Civility bullshit?

From Peter Baker, in the NYT: "Insults, Expletives and Fat-Shaming: Vance Trolls Critics on the Right and Left/The vice president has dispensed with the decorum and restraint of his predecessors to directly take on opponents and journalists on social media with sometimes profane and often personal jabs" (gift link).

It's only "civility bullshit" — for the purposes of my blog tag — if the person calling out incivility would take a different position if the purported incivility were coming from someone on his own side. 

I like the inclusion of Vance's self-defense: "I tend to err on the side of openness. That’s probably a generational thing, right? I come from a very tech-forward generation." That is, if you don't get me, maybe that means you're old. And: "I think one of the good things about social media is that it actually exposes you to unfiltered raw opinions, and that’s one of the things that I need to hear as a political leader."

And I had to laugh at this quote from a law professor: "Vice President Vance’s willingness publicly to disparage others in personal terms stands apart from the behavior of modern vice presidents during the last half-century.... [I]t departs from the norms associated with the office and undermines the goal of promoting rational public discourse."

Notice the lawprof specified "modern vice presidents." Is that designed to keep us from looking for nasty quips in the complete quotations of John Adams and Aaron Burr?

"I'm so happy with the title of this book. I was going to title it 'The Testicles of an Old Sparrow in Winter.'"

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A post shared by David Sedaris (@davidsedarisbooks)

The book is out on May 26th, and I buy every David Sedaris book and listen to it about a thousand times, so whatever it turns out to be, I highly recommend it.

The title, after all the fuss about "testicles" (the word), turns out to be "The Land and Its People" (commission earned).

A NYT column refers to "Fuck around and find out" as "the unofficial Proud Boys motto."

I'm reading "America Is Used to Hiding Its Wars. Trump Is Doing the Opposite" by Charles Homans.

[T]he capture of Venezuela’s president, an oil blockade and intimations of regime change in Cuba, weeks of open deliberation over invading Greenland and finally the Iran war. These episodes followed the logic of content more than conflict, not so much ending as just kind of receding down the feed, replaced by bigger and better explosions. The White House social media team leaned trollishly into the idea, posting videos to X that spliced airstrike footage with movie and video game clips and a reference to the unofficial Proud Boys motto, “[expletive] around and find out.”

I'm interested in the larger theme of this column, but I got stuck on the aggressive intrusion of the Proud Boys. I would have thought "Fuck around and find out" was part of the ordinary discourse. But let's look. What's the origin and history of the phrase?

"Trump picks his cabinet in part for their aesthetics, and their ability to perform well on TV and Noem was famed for never missing a photo op...."

"But her hunger for publicity also contributed to her demotion. Under Noem’s watch, $220 million of taxpayers’ money was spent on an advertising campaign for border security that prominently featured footage of her on horseback, dressed as a 'cowgirl,' in front of Mount Rushmore.... In recent months, she has drawn negative headlines for using border funds for a multi-million-dollar jet fleet. There are rumours she is romantically involved with Corey Lewandowski.... He joined midway through the 2024 presidential campaign and quickly butted heads with the official campaign chiefs, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita. At an event when the scale of Trump’s victory was becoming clear, Lewandowski tried to congratulate LaCivita only to be told: 'F*** you, f*** you and f*** you. You have f***ed with the wrong person. I’m going to f***ing destroy you.'"

I'm reading "ICE, luxury jets, an ‘affair’ and a dead puppy: the downfall of Kristi Noem/The Republican known as ‘ICE Barbie’ has been beset by allegations and became the first major departure from Trump’s comparatively stable second-term cabinet" (London Times).

Is this the way we're going to talk now?

Donald Trump is a piece of shit. pic.twitter.com/UfWS89baVQ

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) March 5, 2026

Gavin Newsom requests that we spare him our fake fucking outrage.

You didn’t give a shit about the President of the United States of America posting an ape video of President Obama or calling African nations shitholes — but you’re going to call me racist for talking about my lifelong struggle with dyslexia?

Spare me your fake fucking outrage,… https://t.co/ABNZJQJLcj

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) February 23, 2026

So Gavin's playing a major role in the normalization of "fuck." That's one of the ways he's like Trump. I'm starting a "Newsom is like Trump" tag. You'll see.

But I need to call attention to his use of the word "spare," which we were just talking about, here, 3 days ago, after the father of the gold-medal-winning figure skater said "I spared no money, no time." Compare that to Newsom's "Spare me your fake fucking outrage." "I spared no money" means I held no money back. And "Spare me your fake fucking outrage" means don't give me any of your FFO — hold it all back.

I've thought about it a lot, and "spare" is not a contronym (AKA a Janus word). It does not belong with the notorious "cleave" and the king of confusion "sanction."

"Some viewers may have heard strong and offensive language during the BAFTA Film Awards 2026."

"This arose from involuntary verbal tics associated with Tourette syndrome, and was not intentional. We apologise for any offence caused by the language heard."

Said a BBC spokesperson, quoted in "BBC faces backlash after racial slur shouted during BAFTA awards by attendee with Tourette syndrome/The host, Alan Cumming, acknowledged the 'strong and offensive language' several times during the Sunday show and thanked the audience for their understanding" (NBC News).

Here's the occurrence of the hurling of the notorious epithet (and I will delete any comments that write it out):

An early effort in the 2028 presidential fight: it's George Will in the Washington Post against J.D. Vance.

I haven't read this piece yet. I decided to blog it based on the headline and the photograph, which I find ludicrously unsubtle:

Let's read it:

Spurning the rich subtleties of the English language, JD Vance has a penchant for words that he perhaps thinks display manly vigor, and express a populist’s rejection of refinement. In a recent social media post, he called someone whose posts annoyed him a “dipshit.” He recently told an interviewer that anyone who criticizes his wife can “eat shit.”...

Maybe, because of Trump, "Americans are inured to such pungent language," Will muses, deploying the rich subtleties "inured" and "pungent." George Will's father was a philosophy professor. You can imagine the language he grew up with and that is second nature to him. We know Vance's story.

Here's an excerpt from page 132 of "Hillbilly Elegy":

"For those unfamiliar with the acronym, the first letter stands for a certain curse word, followed by 'around and find out.'"

"It amounts to something like 'Don’t mess with me or you’ll regret it.' The implication, in this context, is that Nicolás Maduro unwisely did the former and now must do the latter.... Superficially, it may seem jarring that people entrusted to run our nation, suit-wearing people who take themselves very seriously, would throw around a term like this. But I actually think it’s a positive development. The normalization of that word — the one Hegseth abbreviated as 'eff' — is a sign of maturity in American English...."

Writes John McWhorter, in "The Trump Administration’s Coarseness Is a Sign That English Has Grown Up" (NYT).

Did he just call the New York Times immature?

"When [Justin] McDaniel began teaching Existential Despair a decade ago, he came up with a set of ground rules...."

"Students would read only literature — no biographies or self-help books. He forbade them from taking notes so as not to distract from the act of reading.... He feels that great novels can be read as religious texts, too. Part of the point of most religious stories, he believes, is that other people have endured ordeal after ordeal — and somehow carried on. McDaniel gravitates toward books that deal with bleak subjects: torture, genocide, hopelessness, pain and sickness, guilt and shame.... As one student at the reading group... described him to me as the 'least human and the most human person I know,' meaning that his affect alternates between empathetic and robotic. He keeps a 'crying chair' in his office and allows students to sit in it and cry for 15 minutes at a time, no questions asked (he leaves the room). But now and then, he told me, some students 'needed a little smackdown.' During one reading session last spring, he lost his temper. The class was reading The Sheltering Sky, by Paul Bowles. About halfway through, a few students finished and started chatting. 'It was five or six people who could not stop their self-satisfaction, how clever and interesting they were. Finally, I had to unleash on them. I was actually cruel to them, but they deserved it.' He shouted 'Shut the fuck up!' over and over until the room fell silent...."

From "Gluttons for Punishment Justin McDaniel has developed a cult following for getting his students to read — as long as they follow his rules" (NY Magazine).

"I’ll take the heat, I don’t care. I don’t care — I’ll take all the heat you want to give me, and I’ll take the heat off both the Democrats and the Republicans."

"My whole life has been heat. I like heat, in a certain way. But I will. I mean, you are somewhat more traditional politicians. Two and a half years ago, I was never thinking in terms of politics. Now I’m a politician. You people have been doing it, many of you, all your lives. I’ll take all the heat you want."

Said Donald Trump, in what I nominate as his most iconic statement.

He said it on January 9, 2018, and I ran across it this morning because I was reading a 2018 post of mine — "How Trump 'took the heat' for all of them: The 'shithole' timeline.'" Lately, some people have been harking back to the much better remembered Trump quote: "Why is it we only take people from shithole countries?" That's what got me there.

Trump's "I like heat" statement was made in a conversation about comprehensive immigration reform. Imagine if we'd gotten that in 2018! He wanted it, ostensibly. He tried to bring members of Congress together and offered to "take all the heat." But we didn't get that reform, and look what happened.

Outside of that context, it's a good quote for general Trump purposes, don't you think? 

"Violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America’s culture. It is as American as cherry pie."

A quote from the subject of the NYT obituary "Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, Black Power Activist Known as H. Rap Brown, Dies at 82."

He died in prison, convicted of murder. But once: "With his trademark black beret and sunglasses, dexterous mind and imposing 6-foot-5 inch frame — 7 feet, with his Afro — he was a persuasive and charismatic figure to many, adept at rallying Black audiences to his cause while alarming many white listeners."

Other quotes in the article: "Black folk built America, and if it don’t come around, we’re gonna burn America down," "You’ve got to arm yourself. If you’re going to loot, loot yourself a gun store," and, referencing 5 days of rioting, “I don’t think you could articulate the sentiments of Black people any better than they just did in Detroit."

The NYT prints the full "n-word." Is it fit to print? I won't write it. But it is the second word of the 3-word title of the man's 1969 autobiography. The other 2 words are "Die."

"I’m not going to be distracted by, ‘Oh, does the guy have a big f–king hammer!?’ What about those babies!?"

"This guy wants to create a ballroom for his rich friends while completely turning a blind eye to the fact that babies are going to starve when the SNAP benefits end in just hours from now. Come on."

Said Kamala Harris, quoted in "Kamala Harris loses it, goes on expletive-laden rant about Trump’s donation-funded ballroom" (NY Post).

Eh. I don't believe she "lost it." She just delivered a mundane talking point. She got the memo: It's bad for Trump to spend a lot of money, even donated money, on the ballroom when the shutdown is about to dry up SNAP payments. 

I don't think peppering your speech with "fucking" means anything anymore... although... what about the babies?!! 

By the way, what percentage of those fed by SNAP are babies? I looked it up and got the answer 4.4%. Children of all ages make up 38.9%.

"[Maduro] has offered everything. He's offered everything. You're right. You know why? Because he doesn't want to fuck around with the United States."

FAFO. pic.twitter.com/Zh9v18ynzy

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 17, 2025

"Treasury secretaries dating back to Alexander Hamilton have a history of dueling."

Quipped the Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, quoted in "Scott Bessent invokes deadly Hamilton-Burr duel when asked about threat to punch Bill Pulte in ‘f–king face’" (NY Post).

And here's the full punch-you-in-your-fucking-face quote: “Why the fuck are you talking to the president about me? Fuck you. I’m gonna punch you in your fucking face."

"In April, [Joe] Rogan inspired discourse when he said... 'the word retarded is back' and celebrated its return as 'one of the great culture victories' won by podcasts...."

"... such as his own. Bert Kreischer and Tom Segura shared similar thoughts on their podcast.... 'Everyone says retarded again. It’s in shows; it’s in stand-up,' Segura said. 'The people kind of were like, "No, we want it back. We’re going to say it again."' In the 2024 pilot episode of the FX sitcom English Teacher, a pair of dismayed high-school teachers bond over their shared observation that the kids are 'saying the R-word again' and no longer 'into being woke.' Meanwhile, the new Naked Gun movie features a villain named Richard Cane, who owns a private club where one of the perks of membership is freedom to say the word retarded without backlash.... It’s a nostalgic throwback for generations who remember a time when it was ubiquitous, conveys a hint of danger to generations who have only known it as a slur, and slots satisfyingly into punch lines because of its jagged consonants...."

Writes Hershal Pandya, in "Comedy’s Safest Slur/Left, right, center — everyone is using it. How stand-up has all but killed a controversial term’s taboo" NY Magazine).

"The speech of the American middle class is largely the attempt to impress, obfuscate, or placate. That of the streets is..."

"... in my experience, to express. For example: Middle class: 'What a nice dress.' Street: 'Hey, baby, any more at home like you?'... Iambic pentameter, five feet to the line. I was filming Heist with Gene Hackman; my wife, Rebecca Pidgeon; and Danny DeVito. Danny’s line to Gene, his rival, is, 'Are you fucking with me, are you fucking with me, or are you done fucking with me?'... I was concerned that [Danny] would (incorrectly) accentuate the word done at the end of the phrase, which would have branded him, sadly, with a merely academic understanding of actual American idiom. But I need not have worried, as he accentuated the final fucking and all was well. Per contra, Becca was raised in Edinburgh, and educated at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In the early days of our association she flatteringly strove to adopt my Chicagoan vocabulary. Our great friend, Shel Silverstein, corrected her: 'Becca, when you say motherfucker, it’s like someone is trying to fuck your mother.'"

Writes David Mamet in "Back When We Gave a Fuck" (Free Press).

I love the sudden appearance of Shel Silverstein and the use of the phrase "per contra." And I considered taking out the clarifying "[Danny]" and putting back the "he" — wasn't it obvious that Mamet meant Danny and not Gene" — because I wanted to preserve the number of syllables. I didn't want to intrude on  Mamet's rhythm. I even asked Grok to analyze the text and tell me to what extent it approached iambic pentameter. Was "per contra" chosen for the meter or because boring people begin sentences with "By contrast"/"Conversely"/"On the other hand"?  Is Shel Silverstein "Our great friend, Shel Silverstein" for the meter or because Mamet is the sort of person who wants you to know he was especially close to that celebrity he's name-dropping. 

I can't believe I read "Prince Andrew and Donald Trump’s Sick ‘P***y’ Conversations Revealed"...

 ... a Daily Beast "Royalist" column by Tom Sykes.

But I read it and now you don't have to. I read it because I wanted to find an actual "pussy" quote from Trump. Short answer: There isn't one!

There's a new book, by Andrew Lownie, "Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York," and "pussy" is Lownie's word. If 2 men are having a conversation about sex with women, in Lownie's style, it's a conversation about pussy. Maybe the men used that word too, but I'm not seeing any quotes, and also, what difference does it make?!

"They basically are 2 countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing."

JUST IN 🇺🇸🇮🇷🇮🇱: US PRESIDENT TRUMP DOES REALLY HARD AT ISRAEL. 🥶 #Iran #Israel #Trump pic.twitter.com/P77w3PqNLM

— RAJAT (@IRajatJain) June 24, 2025

RFK Jr. evokes Lenny Bruce.

Getting some play on X right now is RFK Jr. saying "Thank you very much" in response to someone yelling "Fuck you!"

You can’t make this up.

While RFK Jr. was speaking about overcoming addiction and controlling anger, a protestor screamed “F*** you”—and RFK responded, “Thank you.”

RFK: “I think to myself, what should I do with this interaction? Should I pray for that person, or should I pull… pic.twitter.com/O2j07NRz3s

— End Tribalism in Politics (@EndTribalism) April 24, 2025

I'm remembering the movie "Lenny." The screenplay has Lenny Bruce (Dustin Hoffman) saying: "What's the worst thing you can say to anybody?"/"Fuck you, mister!''/"That's really weird, because if I wanted to hurt you, l should say, 'Unfuck you, mister' — because 'fuck you' is really nice, man."