Has Contrived Coarseness Jumped the Shark?

By Noah Rothman

Thursday, February 19, 2026

 

I’ve been fighting a losing battle on this front for years. There comes a point at which any act gets stale, and the shtick loses its audience. Hopefully, the tactical deployment of profanity by our politicians is one of those phenomena that has reached the terminal phase.

 

In her bid for the U.S. Senate, Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton may have done the country a great service. Her debut campaign ad is so gratuitously obscene that it may push past its breaking point a trend in which politicians attempt to convey authenticity via the liberal use of four-letter words.

 

If you’re inclined to watch the spot, I’d recommend doing so with headphones:

 

 

There is nothing authentic about this. It is so obvious that the consultancy class is coaching its clients to be as crass as possible that the only people who could see any sincerity in it are either tricking themselves or performing for their political tribe.

 

I can hear it now: Oh, but you’re talking about the spot, aren’t you? Mission accomplished.

 

Yes, overpaid consultant — you’ve earned your check. Perhaps you don’t care that you’ve contributed mightily to the coarsening of the political culture in the process, but you’ve exposed your belief that progressive primary voters (the only segment of the electorate that matters in a race for the U.S. Senate in Illinois) think and talk like semiliterate boors. That’s how you think you have to approach these people. It’s an expression of your contempt for the voters to whom you’re appealing.

 

Social fads come and go, and this one is rapidly approaching the point of saturation. We can expect that it will fade as performative swearing looks ever more jejune. Even if voters don’t catch onto the condescension implicit in the tactic, its ubiquity will sap it of its only virtue: shock value.

 

If the shock hasn’t faded yet, it will. It’s ugly and crass, and candidates for high office with an ounce of respect for themselves or their voters should reject it.