I’m not naive enough to be stunned by Akin, King, O’Reilly or Trump, but as a Republican, I continue to be dismayed by the willingness of fellow Republicans and conservatives to overlook, rationalize and make excuses for this type of behavior. And each time I see conservatives defending, or looking away, in the face of other conservatives’ noxious behavior, I become less and less sure that liberals aren’t justified in taking the sometimes-condescending, always-disapproving “politically correct” approach that they do in these all-too-predictable episodes.
.. I didn’t always think this way about liberal highhandedness toward Republicans. I used to co-sign the typical conservative rejoinder to political correctness, which generally goes something like: Life’s not fair, so please get over yourself.
.. Yes, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) was rewarded for choosing expediency over morality by endorsing Trump’s candidacy, even as he condemned Trump’s attack on Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican heritage as “the textbook definition of a racist comment.” In doing so, Ryan confirmed an unsettling truth: When some in the Party of Lincoln witness racism, it’s not necessarily a dealbreaker. Indeed, the GOP won big in 2016 embracing the same rhetoric I’m calling out now — rhetoric we said we were leaving behind in the 2013 autopsy report commissioned after Mitt Romney’s 2012 defeat.
.. Trump lost the popular vote with our current demographic landscape by a margin of almost 3 million, and demographics are rapidly changing, not in his favor. Republicans who treat 2016 as the rule rather than the exception will come to regret it.
.. it’s not political correctness to expect common courtesy and respect. And it’s not a burden on a politician or anyone else to refrain from making sexist and racist remarks. It’s both the right thing to do, and an approach in keeping with the values that the Republican Party is supposed to stand for, including judging all people as individuals, not caricaturing them because of their race or gender.
.. It’s hard to deny that we’ve become a society where people are put out by the smallest slights, real or perceived.
.. every time conservatives and Republicans let an O’Reilly slide — rather than take a stand in favor of common decency — the “politically correct” scorn of liberals becomes just a bit more justified.
.. no longer defending the indefensible would be a start.