Warning: this post contains explicit language. We tried to keep it to a minimum.
Sometimes, there are no polite words for how you feel about this country. Sometimes, all that’s left is: “f*ck.”
That’s not hyperbole. It’s data.
While most Civic Pulse respondents keep things clean, since last November we’ve actually had 94 f-bombs. Naturally, we got curious: Who’s dropping them, why, and what does it tell us about the state of civic emotion?
It’s a small sample, but here’s what we found:
77% of those “f*cks” were political in some way.
51% were hurled straight at Trump compared to 8% at Biden.
The rest? A smattering of curses aimed at power imbalance and inequality including specific mentions of Congress, capitalism, insurance companies, landlords, and social decay. Also—yes—one at dogs.
But overwhelmingly, politics is what sends people into full rage-emoji territory.
And honestly? It’s kind of revealing.
Somewhere between despair and expletives, there’s a signal: our political system is personal, emotional, and like one respondent said, “a fucking shit show.”
This kind of outpouring isn’t just political frustration. It’s emotional exhaustion.
A National Mood Board
If you're wondering what raw civic emotion looks like, maybe this is it? We analyzed the full snapshot of what people are saying—unedited, uncensored, and unmistakably furious. But this just about sums it up…
"I don't know if we're allowed to curse in these surveys but this is exactly how I feel: FUCKING TRUMP. Everyone I know, including myself, has had our MENTAL health take a complete nosedive over the last few months. There is a lot of anger and rage in me that I am constantly looking to safely expel because all I do is walk around pissed off at everyone and everything and that's not good for me or my relationships. The price of everything is through the roof and only going to get worse."
These quotes crack something open and that something is raw, unresolved, and loud. People aren’t politely disillusioned. They’re angry. And that anger isn’t random. It’s organized around power, around leadership, around the belief that the system is broken and personal.
Possible Patterns in Profanity
It takes a surprising amount of effort to get here. First, you have to receive the survey invitation, open it and agree to take the survey. Then you move through the questions, some multiple choice, some open-ended. And at some point, you decide to actually type out the f-word, aware that someone on the other end is going to read it.
Because it doesn’t happen often, we can only speak about it anecdotally. But there are patterns worth noticing. This kind of language shows up more frequently in younger people (35% under 30, 20% aged 30-40, and 23% aged 40-49) and among Democrats (48% compared to 16% Republicans).
Of course, this is not definitive. But it hints at who feels pushed far enough to say it. They’re revealing the emotional intensity beneath the surface, the urgency, and the need to be heard without translation.
Profanity as Political Currency
This shift isn’t limited to voters. Elected officials are using the f-word too. Take Beto O’Rourke, who unloaded at least eighteen f-laced expletives during a single interview with political podcaster Tim Miller. Or the countless viral clips of lawmakers cursing on social media, on podcasts, or in fiery speeches. What once might have sunk a campaign now gets clipped, captioned, and shared.
And it might actually reflect what voters want, especially younger Americans. We’ve seen in our ongoing work that Gen Z is allergic to phony. They demand authenticity over polish, real talk over talking points. Profanity, like it or not, sounds honest to them. Angry, yes, but real.
In a fractured civic landscape, profanity isn’t just venting—it’s a pressure valve, a rallying cry, even a form of collective grief. So yes, for some, hearing a politician swear isn’t offensive. It’s comforting. It’s human.
Final Thoughts
This isn’t just about bad words. It’s about the emotional vocabulary of a nation under strain. The rise in profanity—particularly in how Americans talk about politics—isn’t simply a sign of eroding decorum. It’s a signal of something deeper: a collective disillusionment that’s hard to put politely. People aren’t swearing because they don’t care. They’re swearing because they do. Their language is loud because their pain is real.
Have we entered a new era of civic expression? If so, this climate wasn’t created in a vacuum. The media environment rewards outrage. The algorithm amplifies the extreme. It’s worth noting the irony here. Yes, the algorithm amplifies extreme content, but many social platforms also actively censor profanity. YouTube, for example, demonetizes videos that include swearing in the first few seconds. It creates a strange tension: rage spreads easily, but real language often gets suppressed, especially when it doesn’t align with the polished, advertiser-friendly tone platforms and profit models tend to reward.
So we’re left wondering:
Is this kind of rage an early warning sign… or just the new baseline of civic life?
What does it take to speak to people this angry without sounding fake, detached, or part of the problem?
Can anger like this be channeled into action, or does it just burn everything down?
And what would it take for someone to say “f*ck yeah” about the country instead?
If we’re trying to take the emotional temperature of the nation, this is what the thermometer sounds like when it shatters.
Also wondering if we need to start keeping a swear jar...