By Mwizenge Tembo –
DISCUSSING the degeneration of the Republican Presidential campaign into a thick sewerage of insults is risky for me.
When I was growing up in my Zambian African culture, the rules about hurling insults when conversing were very strict.
If I went home to report that my sibling had insulted another playmate and I repeated the vulgarity verbatim, my parents would punish me too for repeating that vulgarity.
But when did that public civility prohibiting vulgarity all unravel not only in the Republican Party but American society?
In spite of all the vulgarity from the Republican campaign debate being broadcast, you don’t see anyone turning off the channel or seriously protesting.
The conservative right including the Republican Party would have loved to blame the left wing liberal media and the permissive Hollywood crowd for why the Republic campaign has degenerated into humiliating insults.
But it all started way back in 1988 with no other than the bombastic Rush Limbaugh radio show which took the right by storm.
It was new, fresh and was taking on the left wing liberal media and their political leaders including Bill and Hillary Clinton at the time.
Rush Limbaugh discussed politics but the insults humiliating liberals often were right on the edge. His right wing listeners and the Republican Party leaders loved it.
Something happened in 2008 that increased incivility, gridlock in politics, and the language and attitude became coarser: the election of President Obama.
It is now known that on the night of his inauguration, Republicans in Congress got together and made a pact that they would oppose everything President Obama proposed in Congress however reasonable.
Rush Limbaugh a few days later led the charge by boldly saying he hoped the newly inaugurated President Obama failed.
This is what is now known as the Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS) where the Republican Congress mandate since that memorable night in 2008 is to oppose everything President Obama says even if the Republicans themselves think it is good.
The Obama Derangement Syndrome gave us Congressman Joe Wilson yelling “You Lie!!” right in the middle of President Obama’s State of the Union address.
This gave us the “Birtha Movement” which at one time Donald Trump led.
Paying the national debt had never been controversial in Congress for decades.
During the Obama presidency, the Republican brinksmanship over the paying of the national debt obligations was unparalleled. It also gave us the raucous Tea Party.
During this period, and any over the top behaviour from the right and the Republican Party insulting President Obama and top leadership of the Democratic Party, was never chastised by the leadership of the Republican Party.
To be fair, during this period the use of swear words in virtually all TV shows increased.
There was a documentary of the failed Presidential Campaign of Senator McCaine that depicted him using swear words in almost every other sentence.
I was very skeptical because I doubt that Senator McCaine uses so many swear words in his everyday language.
Hollywood may claim artistic licence for this excessive use of swear words. Since when did swear words become the only and best way to express oneself?

. TRUMP

During this same period, reality shows became so common place that the now Presidential candidate Donald Trump himself was star of “The Apprentice” reality show for many years.
After the recent Republican debate, we have come to a point where we can rightly use all these clichés; the cat is out of the bag, the horses have stormed out of the barn, you can’t un ring a bell, and chickens have come home to roost in the Republican Party.
The response to Republican Party insults by the Democratic Party and the nation should not to be to just wag our fingers at the TV and the Republican Party, but to unite as a nation to clean this mess.
But tragically we have banished shame. Everyone in the nation and world sees these humiliating insults which make us squirm. But apparently we do not feel ashamed anymore.
The author Professor Mwizenge S. Tembo,  Bridgewater College, USA.
mtembo@bridgewater.edu