The term “presidential” long has referred to the way a person carries himself and the significance of the office. It also can refer to the people with whom the president surrounds himself.
After the rapid evolution of public discourse in recent years — some might convincingly call it devolution — we wonder whether the term will survive another presidency.
On Saturday, Missouri’s junior senator, Eric Schmitt, commented on President Joe Biden awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Hillary Clinton and George Soros with this post on X:
“At this point, a bunch of staffers are competing to put the stupidest (expletive) in front of him to see if he’ll sign it.”
Elon Musk has a long-established track record of publicly exhibiting vulgarity and an extremely puerile sense of humor. In November 2023, he famously told advertisers pulling back from spending on his X social network because of the increasing hate speech and disinformation on the platform: “Go. (Expletive). Yourself. Is that clear?”
Why does this matter? Trump announced last year that the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX would co-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency with Republican politician and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
We find this use of profane and pejorative language unbecoming of an elected politician. And while Musk has not been elected to anything, his appointment to lead an agency expected to have an outsize influence on federal policy should make him more circumspect about how he expresses himself.
That does not seem to be the case.
Perhaps you are thinking there are more problems in the world to worry about than a little coarse language. OK, fair point. There are lots of items to fix on that to-do list: climate change, democracy, fair treatment of citizens and noncitizens alike, tariffs and taxes.
But there is that word — coarse — that threatens what used to be called polite society. More than the language itself, there is a coarsening of behavior from our leaders. Beyond the F-word, Musk used a derogatory term that refers to a disability, and he used it to call another person stupid.
This coarsening has been rising for years. Everyone should remember the viral video of Trump at a rally when he made fun of a disabled reporter. He would go on to win the presidency the next year.
We aren’t naive. We’re well aware that John F. Kennedy had a reputation for a tart tongue. We’ve heard on recordings that Richard Nixon and especially Lyndon B. Johnson could be shockingly vulgar and profane in the office and at home.
But they largely kept their ugly words to themselves (and, to be fair, were surrounded by contemporary journalists who adhered to a code of silence that no longer exists about such indelicate things). But it’s impossible to argue Trump hasn’t led the public discourse across an unprecedented line.
During his first term in the White House, he made waves around the world when he referred to developing nations as “(expletive)hole countries.” That seems almost quaint today. During his last campaign, profanity has become an ever-bigger part of the Trump brand. At almost every stop, he made sure to use the term “bull(expletive)” in his speeches, to the audience’s thrilled cheers. His raucous Madison Square Garden rally in October is famous for its speakers dropping F-bombs, flinging obscene gestures and calling Kamala Harris a prostitute.
We can’t imagine previous presidents — conservative or liberal — would engage in such behavior on the record. Barack Obama or Joe Biden? Surely not. Either George Bush? Heavens no. Ronald Reagan? Never!
Independence’s own Harry Truman had a reputation for a salty tongue. He often recounted a story about a time a friend of Bess asked her after a Kansas City speech to farmers if she couldn’t get him to use the word “fertilizer” instead of the less genteel “manure.”
“Good Lord, Helen,’ replied Bess, “it’s taken me 30 years to get him to say manure.”
From “manure” to “bulls***” from a president’s lips. Silk purses to sow’s ears.
Maybe it’s no big deal. But it’s 2025, and here we are. And, even if you hadn’t noticed, our children have.
— The Kansas City Star
