WaPo columnist: Trump is perpetuating mental health stereotypes or something

Offense-trolling is big media business, and it usually works like this: Someone in the public eye uses a word or an expression that just about everyone uses, but because the person speaking is in the public eye and on the hook for media criticism, the media has a conniption fit about the use of the word or phrase, and presumes that all kinds of people are offended - even though, in reality, most people talk in exactly the same way. Now the Washington Post's Colby Itzkowitz has done the phenomenon one better. He's upset that Donald Trump is using expressions that, according to Itzkowitz, people should be offended by - and yet they're not:

---

But when Trump attacks people using demeaning slang long associated with mental health, there is no similar outcry. He has called Jeb Bush a “basket case,” Bernie Sanders a “wacko,” Lindsay Graham a “nut job” and Ted Cruz “nuts and “unstable” ” and has repeatedly referred to Ben Carson’s “pathological disease.” And on the subject of gun violence, he often conflates mental illness with crime. He said in October 2015 that gun-free zones are “target practice for the sickos and for the mentally ill.” That statement received some minor backlash. The Atlantic wrote that he had offended the 61.5 million Americans who in a year will experience some kind of mental illness. A few other media outlets fact-checked his accuracy: No, Mr. Trump, most people with mental illness are not murderers. But the problem with Trump’s comments, and the carelessness with which he denigrates adversaries, highlights a larger societal issue. Such language is so pervasive in our culture that many people don’t register it as offensive. Few think twice about throwing around words like “crazy” and “insane” to describe an individual’s out-of-the-ordinary behavior or mental state.

So basically the problem here, at least for Colby Itzkowitz, is that Trump is talking like most people talk instead of using the sanitized, hyper-sensitive language approved by the political press - and what's more, no one in the general public has a problem with that. In fact, you might argue that Trump's use of more common-type language is one of the reasons he's having so much success. His supporters may or may not be "true conservatives" or policy experts, but they can spot politicians who operate as if they're terrified that the schoolmarm media might seize on the slightest turn of a word or phrase to lambaste them - and they appreciate a candidate who is unafraid of this possibility. Do you seriously mean to tell me that when talking amongst yourselves, you never say that you think someone is "insane" or a "basket case" or a "nut job"? Of course you do. And you don't intend it as a slight against those with real mental health issues. It's just a familiar way of speaking. I suppose you could argue that a presidential candidate could use more presidential-type language and not try so hard to sound like the common folk - but is that even really what we're talking about here? Trump is Trump. He talks the way he talks and he really doesn't care if you like it or not. Sometimes I don't like it. But there's something refreshing about a candidate who isn't terrified about the price he might pay for every word that could come out of his mouth. It's very upsetting, however, to the Colby Itzkowitzes of the world. Because if every stops being afraid of people like him, what purpose will he have?