President Obama is not a fan of the term “radical Islam” to describe the ideology of terrorist groups like the Islamic State, the terror network reportedly invoked by the individual who killed 49 people at a gay club in Orlando early Sunday morning. Speaking in response to the horrific attack, Obama debuted a new euphemism for the ideology that continues to inspire deadly attacks around the world: “Radical Nihilism.”
Obama denounced groups like ISIS who have “perverted Islam and created these radical nihilistic vicious organizations — one of the groups that they target are gays and lesbians because they believe that they do not abide by their attitudes toward sexuality.”
But as everyone who has seen the Big Lebowski knows, true nihilists don’t have “attitudes” toward anything; they “believe in nothing.” If that sounds exhausting, it’s because it is.