The rest drown. It actually did occur to me in the shower just how heartless (but also accidentally accurate) that old conservative political adage really is.
The rest drown. It actually did occur to me in the shower just how heartless (but also accidentally accurate) that old conservative political adage really is.
The metaphor doesn’t use the word people at all. Boats refers to all people. Some are big boats (wealthy), some are dingies (poor). The tide raises all the boats equally.
If you want to twist the metaphor into some kind of class thing, fine, but you are deliberately misinterpreting it to push your agenda.
Its a metaphor, it isnt literal
Thats the surface level meaning sure, and thats what people want you to think they mean. But more or less every time I’ve heard the metaphor, its being used to pretend like me not being able to buy grovceries is the same as Elon Musk being a trillionaire, or Trump having gold plated toilets in his second vacation home or w/e (because we are both boats and a rising tide lifts all boats equally right?)
Either the metaphor has already been twisted, or its simply being deliberately misused to push an agenda.
If its being deliberately misused, I guess you can argue that its not being “twisted” by technical definition, but to pretend like people who understand how its being used are deliberately misinterpreting it is a level of intellectual dishonesty thats pretty bad.
Either you know what you are doing, or you are so dumb you dont get it…I could try to give you the benefit of the doubt, but im not sure I know which is better tbh.
You dont say?
If people are mis-using the metaphor to push an agenda, the solution isnt to further twist the metaphor, it’s to push back tell them they are using it incorrectly, and that they are full of shit. Further misinterpreting the metaphor doesn’t solve anything, and just allows further abuse of the metaphor.
If anything, this misinterpretation is exactly what a right wingers want, as it legitimises their use of the sound byte, without hold their word to the higher standard of the original metaphor.
We should be holding the metaphor to its strictest meaning, which is a good policy (rising tide) must benefit absolutely everyone (ALL ships).