Ruben Gallego, Beto O'Rourke thrive on profanity. But does it really help Democrats?
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“There are even places where English completely disappears; in America they haven't used it for years.”
– Henry Higgins, “My Fair Lady”
What is happening to the Democrats?
"They’re so deliciously low. So horribly dirty."
Beto O’Rourke and Ruben Gallego, plucked from the gutters of Columbia and Harvard, are talking a streak so blue they could light the neon on a Times Square strip club.
One is running for the governor of Texas, the other apparently for U.S. Senate in Arizona.
They’re both human beings, Homo sapiens americanus, which means they have souls and "the divine gift of articulate speech."
"Their nation’s language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and the Bible. Yet, there they sit, crooning like a couple of bilious pigeons."
Beto O'Rourke wheels and shoots
On Wednesday it was O’Rourke acting like "a common flower girl," "a guttersnipe," talking in the crude Cockney of the street. He had been making a very serious point about the firearm used in the Uvalde shooting, crouching low, pointing the imaginary barrel, when someone started to laugh.
O’Rourke wheeled on the amused man as if he were a duck that had lighted on a pond:
“It may be funny to you, motherf---er,” O’Rourke barked, “but it’s not funny to me.”
It was so edgy, so raw, so perfectly random, that the media shivered.
“O’Rourke snaps at heckler over Uvalde shooting,” read one headline.
In fact, it was every bit as edgy, and raw and random as the first 10 times O’Rourke did this in his 2019 run for president.
We've seen this movie before
Back then, someone asked O’Rourke if they thought Donald Trump bore responsibility for the killing of 20 people in El Paso rampage shooting. He answered:
“What do you think? You know the s--- he has been saying. He’s been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. I mean members of the press – what the f---.”
When another mass shooting followed in West Texas, O’Rourke told a Virginia crowd:
“Don’t know what the motivation is, do not yet know the firearms that were used, or how they acquired them. But we do know that this is f---ed up.”
Speaking later with CNN’s Dana Bash, O’Rourke let her rip again:
“A hundred killed daily in the United States of America. We’re averaging about 300 mass shootings a year. No other country comes close. So yes, this is f---ed up.”
He was warned not to curse
Robert Francis O’Rourke apparently sought to master the Queen’s English at the red brick and ivy of Columbia University, where Alexander Hamilton, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Alan Greenspan drew their sheepskin.
As gentlemen of Columbia are wont to do, O’Rourke excelled in the extracurriculars, such as captaining the rowing crew.
But he had not developed his English sufficiently enough for the doyens of the Democratic National Committee.
His profanity was so industrial-strength that party leadership sent emails to the 10 candidates before the third Democratic presidential debate in Houston warning them not to curse, reported The Hill.
What's with Ruben Gallego?
As for Arizona’s Ruben Gallego, he’s making noise that he could challenge fellow Democrat Kyrsten Sinema for U.S. Senate in 2024.
And what better way to prove your fitness for the most important deliberative body on earth than to transform yourself into a foul-mouthed Twitter troll.
Should Gallego criticize? What a clash over ethnic names says about us
Almost daily now, Gallego trains his Gatling gun on the Republicans and squeezes off burst after burst of obscenities.
Here’s just a sample:
Ruben Gallego
@RubenGallego
3 GOP votes is all it took to cap insulin at $35. ...But let’s be honest they just wanted to be a--holes.
Ruben Gallego
@RubenGallego
Ruben Gallego
@RubenGallego
Ruben Gallego
@RubenGallego
The f---ing former President of the United States tried to lead the coup himself.
Ruben Gallego
@RubenGallego
This a--hole will be crafting policy for women if Republicans take power in 2022.
Ruben Gallego
@RubenGallego
Say it with me now, fellas ...
Gallego apparently refined his English at Harvard Yard, where John Quincy Adams, John F. Kennedy and Michelle Obama once cultivated their minds.
But he may need a refresher. Apparently, both he and Robert Francis O’Rourke could use one.
That’s why I’m here to help (with an assist from George Bernard Shaw):
“Gentlemen, think what you’re dealing with. The majesty and grandeur of the English language, it’s the greatest possession we have. The noblest thoughts that ever flowed through the hearts of men are contained in its extraordinary, imaginative, and musical mixtures of sounds. And that’s what you’ve set yourself out to conquer.
“And conquer it you will.
Now after me ...
“The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.”
Phil Boas is an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Beto O'Rourke, Ruben Gallego swear constantly. Does it help?
