This term has been gaining steam; apparently it got it’s first boost on Twitter, and since I’m taking a possibly-permanent hiatus from Twitter I missed the first wave of it. It seems that certain people on the right really, really don’t like being called cuckservative, and a lot of people are throwing the word racism around (this is my shocked face). Let me address this part first:
Just because racist people use a word doesn’t make that word racist.
The term cuckold comes from terms that are older than modern English. This definition references the cuckoo bird and I’ve never heard that bird associated with racism. The term as I knew it had zero racist connotation — it’s featured in more than one classic work — including one of the more entertaining parts of the Canterbury Tales.
Hopefully I don’t have to explain where the word conservative comes from. The usage I’ve seen is just a portmanteau of cuckold and conservative, specifically aimed at people who those who would quickly turn on their allies. With all the in-fighting and mud-slinging (“wacko birds” & “crazies” from Senator McCain, “racist” from Senator Graham) coming from the establishment Republicans and their lackeys, I can see why people want a term to encapsulate their disagreeable behavior. Well, if cuckservative is racist (and somehow an attack on Evangelicals), I have another term to throw out:
Turncoat. Is that racist? Is accusing you of being a turncoat for turning on your beliefs and allies also racist? Or can we have any term to express dissent against people who will betray us for a pat on the head and a nickel?
As for the wing of right-wingers who are so interested in pointing out the flaws and so-called racism of their supposed allies, there’s another term: Stool pigeon.
Because see, the behavior is the problem, not the word we use to describe it. All through history people have found these spineless cowards distasteful. There is a reason most insults that men have used throughout history have revolved around the recipient being a pussy*: yellow, chicken, coward, knave, lily-livered, craven… the list goes on. It’s because people find this gutless, chickenshit behavior repugnant. The feeling of hatred for a coward is built into our DNA, our cultures (EVERY culture I’m aware of). Human beings don’t like timid wimps. Cuckold sort of means the same thing, in a roundabout way, because of what it implies: another man is better, to an extent your wife is betraying you with him.
Boehner would probably command more respect if he wasn’t a cry-baby pantywaist all the time.
* Pussy as an insult does not come from the slang term for the female genitalia. It comes from the word pusillanimous, which means… lacking courage, or, possibly, another way of saying pursy (similar to how we say curse or cuss for swearing), which may have meant “fat and short-breathed.” I am not a linguistic historian, or anything, but this makes a lot more sense than men running around calling each other something they fight wars over.