The Democrats, fearing that their sidelined status is pushing them towards irrelevance, are searching for new ways to connect with the voters. They're trying out the angry, street-fighter approach, which has them dropping F-bombs to signal their authenticity. That’s a good idea, as it's what draws people to Trump, so a change in rhetorical style isn’t bad, as long as it's accompanied by substance.
Hunter Biden did sound authentic in his recent interview with Andrew Callaghan, during which he dropped various versions of the word “fuck” at least 15 times. Speaking of George Clooney (“not an actor”), the former president’s son exclaimed, “Fuck him! Fuck him and everyone around him!” Then, addressing the actor directly, he said, “Fuck you. What do you have to do with fucking anything? Why do I have to fucking listen to you? Why do you have to step on a man who's given 52 years of his fucking life in the service of his country and decide that you, George Clooney, to are going to take out basically a full page ad in the fucking New York Times to undermine the president?”
The younger Biden also referred to the “Pod Save America motherfuckers,” because the progressive podcasters also expressed the opinion that Joe Biden was too old to serve four more years, which happens after 52 years of public service.
The smartest man Joe Biden has ever known is an angry fellow for someone who escaped prison time only because of his dad’s plenary power, but the crude way he spoke in a public setting, while providing him catharsis, undercut his already weak message that Joe Biden still has what it takes to be president. The public needs something more articulate than a series of “fuck you’s” from a 55-year-old public figure with a degree from Yale Law School, especially since it's been a year since Clooney wrote the New York Times op-ed that marked the beginning of the political end for his father. That's plenty of time for a well-adjusted person to cool off.
Last year, Kamala Harris told her audience, “You need to kick that fucking door down.” In April, Democrat Nathan Sage launched his campaign by saying that farmers have been “fucked over.” Rep. Jasmine Crockett, one of her party’s confrontational Young Turks who some see as the future of the party, reacted to Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress like this: “Somebody slap me and wake me the fuck up because I’m ready to get on with it.” Previously, when asked what she'd like to say to Elon Musk, the Texas representative told him to “Fuck off.” A few months ago, Democratic senator Tammy Duckworth called Pete Hegseth a “fucking liar” on Twitter. In a February speech, Maxine Dexter (D-OR) said, “I don’t swear in public very well, but we have to fuck Trump.” While Nathan Sage, in saying farmers have been “fucked over,” was delivering a direct message in a pithy way that sounded authentic, expressing the desire to “fuck” the president isn't the messaging the Democrats want to run with.
When an amateur wants to sound edgy like that, things can go awry. Hunter Biden’s clearly a professional in this regard, as his barrage of F-bombs rolled off his tongue with practiced ease. But society's not yet at the point where using the F-word so promiscuously in professional or formal settings is an effective communications strategy. Beginners like Maxine Dexter will be better off finding other ways to sound tough.
Talk is cheap. Democrats have yet to figure out what kind of action they need to take in order to stop turning off voters. Democratic Party water carrier Stephen Colbert, reeling from the forthcoming cancellation of his money-losing “comedy” show, told Trump to fuck himself, much to his late-night audience’s delight. Jon Stewart, in an undignified, pathetic show of solidarity for his old buddy, danced maniacally in front of a black gospel choir while shouting “fuck yourself,” over and over, at Trump. If the intent was to insult the President, it failed.
In the wake of CBS’s decision to phase out Colbert’s show, it's become that some Democrats looked forward to the program as an end-of-the-day therapy session. The prospect of losing his healing words is messing with their minds, so the swearing’s cathartic for them, just as it is for Hunter Biden. Perhaps the Democrats will now embrace such performative outrage as a form of group therapy. As comedians no longer have to be funny or witty if they're able to get applause, perhaps politicians are no longer expected to articulate ideas that get voters excited. While 62-year-old Stewart projected weakness with his childish performance, it's not clear that Democratic politicians understand this.
In daily life, F-bombs can be annoying when a conversational partner uses them to modify several words in each sentence. Occasionally, I'll hear something like this: “I went to fucking Winn-Dixie but they didn't have the fucking tomatoes I was looking for, so I had to fucking go to fucking Publix to get them.” It's lazy speech. People talk like this after hanging out in certain environments—kitchens, the military, blue collar jobs, prisons. Chatting with them is like listening to a drummer who doesn't know how to use the high hat cymbal—jarring.
I try to minimize such language, confining its usage to when I'm with people I know fairly well. But politicians aren't talking to their friends, so they should adjust their language. This isn't to say that there's no place for the F-bomb in political discourse. Swearing, in the hands of the right person, is an art form that allows one to speak directly. It can add power to a statement. Democrats like Hunter Biden and Maxine Dexter haven't mastered this art, however. Entertainers like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert come off like teenagers trying to sound rebellious. Democratic politicians wishing to sound “authentic” with such language should understand that it takes skill and judgment to pull this off.
Maybe the consultants the Democrats have hired to teach them how to talk to various groups have instructed them to swear a lot, but what they really need is to just be themselves. But that's a tall task for a party that's built a coalition based on demographics like skin color, gender, sexual preference, etc. It's hard to be yourself when you have to please so many “communities.” The current Democratic Party resembles the post-Romney GOP—lost and flailing away at finding a new direction. Maybe their only hope is to find their own out-of-the-blue savior, as the Republicans did with Trump.