The coarser, meaner, keener political discourse of the 2016 primary season– embodied by Donald Trump’s frequent use of profanity on the campaign trail– has had a long parallel presence in the popular culture. Trump’s antics in the current campaign spotlight the ways Trump may only be the symbol of an emerging frankness in both politics and pop culture, a candor we might have expected in the ongoing collision of new media and old.
On Monday night at a campaign rally in Manchester, N.H., Republican frontrunner Trump repeated an audience member’s use of the word “pussy,” the well-known vulgarism for a woman’s genitalia, to describe his primary opponent, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
If that were an outlier, a one-off uttered in the heat of the moment, it probably wouldn’t have aroused so much attention or concern. But Trump has crossed the line of decorum before. The Donald has otherwise legitimized street talk on the stump in a way that’s called into question whether he recognizes behavioral boundaries in seeking the presidency — or whether those boundaries even exist in today’s lightning-fast media environment. ...
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