Janie B. Cheaney: The cost of scoffing

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, October 28th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Finally today, a gentle warning from a faithful friend…loose lips do still sink ships… usually, our own. Here’s WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney.

JANIE B. CHEANEY: In 1997 The New Republic published an article called “Spring Breakdown.” Reporting from CPAC, the up-and-coming young journalist Stephen Glass described college Republicans getting blind drunk after hours, talking disgusting trash, hiring a prostitute, and in general behaving badly. Liberal-leaning readers were free to infer that these were future leaders of the heartless, bigoted Republican party, so watch out, America. The problem with the story, as it later emerged, was that it was at least partially fabricated, like dozens of other articles Glass had written for The New Republic.

But the October 14th Politico story of young Republicans talking disgusting trash in an online chat is sadly true. It’s there for all to see: racial slurs, casual dismissals of rape and slavery, jokey references to the Holocaust. According to the Politico expose it’s a microcosm of the party as a whole. The author writes: “The private rhetoric isn’t happening in a vacuum. It comes amid a widespread coarsening of the broader political discourse as incendiary and racially offensive tropes from the right become increasingly common in public debate.” Must be dizzy up there on that high horse.

The chat involved a dozen Republican activists from four states. Much of the trash talk was directed against rivals on the right, and the participants were aware it was not fit for public consumption. One young politician wrote: “If we ever had a leak of this chat we would be cooked.” And so they are: The New York State GOP removed all the New York participants from their official positions. The other state GOPs likewise fired or dismissed many of theirs.

And in spite of Politico’s posturing, the coarsening of public discourse is not just happening on the right. After decades of being bludgeoned from the left with the Nazi label, perhaps it’s not surprising that some Republican millennials and Gen-Zs are trying it on for size. They’re not seriously Nazis, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is, they’re not serious.

Proverbs 29:8 says: “Scoffers set a city aflame.” These scoffers set a 24-hour news cycle aflame—wrecking their own careers…possibly for good. Might we take a lesson here?

When I was in high school, scoffing was cool. Scoffing was the only thing we took seriously, because it marked us as young sophisticates, laughing over our purloined beers through clouds of covert cigarette smoke. "What fools these mortals be,” was the undercurrent of our conversation: these presidents who wage war over nothing, these politicians who tell us we’re not smart enough to vote, these parents with their silly curfews. Nothing could shake our shallow cynicism. Except maturity.

Returning to the wisdom of Solomon. Proverbs 3:34 warns: “Toward the scorners God is scornful.” Life is serious business, and so is He. Honest laughter at our own mistakes and foibles is healthy, but scorn and scoffing directs itself at the other, casting ourselves as the smart set who can’t be fooled. It’s time to grow up. The coarsening of political discourse may begin with juvenile mockery, but it will set our cities aflame.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

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