Another Mixed Metaphor

This year, the Biden administration began considering special protections for climate refugees – an idea that will undoubtedly face immense criticism from a Republican party that has made fear of the outsider a central load-bearing beam of its political tent.

Every so often I come upon a glorious mixed metaphor. Nothing of course to compare with the movable lens conjured up by a Victoria councillor, but a beauty nonetheless. In a fine essay in the opinion section of last weekend’s Globe, Omar El Akkad writes about the need to prepare for the arrival of climate refuges. He uses some effective metaphors to describe the effects of climate change such as “sweeping sheets” of  rain, and American states “lurching” from one disastrous fire to another, images which create clear pictures, as metaphors should. But in one paragraph he slips up, creating a clash of images which belongs in the Oxford Book of Mixed Metaphors.

I used to enjoy camping. I have fond memories of sleeping in a Eureka three-man tent with a couple of friends along the Mantario Trail in the Whiteshell. It was tall enough that I could stand up in the centre — but in the tent in this article I would bump my head on the load-bearing beam. And even if it’s a big tent — a large marquee under which Republicans of different persuasions might gather, united by their common fear of the outsider — then what load is the beam supporting? Should the writer perhaps have referred to the central pole of Republican Party's political tent?

To put it simply, how can a tent be supported by a beam? And if it’s a central beam, are there other beams on either side? What do we see when we picture this image?

That’s the trouble with overused metaphors. A big tent might seem a clever comparison for the party with a variety of polices to attract people with different beliefs. Many people can gather in this tent. But after a while, the metaphor becomes a cliche, just a word, no longer an image, and the writer uses it without thinking. And then he comes up with another image for the fear of the outsider: the central load-bearing beam. The result is a mixed metaphor.