I was reading a very poorly written Los Angeles Times article about North Carolina legislators introducing a bill to define marriage as between a man and a woman, and I was surprised to read the following sentence:

Opponents of the legislation castigated it as an unnecessary step that will stoke division in a state still reeling from the fallout of a controversial bill regulating which bathrooms transgender people can use.

I have rarely seen a sentence so sensationalistically, so chock-full of so many liberal buzzwords.  The over-dramatization of facts makes this news article read like an action thriller.  Compare "The Earth reeled from the fallout of the asteroid impact." to "North Carolina reeled from the fallout of the bathroom legislation."  It's a totally ridiculous use of words for this situation.  Let's look more closely at the key words and phrases:

Controversial:

Whenever a Democrat does something radical, and Republicans try to restore things to the way they were, the Republicans are called "controversial."  Having separate bathrooms for boys and girls, which was the rule for as long as we had public bathrooms, is now "controversial."  So is enforcing immigration law, or repealing Obamacare to restore the system of insurance we had before 2009.  Suddenly finding a constitutional right to abortion, or gay marriage, where none existed before, however, is not controversial.

Castigated:

Castigate means to criticize severely.  But in the print media, only liberals do the castigating – Chuck Schumer castigating Trump (why doesn't matter), Obama castigating Republicans, and the New York Times castigating Trump.  Why are liberals always the ones to do the castigating?  Why are Republicans never described as castigating Democrats?

Furthermore, given the sexual nature of this topic, I can't help but wonder if the writer, consciously or not, used the word castigated as a proxy for castrated.  Republicans came out against gay marriage, and their opponents were so outraged they tried to orally castrate them.

Stoking division:

If you read the print media, the phrase "stoking division" goes only with Republicans.  Trump stokes divisions when he talks about Islamic terrorism.  Also concerns rather than divisions can be stoked, when talking about Trump's economic policies.  It's funny that liberals, who are the ones to talk constantly about race, class, and gender, are always the ones to talk about stoking divisions when they are the stokers in chief.

By the way, stoking can mean to encourage, but it can also mean to "add coal to."  That's an odd phrase for a liberal to use.  Or maybe they use it on purpose, to tie Republicans to energy sources they find morally objectionable.  Stoking can also be seen as a form of work or labor, something else liberals probably find objectionable.

And again, remember that this "stoking division" phrase was picked in the context of an article about sexual orientation.  Again, I can't help but wonder if "stoking division" was a place marker for "stroking diversion," in the conscious or unconscious mind of the writer.

Reeling from the fallout:

Reeling involves losing one's balance.  Reeling is a bipartisan term.  President Trump can leave Washington reeling, but President Trump can also be reeling under liberal attack.  Usually, Republicans are reeling when they have done something the media consider immoral, and liberals are reeling when Republicans either try to cut the budget or enforce existing laws, both of which are also considered immoral.

And where you have reeling, you often have fallout.  Fallout is most often used to describe a lethal cloud of radioactive gas or debris, but it has come to have a symbolic meaning, for the results of an action taken.  This article talks about "Muslim ban fallout."  Well, better Muslim fallout than nuclear fallout, right?

As a way of exaggerating the importance or negative impact of a policy, it is often said to have "fallout."

But why can't writers in the liberal media simply write what they mean without using all this flowery symbolic language?  Why can't they simply say, "Opponents of defining marriage between a man and a woman say North Carolina is still suffering from economic boycotts from its bathroom decency bill"?  I think they feel that if they write plainly, their writing will lose whatever mystique they imagine it has.

What are your favorite liberal media buzzwords?

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.