Two days after Trump’s speech, in which he laid out his more aggressive border policy, Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) expressed her disgust at the president’s opposition to sanctuary cities without containing her anger-driven profanity.

“It’s total bs, absolute bs. They are not making America safer again. What they are doing is terrorizing immigrant families,” she said.

Whether the slang reference is swearing, cursing, or cussing, the examples of formerly unacceptable or at least frowned upon language used by elected officials in public forums have piled up in recent weeks. Since voters can’t wash a president’s or member of Congress’s mouth out with soap, the question becomes whether this salty language is merely for performative shock value or a sign of declining civility in American culture.

Clay Calvert, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, suggested Trump is deliberately setting the tone on these relaxed rules of language with his spontaneous verbal style.

“Trump’s use of profanity, vulgarity, and taboo words really plays to his image that he is not bound by the usual rules of politics in Washington,” Calvert said. “Sometimes (profanity) certainly can offend and turn people off. But for many of Trump’s supporters, it plays to the notion that he’s charting his own course — shaking things up by using language that typically we wouldn’t think of a president using. It’s a strength for him.”

Calvert saw a resulting war of attrition once one party broke the unwritten code of vulgarity. When Trump speaks with off-the-cuff casual profanity about the force of his policies, his political opposition must make a public show and make it clear they’re equal to the challenge of opposing him with as offensive or more shocking verbiage.

“Over time, the use of certain language has just become more normal — because what we’re really dealing with here is norms,” Calvert explained. “What type of language is situationally appropriate? What type of language do we accept? I think that the use of certain terms has simply become much more common with the number of taboo words decreased.”

While some eyebrows have raised over the new era of open profanity in American discourse, Calvert reminded those unconcerned by it that it’s never just U.S. voters listening.

“There’s a danger when people use taboo words or swear or engage in vulgarity that they say something to a person from another culture who is going to be radically turned off and truly offended,” he said. They may not take that speaker as seriously.”

Michael A. Genovese, president of the Global Policy Institute, acknowledged politics has always had its seamy side. But he insisted that offensive terminology was not a common feature of our political world until the age of Trump.

“Past presidents used colorful language, but they always kept it private and would never utter such ugly epithets in public,” Genovese said. “It simply was not dignified, not befitting the President of the United States. Now, Trump peppers his speech with vulgarities, and his conservative base loves it.”

Genovese said he does not see the new frontier of verbal attack as a free speech matter but rather as a matter of basic civility.

“It should be beneath a great republic,” he asserted. “We are now in the ‘no shame society,’ and the race to the bottom seems to be the goal. Civility is over. This is war. And, in war, all things are permitted. When society rewards or incentivizes leaders to use ugly rhetoric, they will do so. They will follow our lead.”

Joseph Russomanno, an associate professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, wondered if some of the current shock at the war of naughty words between Trump, Crockett, and company is little more than the pearl-clutching of the moment.

“People are going to feign offense at things that Trump says because they don’t like him,” Russomanno said. “His speaking style is blunt — not an eloquent style of rhetoric by any means. But it looks unscripted and authentic. His opposition feels they have to counter, and it becomes a weapons race of words. But little more than that. They have to say something that encourages their followers and charges up their base.”

Russomanno reminded anyone troubled by the more foul tongues in Washington that media law and the Constitution put forward that little genuine harm can come from such expression.

“We tend to think legally in terms of what harm comes from the use of any words, including those that are on our hit list – and the answer is none,” he said. “That is, in large part, why our laws grant such wide leeway to the use of profanity. It is protected by the First Amendment in spite of the fact that it may be offensive to some.”

Russomanno pointed out that political language reflects the function of society. At the moment, partisan anger is all the rage, and that finds its utterance.

“I think most would agree that there is a level of frustration and maybe even desperation in politics that leads to the use of these words,” he added. “Ask yourself: Why does anyone use profanity — not specifically politicians? It’s to shock, to emphasize a point, or to impress the listeners with a show of power. They’re saying: ’Even though this is not socially acceptable, I can still do it!”

Genovese is still hoping the slow march to common obscenity will turn back somehow.

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“When our leaders start the ball of ugliness rolling, and we follow, it is a sign of decline and drift,” he said. “We can stop this decline if we refuse to follow foul-mouthed leaders. We will incentivize a more civilized form of politics. It is never too late to be honorable, and we need to insist that our leaders reflect the best, not the worst in us.”

John Scott Lewinski, MFA, is a writer based in Milwaukee.