30 Issues | The Politicized History of Political Correctness

The Brian Lehrer Show | May 11, 2016

Long before it took hold as a cultural meme, "political correctness" was indeed a function of politics -- in the 1930s, The New York Times reported that the Nazi Party granted journalistic permits only to "'Aryans' whose opinions [were] politically correct." Now, anti-political correctness is a cornerstone of the Trump campaign. And in between, "politically correct" was used to describe everything from gender-neutral Christmas carols to hippie T-shirts. So what does this term actually mean?

Philip Bump, writer for The Washington Post's politics blog The Fix, discusses the origins and proliferation of political correctness in politics.

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