cudgel

Trump, meanwhile, is opposing Maine on conservative ideological grounds using federal funding as the cudgel to prevail.

None of which made it a less effective cudgel.

These are the worst Americans of all, motivated not by love of country but rather fear of newcomers, whose ways they seek to extinguish under the cloak of patriotism and the cudgel of the law.

Racial zoning policy spread across the Midwest and became a cudgel to sweep away those considered undesirable.

The left should take the Stars and Stripes back from the right, which wields it like a cudgel or wears it as gauche fashion statement a la Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.