Nickie Muir: Justify the end and the means

Nickie Muir.

I'm a nasty woman. Apparently. Although I have, on occasion, been known to be quite nice. I don't advertise that - it ruins my rep.

Being "nasty" (pronounced; "nairsty") is the new black this season - like owning the word "queer" for gay groups.

The logic is, "you call us that" we'll own it and call ourselves it with pride thereby making the name and the callers of it impotent to hurt.

Watching the strident rendition by American actress Ashley Judd at the Women's March last week and Madonna dropping the F bomb all over the show I had an unnerving sense of deja vu and pending depression.

Trump calling Hilary "nasty" was vile. In the same way a politician in Australia got crowds chanting "Ditch the Witch".

As was Hilary's "deplorables". It's medieval and mindless and I'm just not sure it will disempower those doing the name calling if I join in.

While the energy of the millions of women was exciting Madonna's and Judd's speech rained on the parade. The US has just had a First Lady who was a truly class act.

While I love the crash-dummy crazy of such girl groups as the anti-Putin Pussy Riot who have spent time separated from their small children in Russian jails for pushing back against Putin's regime, Madonna and Judd are the establishment.

Nothing Madonna does is uncalculated and so the swearing and references to blowing up the White House cannot readily be attributed to callow youth.

While I get the anger at the possibility that something as fundamental as human equality between genders - as a yet unattained but worthy goal - is at risk, this is not a 50s establishment that would baulk at swearing and be intimidated by a rowdy crowd.

No Beatles haircuts or short skirts are going to deter the Trumpinator and his executive decisions in this world.

You can't out-shout repetitive rhetoric. You can't ratchet up the counter ideology when the conversation is already off the Richter scale of reason.

It is pointless and impossible anyway to try to shock a crowd that has already had to deal with the pussy-grabbing exploits of someone a whole segment of society have voted - undoubtedly for very real reasons - as their leader.

Apart from anything else it's just plain rude. The American public have been psychically assaulted enough over the last year - they deserve a break.

When Michelle Obama said "they go low - we go high" she was outlining much more than the good models and manners of well-educated womanhood.

She was indicating what a winning discourse looks like when faced with intimidation and the course discourse of arrogant belligerent bullying. People tire of that.

They won't vote for more of it just because it's wearing a pink pussy-cat hat.

The Academy award-winning Chilean film, No is the best example of why a successful revolution always depends on the language it uses to get there.