This column’s most celebrated alumnus spent years flagging the overzealous
use of metaphors, and perhaps Donald Trump should have paid closer attention.
A Journal editorial on Sunday noted the over-the-top reaction to an over- the-top weekend comment from the former president.

Journal reporters Joseph Pisani and Suryatapa Bhattacharya report on the continuing furor and note the Trump statement that started it all:

“We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across
the line and you’re not going to be able to sell those—if I get
elected,” Trump said. “Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a
bloodbath for the whole—that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going
to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. But
they’re not going to sell those cars.”

Yes, he really did call for a 100% tariff, which is an economic outrage,
before suggesting that without such an elephantine government exaction the
U.S. automobile industry would be devastated.

Team Biden has since continued to strip the comment of its automotive context and portray it as a call to violence. Myah Ward reports for Politico:

The Biden campaign launched a new digital ad on Monday that leans into
Donald Trump’s “bloodbath” remarks over the weekend with a montage of
the former president’s past incendiary rhetoric.

The campaign is considering putting money behind the ad, a Biden
campaign official told POLITICO, but it first launched the video on
President Joe Biden’s account on X.

The new ad, shared first with POLITICO, cuts to a scene from when
far-right and white supremacist protesters descended on Charlottesville,
Virginia, in 2017, and it comes after a weekend of outrage over the
remarks.

Ms. Ward seems quite charitable to the Biden campaign in describing its ad as one that “leans into” the Trump remarks, though she does quote rebuttals from Mr. Trump and his campaign.

One nice thing about social media is that it has allowed online commenters to note previous reactions to the metaphor at issue.

For example, “Biden says he’s feeling good about 2020 race now” was the headline on a dispatch four years ago this month from the Associated Press.
The A.P. reported:

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden says he’s in a solid
position ahead of six more primaries on Tuesday.

“I’m feeling really good about where we are now,” Biden told a group
of donors Friday, adding that the Super Tuesday results are having “a
real rippling effect across the country.”

Biden’s Super Tuesday success earlier in the week vaulted him ahead of
Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential nominating contest.

Biden warned, though, that tough weeks of campaigning are ahead. “I
know I’m going to get a lot of suggestion on how to respond to the
increasingly negative campaign that the ‘Bernie Bros’ will run,” he
said, referring to the pejorative used to describe some of Sanders’
most outspoken supporters on social media. But, Biden said, “what we
can’t let happen is let this primary become a negative bloodbath.”

Was Mr. Biden darkly suggesting that the socialist losers, having failed
again to persuade Americans to abandon the liberty that made the U.S. the
most prosperous nation on earth, would resort to violence? The Biden comments immediately triggered an uproar.

Natasha Korecki reported for Politico on the blowback:

It took Joe Biden all of 10 minutes to unleash a social media phenomenon
Friday.

In a brief phone address to donors, the Democratic presidential
candidate warned of the potential for a nasty primary against Bernie
Sanders. But then Biden riffed on the name for a hardline group of
Sanders supporters: the “Bernie brothers.”

It was a more polite, if not old-fashioned version of “Bernie bros,”
the term often used to describe male Sanders supporters who aggressively
go after opponents online.

Whether Mr. Biden said Bernie Bros or Bernie Brothers, he clearly initiated a social shock wave, perhaps even a social tsunami. Ms. Korecki noted:

Twitter had a field day with the remark from Biden, who is renowned for
his verbal flubs. There was talk of trademarking the former vice
president’s creation and printing t-shirts. The term #berniebrothers
soon was trending on Twitter as well as an alternative,
#bernardbrothers, with users poking fun at the formality behind Biden’s
description.

“Sounds like a 50s folk band,” wrote one Twitter user. “Bernie Brothers
sounds like an artisanal bath products made in Bushwick,” said one
tweet. “I used to get all my new suits from Bernie Brothers,” said
another.

It seems that no one much cared about his “bloodbath” warning in reference to socialists, despite the dark history of the last century.

Cultural norms sure do change quickly in politics. Media folk, too, have enjoyed employing the bloodbath metaphor for many years but now that it’s become associated with Mr. Trump, this cliché likely faces immediate retirement.

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Let's go Brandon!

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