The term "political bombshell" starts to lose its punch when applied to the fourth scandal in five days.
@dredmorbius this is an interesting (and unexpected) perspective, thank you. For context I was referring to Trump's multiplying troubles and snarking on how media overuse of a term tends robs it of its emotional impact. If one considers the American democracy as the target of these "bombshells", I see what you mean about becoming terrified/numb/traumatized by the situation.
@tetron Desensitisation /is/ a thing.
Sometimes we see terms overused because they're being diluted. Sometimes it's because the ground-base situation has escalated. It can be difficult to tell the difference, it's a variant of the gague problem.
(Synopsis as I first heard it: how would you know, with a simple voltmeter, if you lived on a planet with a base (ground) charge of zero vs say 1 million volts?)
Language is full of watered-down words, it's awesome!