I Miss The Days Before Political Correctness

I think everybody’s a little too sensitive these days. Call me old fashioned, but I miss the days when you could make fun of someone for the color of their skin. I miss the days when you could imply someone was involved in a homosexual relationship as a way of insulting them. And I especially long for the time when you could see a person in his senior years trip and not feel self-conscious laughing hysterically at his misstep.

Before you go cancelling me, I’m not talking about the old days of Amos and Andy. I’m not even talking the 70’s or 80’s. No, the era I feel nostalgic for is the Trump era. Wasn’t it fun when we could mock him for the weird orange hue of his aged skin? Wasn’t it fun to post pictures of him and Vladimir Putin kissing? You know, because they were acting all gay. And wasn’t it just a hoot when we could point to him awkwardly coming down a ramp without feeling all ageist about it.

And don’t forget about the body shaming. It was fun to call him fat and out of shape, wasn’t it? Comparing him to other presidents who jogged while he just played golf. That probably had something to do with his age, which we also made fun of. We loved to laugh when he boasted he passed cognitive tests designed to look for Alzheimer’s.

You can’t do that nowadays. Why, it’s not even acceptable to suggest that the current president might do well to take such a test. There’s no room for humor anymore.

When Trump said something stupid, we laughed and laughed. When Biden says something stupid like “Uh…you know, the thing,” we are made to feel bad because we are mocking someone with a stutter. And him falling up the stairs not once but three times in quick succession, that wasn’t funny like Trump on the ramp.

We can’t make fun of Kamala, either. Not that we made fun of Mike Pence much, he’s an inherently unfunny person. But had there been any humor to be extracted from a conservative Christian who radiates cruelty and self-righteousnous, I’m sure it would have been perfectly acceptable to mine that vein.

We can’t make fun of Kamala’s creepy chuckle that is usually unleashed apropos of nothing. We can’t point out that it is the meaningless guffaw of one well-practiced in the art of sycophancy. Nor is it permissible to discuss her actual record. And please, whatever you do, don’t compare her to a Tickle Me Elmo doll in Converse sneakers. That would be racist and sexist.

Personally, I find it useful to be able to question whether the man we elected as President Of The United States Of America is suffering from cognitive decline, though in Trump’s case I think it was more megalomania mixed with a lack of refinement and a subpar intellect. I think it is important to be able to point out when a Vice President exhibits the intellectual, moral equivalent of a Dancing Hamster Toy. That’s not being homophobic, is it?

I get it, I totally get that we need to be careful with our words so that we do not harm the feelings of others. I just miss the old days when we were able to bring up the fact that there are children in cages on our border without being called divisive or “bad faith actors”.

Perhaps I am getting old and out of touch with the times. Perhaps I am no longer living in an age where we might judge a person’s character by the actions they take rather than their ethnicity, gender, age, sexual preferences, or party affiliation. And perhaps I could even come to understand why we need a strict orthodoxy regarding what can and cannot be said. I just find it impossible to adhere to such an orthodoxy when it is so inconsistently applied.