THE OPRAH-FICATION OF POLITICS: Beware politicians posing as paragons of ‘decency.’
One of the most devious words in political discourse today is ‘decency’. It’s everywhere at the moment.
Last Thursday, Oprah Winfrey issued a direct appeal to unaffiliated and undecided voters to back Kamala Harris as the next US president. ‘Decency and respect are on the ballot in 2024’, she said, ‘character and values most of all’.
The same word was employed by Max Hastings earlier this month. Writing in The Times, he concluded that the Democrats were the party all Americans should back, as they embody ‘fundamental decency and moderation’. The same day, Alan Rusbridger, in his Prospect column, inveighing against Elon Musk’s X, wished there was a ‘reliable, decent, honest, well-tended [social-media] platform that can never be taken over by a billionaire man-child’.
Decency is a vague, asinine word. It’s beloved of people who seem to think that being a nice person and having good manners are the same as having good politics – the kind of people who deprecate Donald Trump for his coarseness and vulgarity, and who revile Musk’s X for allowing users to express horrid, ‘hateful’ words. ‘Decency’ is an empty mantra for a class that likes its politics bland and consensual.
This is why you should beware the appeals to decency. It’s used by people who want to shut others up, who would be happy to see X hobbled and GB News taken off the air. They conflate being offensive, impolite and airing unfashionable and brash opinions with inciting actual hatred and violence. ‘Decency’ is a form of attempted linguistic blackmail, designed to make dissenters feel the opposite: indecent, uncivilised and abnormal. It belongs in the same category as that other insipid mot du jour, ‘grown-up’ (the antithesis of which is ‘childish’ or ‘juvenile’). Both sit alongside the better-established ‘kindness’ (anyone who disagrees is unkind), and that long-standing declaration of egotism deployed by the crafty and the naïve: ‘compassionate’.
“Shut up” is the mantra of leftist politics. “Decency” is simply a kinder, gentler way to accomplish that goal.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN); Decency, from Oprah:
