that a federal judge of Mexican ancestry could not objectively preside over a case involving Trump University.
Even Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan conceded that attacking the judge’s ancestry was “the textbook definition of a racist comment” — still Ryan refused to call Trump a racist. The media also us reluctant to describe Trump or his supporters as racist. Commentator Ta-Nehisi Coates contends that there is “ an ever-present impulse to ignore and minimize racism, an aversion to calling it by its name.”
In fact, it can be politically dangerous to describe Trump or his supporters as racist — witness the reaction to Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks that half of those supporting Trump are “ racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.” Indeed, it may be uncomfortable for many Americans to confront this reality, but Clinton’s statement is supported by specific evidence including disturbing examples of grotesquely bigoted remarks by Trump supporters.
But the kind of political correctness that protects Trump made Clinton’s comment seem out of line. Since her words offended, or could offend, Trump’s supporters, they were off-limits, and Clinton herself was perversely accused of bigotry.
Trump has a point that political correctness can sometimes (though not always) be a problem when it prevents people from describing the world as it really is, but Trump’s own PC critique has largely served to espouse racist and prejudiced views, at the same time defining any criticism of those views as being out of bounds.
It is certainly wrong to use terms that offend other groups of people because of who they are, because of their identity — to use ethnic, racial, homophobic, or religious slurs to describe them. There is, on the other hand, nothing wrong with criticizing people for their points of view, for identifying evidence that they are racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic.
But Trump has turned this logical framework upside down. In Trump’s world, it is perfectly fine to insult others because of their race, ancestry, religion, disability, or gender, but it is deeply insensitive to call out racism and prejudice for what it is.
It’s time to use Trump’s twisted logic against him. It may be politically incorrect to call Trump a racist, sexist, ableist, Islamophobe — but that’s what he is.
Chris Edelson is an assistant professor of government in American University’s School of Public Affairs. His latest book is Power Without Constraint: The Post 9/11 Presidency and National Security (University of Wisconsin Press).
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