Here’s the Browser Tool Every GOP Candidate Needs to Download Right Now

Impact

Anyone watching the Republican presidential primary debates this week listened to billionaire frontrunner Donald Trump explain to Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly that he didn't have to clarify why he called women "fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals" because he didn't "have time for political correctness and neither does this country."

Trump was attempting to write off the reaction to his mean-spirited comments as whiny liberal hand-wringing. It's a tactic he and other conservative figures have repeatedly used to tar opponents as the establishment thought police, regulating what truths can and can't be said.

But thanks to a new Chrome extension from developer Byron Clark, web users can turn headlines like these:

Mic/Google

...into headlines like these:

Elif Batuman/Twitter

In the description on PCT2Respect's Chrome web store page, Clark writes that the extension "changes the text 'political correctness' to 'treating people with respect' on webpages, making the web a slightly better place." It is apparently based off a Neil Gaiman quote, who wrote in 2013, "I started imagining a world in which we replaced the phrase 'politically correct' wherever we could with 'treating other people with respect,' and it made me smile."

The extension even improves Trump's Twitter feed:

Its popularity has apparently surprised Clark, who wrote on Twitter that he had awoken to thousands of notifications and hate mail.

While Trump is getting most of the attention for saying bigoted things and blaming the politically correct crowd for getting offended right now, keep in mind that railing against political correctness is very popular in many quarters of the GOP. From Jeb Bush and Ben Carson to Chris Christie, Republicans have often postured themselves as the truth-telling alternative to PC liberals who won't just say it like it is, even when the "truth" in question is dubious. Even self-declared liberals often declare the risks of political correctness.

But once you get past the buzzword, it turns out that sometimes, people really just want to be inconsiderate jerks without facing the consequences.