“Other people use dog bones or ox bones”, we can hear a vendor say. “But mine are tiger bones only.”
For sure.
Anyways, snake oil as a metaphor is synonymous with quack medicine or any unproven remedy, any hyped-up cure-all or panacea, anything that’s purportedly wonderful but may in fact be worthless.
Hence and therefore, in our example, when Donald Trump’s tax cut plan is likened to a snake oil remedy, we understand that it probably won’t work. Trump may say cutting taxes cures all American economic ills and ailments. He may say that all American workers will benefit from it. He may say all kinds of wonderful things about his plan, but it may prove to be just another big lie.
In other words, his tax cut plans are a hyped-up quack concoction of snake oil. Trump is, as they say, a snake oil salesman, a quack doctor, a big mouth and a phony, a fraud.
All right, here are media examples of snake oil and snake oil salesman:
1. “Snake Oil Salesman.” The phrase conjures up images of seedy profiteers trying to exploit an unsuspecting public by selling it fake cures. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary defines snake oil as “a quack remedy or panacea.” What the OED does not note, however, is that the history of snake oil is linked to an often forgotten chapter of Asian-American history.
Because the words “snake oil” are so evocative, it has been a favorite go-to phrase for politicians and lobbying groups on both sides of the aisle. Earlier this month, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell called his opponent in the Republican primary, Tea Party candidate Matt Bevin, a snake oil salesman in a campaign mailer. While campaigning for a second term last year, President Obama referred to the Romney-Ryan tax plan as “trickle-down snake oil” at a rally. In 2008, the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund took out full-page ads in The Washington Post to denounce then-President George W. Bush’s plan to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, calling it “100 percent snake oil.”
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