I’ve become fond of “virtue-signalling” — the phrase, that is, not the hypocritical act itself, which is

the conspicuous expression of moral values by an individual done primarily to enhance [his] standing within a social group.

A minor act of virtue-signalling is the grammatically incorrect use of “their” (a plural pronoun), to avoid the traditional “his” (sexist!) or the also correct but awkward “his or her.” That’s why you see “[his]” in the quotation, which replaces the abominable “their.”

Anyway, virtue-signalling is almost exclusively a left-wing phenomenon. And it often takes more acidic forms than the prissy use of “their” to avoid an imaginary lapse into sexism. For example:

An aging, has-been singer shrieks her fantasy of blowing up the White House. Later, she walks it back, saying she was quoted “out of context,” though her words are perfectly clear….

A multimillionaire actress/talk show host not only pretends to believe that Republicans want to return her race to picking cotton, but now wonders aloud just how different we Trump voters are from the Taliban…..

…These awards shows now look more like Comintern speeches with competition to see which androgynous little wussie-pants can sound more macho encouraging “fighting” in the streets, “punching people in the face,” or “Resistance” to frenzied applause from the gathered trained seals. Remember, guys, in a real fight that’s not choreographed there are no stuntmen.

But perhaps the nastiest attacks of all have been on Trump’s family. There were the horrible Tweets about his blameless young son. There were the charming “rape Melania” banners, so odious I thought for sure they had to be photoshopped. They were not. There is an alleged comedienne I had never heard of named Chelsea Handler who announced apropos of nothing that she won’t have Melania on her talk show because “she can’t speak English well enough to be understood.”…

So this is the genius who won’t interview Melania, who speaks five languages. I hope our elegant First Lady can recover from the snub. None of these Mean Girls of any gender would dream of criticizing a Spanish speaker trying to speak English, or correct a black person who said “axe” for “ask” (something I believe they do just to be annoying…). But a beautiful immigrant woman whose English is not perfect deserves mocking. Because liberals are so nice. Virtuous, even. Not Taliban-y at all.

My strongest scorn is reserved for the hordes that have decided to change the names of streets and buildings, to tear down statues, and to remove paintings from public view because the persons thus named or depicted are heroes of the past who committed acts that leftists must deplore — or risk being targeted by other left-wing virtue-signalers.

Retrospective virtue-signalling has been going on for several years now. I’m not sure, but I think it blossomed into an epidemic in the aftermath of the despicable shooting of blacks at a prayer meeting in a Charleston church. A belated example is the recent 3-2 vote by the city council of Charlottesville, Virginia, to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from a city park.

What can such actions accomplish other than raising the level of smugness of their perpetrators? If they have any effect on racism in the United States, it’s probably to raise its level, too. If I were a racist, I’d be outraged by the cumulative effect of such actions, of which there have been dozens or hundreds in recent years. I’d certainly be a more committed racist than I was before, just as a matter of psychological self-defense.

But such things don’t matter to virtue-signalers. It’s all a matter of reinforcing their feelings of superiority and flaunting their membership in the left-wing goody-two-shoes club — the club that proudly boasts of wanting to “blow up the White House” and “rape Melania.”

And the post-election riots prove that the club has some members who are more than prissy, armchair radicals. They’re the same kind of people who used to wear brown shirts and beat up Jews.