Trump Opens the Window

"In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. [...]"

"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."-- George Orwell

Why Does the Left Hate Donald Trump?

Because he stands athwart the leftwing progressive long march and pisses on their heads and twists their tits.  The leftwing PC dogmatists were busy circumscribing our behavior, constructing speech codes, shrinking our language, re-purposing words, redecorating phrases, vandalizing time-tested concepts and traditions, and flushing common sense down the drain...  and then El Donaldo appeared on the scene.

David French has a much simpler theory of why the left so despises Mr. Bad Hair:

"Then along came Donald Trump. On key issues, he didn’t just move the Overton Window, he smashed it, scattered the shards, and rolled over them with a steamroller. On issues like immigration, national security, and even the manner of political debate itself, there’s no window left. Registration of Muslims? On the table. Bans on Muslims entering the country? On the table. Mass deportation? On the table. Walling off our southern border at Mexico’s expense? On the table. The current GOP front-runner is advocating policies that represent the mirror-image extremism to the Left’s race and identity-soaked politics."

I also agree with French's mixed view of Trump:

While many of Trump’s actual proposals are misguided, nonsensical, or untenable, by smashing the window, he’s begun the process of freeing the American people from the artificial and destructive constraints of Left-defined discourse.

That alone make the whole Trump freakshow worthwhile...  

Just as we have hateful racists on the right who want to blame minorities and undocumented Mexicans for all our ills, push homosexuals back into the closet, and call all Muslims terrorists; we also have scolding shushers and outraged twittering twits on the left shutting down any conversation critical of protected classes, dogpiling anyone who utters anti-progressive blasphemies, and shun-shaming the stubborn who eschew politburo-approved platitudes for reasoned questions and plain language.

The world is spilling over with historic and horrific events, and they are sloshing up to our shores. To digest it all and determine proper courses of action, we need the widest scape possible, the richest vocabulary, the bravest questions, unbridled curiosity and dispassionate critical thinking. Progressives are not up to the task. They are fit only for plonkish adherence to orthodoxy and stifling anything that disturbs the hive.

I'm not a Trump fan, but I thank him for opening the window, driving out the stale air and reviving lively debate.

Related Links:
George Orwell - Politics and the English Language
George Orwell - The Principles of Newspeak