Donald Trump surrogate Betsy McCaughey went on CNN Tonight with Don Lemon last week to discuss Trump’s crude words on the released 2005 Access Hollywood tape. She affirmed his words were offensive, but aimed to take the attention away from Trump by denouncing Hillary Clinton’s character with a reference to lyrics from Beyoncé’s Formation. McCaughey stated that Clinton has been vocal about her admiration for Beyoncé and therefore is a hypocrite for criticizing Trump for his words.
Conservative online talk show host Tomi Lahren posted a tweet on Oct. 14 reiterating what McCaughey said on CNN by using Michelle Obama’s support of Beyoncé as a means of calling her hypocritical as well. Along with McCaughey and Lahren’s arguments, thousands of tweets have emerged in the past week or so that follow the same idea; rap music is vulgar and offensive and anyone who is a fan of that kind of music while at the same time criticizes Trump for his language, is a hypocrite.
The difference between Trump and any rapper or hip-hop artist that has ever existed is that none of these people are running for president of the United States.
It’s completely nonsensical to compare a genre of music that is meant to entertain to the words of someone that is attempting to run our country. There are plenty of songs within these genres that are offensive, and this isn’t to say that it’s acceptable, but it’s a completely different situation and as Don Lemon put it, “that’s a horse of a different color.”
The issue isn’t even just the vulgar words Trump used; it’s the context and his way of saying it that promotes rape culture and normalizes the sexualization and aggressive nature of men towards women. Despite the fact that the tape was from 2005, Trump has continuously been derogatory and disrespectful towards women with his words suggesting that these are just the beliefs and values that he holds.
It’s also important to not generalize hip-hop and rap as genres that are composed of nothing but vulgarity and offensive lyrics. The people comparing Trump to rappers and hip-hop artists are suggesting that this kind of music normalizes rape culture too without acknowledging there’s much more to the genres than that.
Take an artist like Chance the Rapper for instance, whose music and lyrics relay the trials and tribulations he’s experienced and bring nothing but positivity. Kendrick Lamar does the same thing by using his experience of growing up in Compton to help bring awareness to the city and cities just like it. These artists use inspiration from their experiences to make music and since those lyrics are often not relatable to white people or anyone that hasn’t experienced that kind of situation, they find it necessary to criticize it and revoke it of any artistic value.
This is the classic elementary school argument of “he did something wrong but so did this guy” and that’s somehow supposed to ease the punishment. It doesn’t work like that in general and it definitely doesn’t work like that when you’re comparing a genre of music to a presidential candidate.