Trump to Jeb: You Should Speak English In America, You Know

Eh. You know I'm kind of compromised on the issue, though I used to be far more bothered by this. So I'm not going to criticize anyone for being bothered by it.

I suppose it's a good play for Trump to attempt -- attempt -- to take a legitimate advantage of Jeb's and refashion it into a negative, but I don't know if it will make any difference either way.

It is undeniably true that the idea of a national language -- and hence, a national cultural patrimony -- is and has been viewed as very important for the full, true unification of most countries. France pretty ruthlessly suppressed other French dialects in order to establish Parisian as "The French language." (It wasn't before, it was just Parisian French.)

Italy likewise elevated Dante's patois, Florentian, as the official "Italian" language. (Though I don't know that they suppressed other dialects.)

And those were merely fellow dialects of a language; Spanish is obviously a fully different one.

Eh, it's not racist or anything. It may be culturally chauvanist, but only culturally chauvanist in the same way that virtually everyone on earth is culturally chauvanist.

And I would take progressives' claims to be opposed to cultural chauvanism if they could even once manage to restrain their own hyperactive, hyperventilating culture-warrioring; but they won't, or they can't, because they are intensely, intensely culturally chauvanistic.

They're just so proud they went to a couple of years of college and live in an up-and-coming (meaning: gentrifying; meaning: whitening) neighborhood featuring bike shops and cupcake boutiques.

Like I said, I don't see this helping Trump, nor do I see the cries of "Racist" hurting him, because they're, you know. Silly opportunism.

posted by Ace at 04:40 PM

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