Validation by Exaggerating Harm is Straight Out of the Propagandist Playbook
Take Donald Trump for example. His language choices are intentionally hyperbolic. He routinely elevates perceived enemies into traitors to the State and rants on and on about witch hunts and lynchings. The Left takes the bait and wastes time arguing the semantics of his grievances (“Witch Hunts are against women!”) and the Right buys into the faux seriousness of them and responds in outrage.
It doesn’t help that the Left elevates his discourse as assault and his rhetoric as violence. These concepts are simply ridiculous and even the dumbest of his supporters can see that.
...that when you spend time helping the truly broken—the ones who require more patience than seems reasonable—you walk away with two revelations: how much of yourself still works, and how vital the fragile thread of kindness is that holds people together.