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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.
Who's Afraid of Hedy Weiss?
The artist makes art. The critic deconstructs that art so that people who don’t understand art can try to pretend to understand art. The artist and the critic are not on the same team. They are opposite sides of the same coin. And the opposite sides of the same coin can never see eye-to-eye.
Greasing the Squeakiest Wheel is a Waste of Time
There is harm, however, in paying heed to the complaining wheels. Eventually, the machine gets bogged down trying to address even the most mindlessly stupid complaints that the legitimate ones are ignored.