Thomas B. Edsall writes at
The New York Times:
Polls show that hostility to political correctness is widespread among voters.
On Oct. 30, Fairleigh Dickinson University released the results of a survey that asked 1,026 adults “Please tell me if you agree or disagree with the following statement: A big problem this country has is being politically correct.”
Over all, 68 percent agreed that political correctness was a big problem, including 62 percent of self-identified Democrats, 68 percent of independents and 81 percent of Republicans. These views cut across racial lines. Seventy-two percent of whites and 61 percent of nonwhites (mostly African-American and Hispanic) describe political correctness as a big problem. A Rasmussen poll in August found that 71 percent of 1,000 adults surveyed agreed with the statement that political correctness was “a problem in America today.”
...
Regardless of the outcome next November, Trump’s success in raising the issue of political correctness creates uncertainty in the 2016 election.
How many Democratic and independent voters share Trump’s implicit racial antipathy to the Black Lives Matter movement? How many worry that the police have backed off law enforcement in response to the so-calledFerguson effect, with a resulting increase in crime? And how many are offended by the concessions of university administrators to demands for speech codes, trigger warnings, “safe spaces” and even resignations?
Is the number of Democrats and independents who feel strongly about such issues large enough to alter the course of the election?
The odds still favor a Hillary Clinton victory, but the issue of political correctness is particularly treacherous for the Democratic Party and liberalism.
