In years past, profanity was off-limits for lawmakers and candidates, but now they are cursing more than ever, GovPredict, a government relations software company's research shows.
Lawmakers have been dropping more swear words in public since 2014, the analysis conducted for ITK shows, and already during this election cycle, President Donald Trump and many of the Democrats who want to replace him are swearing to get their outrage across, reports The Hill.
Trump used the word "hell" several times during a Thursday night rally, and Sanders commented during a debate argument about Medicare for all legislation that he "wrote the damn bill."
Already this year, politicians use of obscene language, not including "sh–" or the "f" word has been tallied at 1,225 instances on Twitter, compared to 833 for the entire year in 2018.
Ben Bergen, a professor of cognitive science at University of California San Diego, said candidates in years past have always avoided swearing in public, but now are uttering curses at political rallies, online through social media, and even while talking to the media.
Democratic candidate Beto O'Rourke told a reporter, after the shootings in El Paso, that Trump has "been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. Members of the press, what the f–?"
Booker also cursed when Trump blamed video games, in part for the recent spate of gun violence.
Bergen said the increase shows a shift in society that makes such words more acceptable now than they were in the past.
"We've seen media become democratized," he said. "There are fewer and fewer channels of communication that are censored. And as a result, there's just more swearing around."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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