WILL THAULT: Political hyperbole is SOP

SOP — Standard operating procedure. Hyperbole — “The use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech.” (Wikipedia) “Language that describes something as better or worse than it really is.” (Merriam-Webster)

Hyperbole can be fun when you hear someone say, “My wallet is like an onion. Every time I open it, it makes me cry.” or “Unless your name is Google, stop acting like you know everything,” Exaggerations in the hands of a jokester or good storyteller have always been entertaining.

But, when highjacked by politicians, hyperbole becomes weaponized.

Former President Trump was a master at this art. But as much as his lightning rod style inspired his followers, it infuriated his opponents, causing unnecessary division and dissention everywhere. However, this turmoil didn’t end with the Trump presidency. Unfortunately, President Biden has proven to be no better. In both men’s cases, the fire in their rhetoric has managed to further burnish the resolve of their followers, while alienating the rest and polarizing us even more.

Exaggerating or distorting an issue to drive home a point heightens the emotions and magnifies the blow against the opposition. Sadly, President Biden, who campaigned on healing America’s wounds, bringing back unity and a calling for peace with “no more drama,” has chosen a different path. His speech on voting rights in Atlanta Jan. 11 was a classic example of how to continue driving a wedge deeper between us.

First, he described the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol last year as an “insurrection.” According to the Cambridge Dictionary, an insurrection is “an organized attempt by a group of people to defeat their government and take control of their country, usually by violence.” By that definition, there was no “insurrection.”

In fact, back as early as August of last year, Reuters reported that the FBI itself “found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials. Though federal officials have arrested more than 570 alleged participants, the FBI at this point believes the violence was not centrally coordinated by far-right groups or prominent supporters of then-President Trump.” The report went on to note that there were “cells of protestors … (who) had aimed to break into the Capitol. But they found no evidence that the groups had serious plans about what to do if they made it inside, the sources said.”

This disagreement over semantics in no way justifies what turned a protest rally into a violent riot. The mob that committed this act should be held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

However, Biden and many of his party leaders continue to use the term, insurrection, even though the FBI itself has gone on record stating otherwise. This is a classic example of hyperbole at best or cynically deceptive wordplay at its worst.

Not content at stopping there, Biden went on to describe it as “that dreadful day when a dagger was literally held at the throat of American democracy” and the mob as “forces that attempted a coup.”

“The battle for the soul of America is not over,” continued Biden, using this as a segue into an attack on the Georgia legislature’s “Election Integrity Act of 2021.” Instead of seeing this action as a means of minimizing election fraud, the president labeled it instead as a “plan to subvert the (2022) election” with “Jim Crow 2.0 … voter suppression and election subversion.” Perhaps it’s true; perhaps not.

Is it fact or simply inflammatory exaggeration meant to gin up support for a greater outcome? As another past president once said, “Trust, but verify.” Read Georgia’s new Voting Law SB 202 and draw your own conclusions. Don’t rely on any spin a Republican or Democrat might put on it — especially when it comes to politics.

Biden said the party’s call to action to address this “crisis” would be found in the Voting Rights Act whose fate had yet to be determined in the Senate at the time of this speech. Its survival depended upon the passage of a bill that would end the filibuster. It later failed this week by a 52-48 vote margin. The issue, as he saw it, was whether or not we will “choose democracy over autocracy, light over shadows, justice over injustice.” Biden quoted Georgia U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock as saying it best, ”… we should be able to change the rules to protect the heart and soul of our democracy.”

Finally, Biden’s Big Hyperbole Finish: “Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?” Really folks, he’s drawing a line in the sand and saying, if you don’t agree with our solution to the voting rights issue, then you’re a racist.

It’s clear that the act, crafted by the Democrats, was never intended to be a bipartisan effort. Sen. Mitt Romney, who considers himself a centrist Republican, said during NBC’s “Meet the Press” recently, “Sadly, this election reform bill that the president has been pushing, I never got a call on that from the White House. There was no negotiation bringing Republicans and Democrats together to try and come up with something that would meet bipartisan interest.”

Romney said of Democratic leaders, “They want a real dramatic change. They feel that instead of elections being run at the state level they should really be managed and run at the federal level. And recognize, the founders didn’t have that vision in mind. They didn’t want an autocrat to be able to pull the lever in one place and change all the election laws. Instead, they spread that out over 50 states.”

Long-time civil rights activist Bob Woodson, founder and president of the Woodson Center in Washington, D.C., summed up this particular string of hyperboles and the new voting rights controversy in general during a recent TV news interview. “It’s part of the whole process that progressives have hijacked the rich legacy of the civil rights movement and (are) really using it as a bludgeon against the country … and concentrating on voting rights is a deflection away from that reality.”

Tim Scott, the only black Republican U.S. senator and one of only three black senators overall, said, “If we’re going to have an honest conversation about the right to vote, let’s engage in that on the facts of the laws that are being passed, not the rhetoric surrounding those laws.”

Perhaps we expect too much from our leaders. There are few who’ve managed to use their public platform to inspire a nation in a call of unity. Their words have become immortalized by the power of their message. Exaggerations weren’t necessary. Examples such as these need no introduction of the men who spoke them: “My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” “I have a dream.” “Government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”

Let’s ask our politicians, whether they be Democrats, Republicans or Independents, to tamp down the hyperbole. It only incites deeper divisions in a country longing for unity. Leave hyperbole to the joke writers. A good laugh beats hatred every time.