Shocked by Rep. Tlaib’s hateful political language? We shouldn’t be

As a part-time member of the fellowship of political commentators, I am always drawn into whatever the latest cycle of opinion frenzy dictates. These past few days, the topic that none of us seems able to stop talking about is the coarse language used by freshman U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich).

Tlaib was at a MoveOn.org rally in Washington on Thursday when she was recorded saying, “When your son looks at you and says, ‘Momma, look you won. Bullies don’t win.’ And I said, ‘Baby, they don’t.’ Because we’re going to go in there and impeach the motherf—er.”

{mosads}Well, I’m shocked. Actually, that isn’t true. I am not at all shocked. I am not even offended, not when considering the source. There is nothing about Tlaib’s remark that struck me as being out of the ordinary. In fact, in some ways it seemed fairly mainstream and a bit restrained, given what I am accustomed to hearing.

That isn’t because I spend all my time reading graphic novels about longshoremen. It’s because, unlike almost of my team-right colleagues, I spend my time on and around U.S. college campuses supporting the efforts of my organization, Turning Point USA.

Sometimes we can be tricked by the size of something as a result of its actual proximity to us. Distance and depth perception create mistakes. If you glance up at the moon, an astronomical body in Earth’s orbit with a radius of 1,079 miles, and then hold a U.S. quarter in front of your eye, you can make the moon disappear. 

People who are talking about Tlaib’s use of the “MF” word need to move away the quarter and stare directly at the full, much larger image it is obfuscating.

{mossecondads}Consider some of these other statements made by politicians, about politicians:

“Some people talk of impeaching [the President], but I am for softer measures. I would keep him to make fun of him.”

“…a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”

“A barbarian who could not write a sentence of grammar and hardly could spell his own name.”  

“The Constitution provides for every contingency in the Executive, except a vacancy in the mind of the President.”

This sampling was contributed by Messrs. Thomas Paine, John Adams, John Quincy Adams and John Sherman, about Messrs. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and James Buchanan.

The language aspect of Rep. Tlaib’s comment isn’t new, and it isn’t relevant. Permit me to pull the small object out of your near sightline and reveal the larger image hiding behind it, because that is where my life in the world of college campuses comes into play.

While hateful political language always has been around, what generally was simultaneously present was the willingness for the same people who used such language about one another to sit down together, sometimes hidden from public view, and find a way to discuss issues, work together and get something done. The hatred and vitriol were a linguistic maneuver. The actions taken often were in contrast.

But now, hatred is the actual work product intended to be delivered by people such as Tlaib. Her mission, like that of so many other increasingly younger, militant politicians, is to get Americans to hate. She and they want conflict, turmoil and civil unrest. They are united in their mission to completely turn over the great American toy box and dump everything in it all over the floor.

They want to kill freedom and break traditional things, and they are being taught to do this on college campuses all across the United States. That is the world in which I live, and that is why there is very little left that can surprise me.

When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) says she wants to push for a 70 percent marginal tax rate on the rich in order to help pay for her “Green New Deal,” she isn’t suggesting doing this because she wants to save the environment or help the less fortunate. She just plain hates the rich. She hates the rich, in part, because she was taught to hate the rich as part of her experience in “higher learning.”

While the average age of this new 116th Congress did not change after this election (58.5 years according to Politico), the average age of the new members is 49 years. Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest member, at age 29. This means the average incoming member has completed his or her college education after 1990 and into the 2000s, when the radicalization of college campuses hit an inflection point.

Don’t misunderstand: This incoming class of Democrats with Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib up front, carrying their banners, represents the new face of their party. They are filled with rage, spite and anger, all of which has been ginned-up on college campuses and in classrooms.

There are more of them coming. This will not get better.

In our personal lives, we all understand the difference between someone in a fit of pique saying “I hate you” versus someone launching an organized social media campaign to destroy you. What the Democratic Party is now fully embracing is the actions of the latter.

The emergence of Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez is not awakened sleeper cells; these politicians are deliberate, and they were produced right under our noses. They were the moon hiding behind the coin.

Clear your field of vision. Take a good look. Here they come.

Charlie Kirk is the founder and president of Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit that aims to educate students on free-market values. You can follow him on Twitter @CharlieKirk11.