There are certain words and phrases that try to stop you from thinking. They intend to make you accept a certain meaning without further consideration, to take it as given. A friend talked about this a long while ago. I think he was talking about persuasion or the media, I don’t remember.
“Terrorist” and “Nazi” and the old dependable “God works in mysterious ways,” but also “freedom” and “firefighter” and “book.”
These terms are dead ends in your brain. Once you hear “activist judge,” you’re not supposed to think too much about what that means and just take the provided connotation whole hog—in this case, it means the judge will buttrape your kids. The sacred must be destroyed.