Politics & Power Quote by Adam Schiff

Schiff’s line is less a plea for vocabulary than a demand for jurisdiction: the power to name, on the record, what others would prefer to keep diplomatically blurry. “So let us call genocide, genocide” stages language as a moral instrument, but also a political lever. In Washington, words are never just words; they set policy possibilities, legal obligations, and alliances on edge. The insistence on precision is a rebuke to euphemism as statecraft, to the habit of laundering atrocity through softer terms like “tragedy” or “mass killings” when strategic relationships are at stake.

The subtext is aimed at two audiences at once. To perpetrators and deniers: the era of plausible deniability ends here. To cautious colleagues: neutrality is not prudence; it’s complicity dressed up as restraint. The phrase “Let us not minimize” indicts not only denial but the quieter sin of downgrading, the bureaucratic impulse to treat scale as negotiable.

Then comes the pivot from mourning to messaging: “a moral victory that can shine as a light to all nations.” That’s classic political rhetoric, converting historical recognition into a civic performance of values. “Moral victory” admits what recognition can’t do - it can’t resurrect the dead, undo trauma, or guarantee justice - while still claiming that acknowledgment matters because it sets a standard. Schiff is arguing that memory isn’t merely retrospective; it’s preventive branding. Call it genocide now, he implies, so future governments hesitate before betting that the world will look away.