From the Right, a New Slur for G.O.P. Candidates
Source: nytimes.com
As Republican presidential candidates offered careful answers to questions about education, immigration and foreign policy at last week’s debate, streams of tweets panned their responses as too soft or disingenuous. Senator Marco Rubio is beholden to corporate interests, one said. Former Gov. Jeb Bush is weak on immigration, crowed another. Many of them were adorned with a cryptic hashtag bearing a new word: “cuckservative.”
The phrase has caught on among a segment of disaffected Republicans, some of whom hold white nationalist ideologies and who feel many of the party’s presidential candidates are not conservative enough. And they are frustrated by the willingness of Republicans in general to compromise on a variety of issues, like spending or the Confederate battle flag, or they accuse them of being beholden to their donors.
“It’s a very good shorthand meme to express a certain kind of frustration and a certain kind of contempt for mainstream conservatives,” said Richard B. Spencer, the president of the National Policy Institute, which promotes the preservation and cultivation of white culture in the United States.
The word’s popularity peaked on Twitter in July after people on the online forum 4chan promoted its use as a slur against Republicans who strayed from conservatism — and many rained praise on Donald J. Trump.
But what does the word actually mean?
Cuckservative is an amalgamation of the word cuckold — the husband of an adulterous woman — and conservative.
The implication is that mainstream Republicans, like jilted husbands, are facing humiliation and have lost sight of their futures.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, called the term the “ultimate insult” that the white nationalist movement can deliver to politicians who they feel have veered too far to the left. “The term, at its core, may be racist,” the group said.
Many who use the #cuckservative hashtag on Twitter espouse the view that the United States is shifting from a white-dominated country to one that caters too much to minority groups.
The radical nature of those ideas along with the pornographic connotations associated with “cuckold” have made the word a subject of hand-wringing among some conservative commentators.
“There is a community of conservatives who think Republicans should be racists,” said Jim Harper, a scholar at the Cato Institute. “I think there is probably a relatively sizable number of people out there who see the term ‘cuckservative’ as a valid criticism of conservatives.”
Erick Erickson, the conservative media personality, condemned those who throw around the word as a handful of racist Internet trolls who hate Christians and support an agenda of white supremacism.
“They are opposed to anyone who does not think in terms of the white race,” Mr. Erickson wrote in a Red State diary post.
Use of the cuckservative hashtag peaked toward the end of last month, when it was used more than 5,000 times in one day, according to data from Topsy, a social media analytics tool.
Mr. Trump has largely been spared of criticism from this corner of the web. In fact, his political rise has coincided with its ascendance and many who use the word defend him and his anti-immigration stances.
William Brooks of South Carolina, said he was moved to use the term out of frustration at Republicans after many agreed to take down the Confederate battle flag.
A Southern Baptist who associates with the Tea Party, Mr. Brooks said that people who say “cuckservative” are disenfranchised Republicans, not racists.
“We voted Republicans into majorities of both the House and the Senate, as well as many state races so that they would oppose the Obama agenda,” Mr. Brooks said in an interview on Twitter. “But they have done the opposite and rubber stamped nearly everything that has been put in front of them.”
Although he does not think that Mr. Trump shares his values, Mr. Brooks said that he supports him anyway because of his toughness and bluntness.
Source: nytimes.com
