Last fall, Frank Bruni penned an essay for the New York Times arguing that increased hyperbole in political rhetoric was partially to blame for the rise of Donald Trump.
“The sad truth is that we conduct the bulk of our political debate in a key of near-hysteria,” Bruni wrote, “This renders complaints of discrepant urgency, about politicians of different recklessness, into one big, ignorable mush of partisan rancor.”
Reflecting on that language of hysteria, Bruni continued, “Important words are hollowed out, so that they lose their precision and their sting, and exist mainly to perpetuate a paralyzing climate of reciprocal hatred between political parties.”
How about the words “Muslim ban”?
After President Trump signed an executive order barring travel from various Muslim-majority countries, liberals immediately branded the policy a “Muslim ban.” Reacting to a revised executive order released this week, opponents from the NAACP to the attorneys general of Hawaii and New York continued to reference the policy as a “Muslim ban.”
Using hyperbole in branding campaigns to oppose the other party’s policies is a calculated strategy both sides employ (see: death panels). It energizes your base and earns media coverage. But now, for instance, casual political observers are being lead to believe the president signed an order banning Muslims from entering the United States.
Heeding the lessons of Bruni’s postulate, liberals might consider what would happen were the president actually to do such at thing. Were that scenario to come to pass, the work of convincing people that Muslims were literally being banned from coming to America would be much more difficult.
Bruni was not the only liberal to make this observation. After the election, Bill Maher looked to explain Trump’s victory in the same way. During a widely-circulated segment from his HBO show, Maher said, “I gave Obama a million dollars because I was so afraid of Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney wouldn’t have changed my life that much or yours. Or John McCain. They were honorable men who we disagreed with and we should have kept it that way. So we cried wolf and that was wrong.”
If the Left truly believes Donald Trump is capable of exacting unthinkable evils on the country, liberals should probably reserve the appropriate language for those moments they believe are yet to come.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
