Renewable Revolution

They   cherry-picked anecdotes and caricatured the subjects of their criticism.

They complained that other people were creating and enforcing speech codes, while at the same time attempting to enforce their own speech codes.

For 25 years, invoking this vague and ever-shifting nemesis has been a favourite tactic of the right – and Donald Trump’s victory is its greatest triumph   

In truth, these crusaders against political correctness       were every bit as political as their opponents.

As Jane Mayer documents in her book, Dark Money: the Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, Bloom and D’Souza were funded by networks of conservative donors – particularly the Koch, Olin and Scaife families – who had spent the 1980s building programmes that they hoped would create a new “counter-intelligentsia”.

Trump has also continued to cry PC in response to criticism. When an interviewer from Politico asked a Trump transition team member why Trump was appointing so many lobbyists and political insiders, despite having pledged to “drain the swamp” of them, the source said that “one of the most refreshing parts of … the whole Trump style is that he does not care about political correctness.” 

Apparently it would have been politically correct to hold him to his campaign promises.