Grammar: Figuratively v. Literally

We have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought. But I still believe in America and I always will. And if you do, then we must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.- Hillary Clinton

(W)e now are going to want to do everything we can to help you succeed — because if you succeed, then the country succeeds.- Barack Obama

Of course Steve Bannon is not literally Joseph Goebbels. Joseph Goebbels was born in 1897 and had a club foot. He had a PhD in literature and was a failed writer (the thinly disguised auto-biography, in 3 parts no less, Michael was so bad he could only get it published by the Nazi Party publishing house Eher-Verlag and at that it was so poorly received that Part II is lost). He tried to make it as a journalist (the last refuge of desperation for a writer) and couldn’t even do that so he ended up with menial jobs as a floor trader at the stock exchange and a bank clerk before finding a gig as the chief propagandist (not at disrespected profession at the time, we would call it Public Relations or Party Communications, Goebbels made it notorious) of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

Had he not died in a suicidal act of Family Annihilation on May 1st 1945, he’d be 119 years old and I’d know about it (120+ myself) but he never pays his Struldbrug dues or shows up at the meetings.

Therefore Steve Bannon is not actually Joseph Goebbels (the literal meaning of “literally”).

Figuratively?

Give Steve Bannon a chance. It’s not like he’s literally Joseph Goebbels.
By Alexandra Petri, Washington Post
November 15 at 5:36 PM

Listen, what proof do you have that this dead lizard wrapped in the Confederate flag will not make an excellent chief strategist and senior counselor to the president of the United States?

I, for one, believe that everyone deserves a chance.

You’re not wrong that this appears to be a pig’s head slowly rotting on a stake, grotesque insinuations pouring from its mouth as flies buzz around it in the island heat, but I would need to learn more about it, honestly. I’m no expert.
…
Yes, okay, this rabid opossum bit me on the ankle, then handed me an Islamophobic pamphlet, but we have no proof it wrote the pamphlet. This is America, where we give the benefit of the doubt.

You say, “potato enthusiastically supported by the Ku Klux Klan’s David Duke”; I say, “controversial potato.”

Just because something attracts anti-Semites and racists doesn’t mean that it, itself, is either of those things. It doesn’t mean that it supports their views. Who knows why anyone is attracted to anything? Weird coincidences happen all the time.
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I have no doubt that a real racist sexist chauvinist white supremacist will be easy to spot. “I am coming for minorities now,” he will say. “I am an actual racist. I am, literally, Hitler, or at the very least Goebbels.”

In fact, I recently read an article that pointed out, quite astutely, that we are not talking about LITERAL JOSEPH GOEBBELS here, and it reassured me a great deal. (When I think of positive things to say about people, the first place I go to is negative comparisons to Hitler’s inner circle. That was what I said at my best friend’s wedding during the maid-of-honor speech. “We don’t know for a fact,” I said, “that Emily is one of history’s greatest monsters.” If that is not a resounding endorsement of someone’s character, I can’t think what is.)
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So I say, as many courageous members of Congress have said with me, what evidence do we have that Breitbart’s Steve Bannon will be anything but a fine chief strategist and counselor to President Donald Trump?

We have no proof that he is threatening, other than his words and actions, the voices that he has given a platform to, and the ugly philosophy he has allowed to spread. We cannot possibly know what is in his heart. So, you know. Who knows.

There is no need to denounce him. We should wait and see. Hear him out.

You can’t “normalize” people like Bannon. The Media and Democrats that are attempting to do so are simply complicit in fostering the bigotry, anti-Semitism, Racism, and Xenophobia he espouses either from shared sentiment or out of expediency.

Not one of the lot should be any where near the U.S. Government, they should be locked in stocks on the Commons along with Bannon as targets for food unfit to eat or already processed and the amusement and instruction of passers by.