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Media Criticism

The 'Cruel Kids' Are Still Rebelling Against Political Correctness

Reflections on a theory behind Trump's 2016 and 2024 victories.

Robby Soave | 1.30.2025 3:55 PM

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President-elect Donald Trump on Election Night | Matias J. Ocner/TNS/Newscom
(Matias J. Ocner/TNS/Newscom)

Following Donald Trump's unexpected victory in the 2016 election, I concluded that an underrated aspect of his appeal was his vocal opposition to political correctness. In an article exploring this topic in the immediate aftermath of the election results, I observed that "political-correctness-run-amok and liberal overreach would lead to a counter-revolution if unchecked. That counter-revolution just happened."

"There is a cost to depriving people of the freedom (in both the legal and social senses) to speak their mind," I wrote. "The presidency just went to the guy whose main qualification, according to his supporters, is that he isn't afraid to speak his."

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That parenthetical—"in both the legal and social senses"—is vital to understanding what we mean when we complain about political correctness run amok. The First Amendment vigorously protects controversial, confrontational, and, indeed, hateful speech, so it is somewhat uncommon for people to suffer genuine legal ramifications for said speech, although it does happen—particularly on university campuses. Organizations like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the Pacific Legal Foundation, and (less frequently these days) the American Civil Liberties Union exist to defend Americans whose First Amendment rights are challenged by the government.

It is quite common, however, for people to pay a social or professional price for unwelcome speech. I used to document these cases for Reason with some frequency: They regularly involved nonfamous people losing their employment or social standing after someone—often a social rival or scoop-hungry journalist—went looking for ugly tweets or texts they sent during their adolescence. These tweets were usually described as having "resurfaced," as if they called attention to themselves without any assistance, when really it was malicious, self-interested people who surfaced them for cynical reasons, usually during a celebratory moment for the target. Take, for instance, Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray having to endure news story after news story about the fact that he had sent some vaguely antigay tweets while in high school.

Noncelebrities get it much worse. Consider the case of Mimi Groves, a teenager whose life was virtually destroyed after a vindictive classmate posted a short, three-second video of her saying the n-word while driving. The slur was not directed at anyone in particular; the quote was literally, "I can drive, [n-word]." Groves had just earned her learner's permit. This is the sort of thing that should have produced a stern warning to avoid using offensive language, and perhaps an apology if anyone was offended (though again, no specific person was impugned by the remark). Instead, The New York Times (!) reported on it, portraying Groves as a racist and her accuser as a hero. Groves was subsequently kicked off the University of Tennessee's cheerleading squad and ultimately had to withdraw from the university entirely.

The election of Trump in 2016 obviously did nothing to reverse or even slow this phenomenon: On the contrary, both the Groves incident and the Murray incident took place during his time in office. That thing we used to call political correctness run amok, then cancel culture, and, finally, "woke"—which has the benefit of being shorter and easier to say—is still with us.

Table Manners

This subject was on my mind as I read New York magazine's recent cover story about the MAGA-supporting young people who attended the festivities surrounding Trump's second inauguration. The story is titled: "The Cruel Kids' Table," a play on words referencing the cool kids' table, a high school trope.

What makes these young, attractive, elegantly dressed MAGA people so cruel? New York magazine features writer Brock Colyar spends significant attention on their preference for, ahem, colorful language:

"Six months into Biden being president, I was like, I can't fucking do this anymore," says a 19-year-old New Yorker who once quite literally had blue hair and attends Marymount Manhattan, which he describes as "75 percent women and 23 percent trannies." He had supported Biden, but "I hate watching the things I say. I took a much farther horseshoe around this time." Later, a former Bernie supporter (who looked like the most Bernie-supporting person one could imagine with long, curly hair and a plaid shirt) told me the same: He wanted the freedom to say "faggot" and "retarded."

"Conservatives used to be uptight, but the left has become the funless, sexless party. Not that the right is the party of sex, necessarily. We have fun," says a 31-year-old influencer, Arynne Wexler. "What does a conservative even look like anymore?"

A couple of thoughts.

First, I don't think it's a good thing to celebrate or revel in casual cruelty, including mean-spirited language. Of course, there are contexts in which coarseness can be appropriate, entertaining, and of social value: See, for example, South Park's very deserved skewering of Disney executive Kathleen Kennedy's approach to storytelling in the Star Wars universe. (Or South Park on any topic, frankly.)

That said, I have to imagine that part of what these kids are rebelling against is the rigid enforcement of language-related cancel culture. Indeed, it seems to have driven them to the opposite extreme—not only should people cease to suffer consequences for coarseness, they should embrace coarseness.

In the 1990s and early aughts, young people rebelled against their parents' generation by becoming more progressive. Older folks liked George W. Bush and family values and freedom fries, so their kids got on board with gay marriage and Green Day and Jon Stewart. The Substack writer Cartoons Hate Her captured this dynamic perfectly in a recent post:

While some middle-aged white moms have always voted both red, and others blue, there is usually a prototypical "white suburban lady" who teenagers try to shock, and she embodies the least cool politics. In the 2010s, she was Karen. In the 2000s, she didn't have a name, but we all knew her type. She was a "fundie," or religious fundamentalist. She was racist and homophobic. She said dumb things like, "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" She was fiercely, and stupidly, patriotic. She was anti-intellectual, uptight, and scoldy.

She's now a liberal.

It's true: Moms make things uncool. (Sorry, Mom.) And one way to rebel against scolding, rule-following, liberal-oriented moms is to become very right-wing, contrarian, and impolite. To the extent that this is what's really going on, it's almost inevitable: Every dominant culture invites a countercultural backlash. Even so, it's never too late for champions of liberal values to consider whether excessive enforcement of new progressive norms around speech and expression is actually helping their cause—or rather, pushing an entire generation into the arms of the right.

Since I am no longer a young person myself, I'm less prone to sweeping pronouncements; I would not flatly assert, this time around, that "Trump Won Because Leftist Political Correctness Inspired a Terrifying Backlash." But I still think that backlash is a real phenomenon and continues to draw people of all ages, but young people in particular, into MAGA's orbit.

This Week on Free Media

I'm joined by Amber Duke to discuss White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt's first day on the job, Jim Acosta's departure from CNN, Trump's government spending pause, whether tariffs are working, and Vice President J.D. Vance's interview with CBS.

 

Worth Watching

I am very, very excited for White Lotus season three!

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NEXT: Trump’s TikTok Reprieve Won’t Fix the Law’s Free Speech Problems

Robby Soave is a senior editor at Reason.

Media CriticismDonald TrumpTrump AdministrationCancel Culture
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  1. But SkyNet is a Private Company   5 months ago

    Nothing about NY Mag (or should it be NY Fag?) cropping all the black people out of their cover photo?

    1. wingnutx   5 months ago

      They had to erase all the minorities to show how intolerant the right is.

      1. Bruce Hayden   5 months ago

        Funny thing was that the guy putting the party on was, you guessed it, a black conservative activist. And e was one of those cropped out of the picture - of his own party.

  2. VULGAR MADMAN   5 months ago

    No mention of the Russia gate hoax, are all the other made up charges pushed by the dems/press?

    Go sit in the corner and cry, Robby.

    1. MasterThief   5 months ago

      No mentions of how unhinged, rude, crude, and outright evil activists on the left are. Somehow they always get a pass on their rhetoric and anyone on the right is a NAZI for talking about beating back their aggressions. It's amazing how lefties only hear the cheery emotional platitudes of the left and pretend the aggressive bitter evil shit that is common on their side doesn't exist.

      1. VULGAR MADMAN   5 months ago

        Any violence that happened during the summer of love was the fault of the right.

        Don’t you remember?

    2. MollyGodiva   5 months ago

      You are aware that the allegations in your "Russia hoax" turned out to be mostly verified as true. The rest were neither verified nor disproven.

      1. Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment   5 months ago

        "You are aware that the allegations in your "Russia hoax" turned out to be mostly verified as true..."
        You.
        Are.
        Aware.
        That.
        You.
        Are.
        Full.
        Of.
        Shit.

        1. ravenshrike   5 months ago

          Technically speaking, the moron is correct. That's because the Russia Dossier was a subprime credit default swap of 'intelligence' information. A bunch of known inoffensive stuff bundled with a bunch of salacious and evil bullshit.

      2. VULGAR MADMAN   5 months ago

        You sound like Misek, Molly.

        1. Fire up the Woodchippers! (Trump Ascendant!! )   5 months ago

          She’s as stupid as Misek.

      3. JesseAz (mean girl ambassador)   5 months ago

        Hold on to the lie shrike.

      4. Fire up the Woodchippers! (Trump Ascendant!! )   5 months ago

        Nope that’s pure bullshit that Marxist cunts,ike you, tell yourselves to avoid any accountability for that travesty of a frame up.

  3. Dillinger   5 months ago

    >>Of course, there are contexts in which coarseness can be appropriate, entertaining, and of social value:

    you did not lead with PCU ... and Stewart and Green Day suck

    1. Wizzle Bizzle   5 months ago

      Stewart and Green Day are on the Mt Rushmore of suck.

  4. Incunabulum   5 months ago

    Yes, Soave - that is part of the culture war. The culture war Reason claims the conservatives/Republicans are stoking and totally not blowwback against the changes in culture that the Progressives have been pushing.

  5. Incunabulum   5 months ago

    >This is the sort of thing that should have produced a stern warning to avoid using offensive language, a

    And gotten a hearty 'fuck off!' in response.

    1. A Thinking Mind   5 months ago

      Reminds me of the girl who supposedly said something about a protest, along the lines of, "I should have made those protestors into speed bumps" or something along those lines.

      I was upset that Emma's reporting was more that the girl never actually said the lines than that it wasn't a problem for her to say that at all. Free speech means you're allowed to be annoyed at protestors blocking the freaking road, and to express that by saying you wish you had run them over. It's not kind, it's "playing nice," but it's obviously not a threat nor an incitement to commit violence.

      Same with this. You're using a naughty word because you've told it's naughty and that you're not allowed to use it.

      1. Roberta   5 months ago

        You're saying reporting the facts is less important than commentary on the hypothetic or perceived?

  6. JesseAz (mean girl ambassador)   5 months ago

    Lies with nice words are always better than harsh truths. Or something.

    Also. Ignore the calls for lawfare, claims of hitler and nazi, race hoaxes, cancel culture, blm and free Palestine riots....

  7. Benitacanova   5 months ago

    Per Robby: cruel can be cool, but too much is eww.

    3 cheers to faggots!

    1. Wizzle Bizzle   5 months ago

      Childish. And very funny.

  8. Thoritsu   5 months ago

    Why didn't it happen in 2020, in Trump's first administration? Because people were not adequately sick of it yet.

    Popular vote? They sure are now!

  9. mad.casual   5 months ago

    is still with us

    To be sure, Robby, who is "us"?

  10. Minadin   5 months ago

    "New York magazine's recent cover story about the MAGA-supporting young people who attended the festivities surrounding Trump's second inauguration. The story is titled: "The Cruel Kids' Table," a play on words referencing the cool kids' table, a high school trope."

    You know what was REALLY funny about that story? One of the main points was that the party they were reporting on was 'almost all white people', but it turns out, it was hosted by a prominent black conservative, and was actually quite diverse. They cropped the photo they used for the cover to edit out a significant number of black people and other minorities.

    NY Mag:

    Almost everyone is white.

    It was a party hosted by black conservative, CJ Pearson.

    https://x.com/ChrisBarnardDL/status/1884028088843190523

    https://x.com/robsmithonline/status/1884227397366735130

    1. VULGAR MADMAN   5 months ago

      That’s truly an amazing job of whitewashing by the left. The Reason Cretins will never apologize though.

    2. Fire up the Woodchippers! (Trump Ascendant!! )   5 months ago

      Another argument for McCarthyism 2.0.

  11. Minadin   5 months ago

    "Organizations like . . . the American Civil Liberties Union exist to defend Americans whose First Amendment rights are challenged by the government."

    That isn't why the ACLU exists. It's how they attempt to justify it, but that's not their reason for being, no matter what they say.

    1. Mickey Rat   5 months ago

      Within the last decade the ACLU have rejected free speech absolutism. They are generally fine with suppressing wht they define as the "Far Right".

      1. mad.casual   5 months ago

        Even when they were free speech absolutists, despite being the A*CL*U, they were definitively pretty shitty on As 2-10, but somehow still managed to work 14 in every once in awhile.

  12. Zipcreature   5 months ago

    “the cool kids' table, a high school trope."

    Butt-hurt fugly Feminazis and ANTIFA soys hardest hit.
    Footage at 11.

  13. Fist of Etiquette   5 months ago

    Of course, there are contexts in which coarseness can be appropriate, entertaining, and of social value...

    There's the rub. Can Trump, of all people, bring back nuance?

  14. Mickey Rat   5 months ago

    "In the 1990s and early aughts, young people rebelled against their parents' generation by becoming more progressive. Older folks liked George W. Bush and family values and freedom fries, so their kids got on board with gay marriage and Green Day and Jon Stewart."

    It is interesting the implication that these positions held by "young people" were not sincerely held, but only to annoy their elders.

    1. mad.casual   5 months ago

      It is interesting the implication that these positions held by "young people" were not sincerely held, but only to annoy their elders.

      If you drill down through the citations, it's a secondhand reference to or citation of Matthew Yglesias. You know, the guy famous for doxxing people illegally parked in his neighborhood and inadvertently complained about the fact that Trumpflation forced him to tip his poor, immigrant Door Dash driver 10% for a Shake Shack run.

      And, per the norm, they weren't rebelling against any *actual* authority, they were trying to rebel against the authority they made up to make it seem like they were cool. Numerous artists at the time pointed this out but, evidently, Yglesias either wasn't there or was living in denial. Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore were liberal and they were censoring video games. Political correctness had been in full swing for a decade by the 00s. Hip Hop and Rock stars were busy using the DMCA to federate the internet in order to put "Deadhead stickers on their Cadillacs".

      Honestly, the only thing that guy should be getting secondhand is a swift kick in the nuts.

    2. Juliana Frink   5 months ago

      Familiarity Breeds Contempt.

      There is almost no limit to the malice hidden in those three little words. Youth will be youth. It's the adults pretending to be youths that deserve a swift kick in the ass.

  15. TJJ2000   5 months ago

    Rebelling against "socialist ?justice?"...

    Maybe there wasn't any 'justice' in an ideology that champions [WE] Identify-as 'armed-theft' of those 'icky' people in the first place. Maybe the "socialist" is just a criminal mentality with more excuses and a level of narcissistic self-projection it would put prisoners to shame.

  16. Tony   5 months ago

    Well, conservatives are too stupid to understand the difference between government policy and them getting side eyes at dinner when they rant about the negroes. They’re trying to use government to force society back to the manners they knew when they were young children.

    All conservatism is is the steadfast refusal to learn anything new about the world they weren’t taught when they were toddlers.

    1. TJJ2000   5 months ago

      Learning how to 'Gun' enslave your neighbors for your own entitlement is not anything new.

      Democrats were the party of slavery and they still are. They just Self-Project today and pretend that excuses their 'government policys' that STEAL from everyone else for their Gov-Gun entitlements.

      Republicans freed the slaves because they believe in Individual Liberty and Justice for all.

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