I've noticed the existence of something like "thought promoting cliches" in my life that when said, usually half-jokingly, cause me to think more about something than I otherwise would.

The prime example is "this says a lot about society"

I mean interesting article, but I think I would consider them more "conversation -terminating" than "thought-terminating."

Like if somebody says "It is what it is" I take that to mean mean "I'm done hearing you complain about this."

Recently someone referred to Trump as "playing 4D chess", which in the context of our conversation felt like hand waving to absolve anyone of having to come up with a coherent explanation for Trump's policies.

It has since gone into my lexicon of thought-terminating cliches.

It's not that Trump doesn't have a coherent reason for some of his policies, but it very much felt like a dismissal of thinking along the lines of "His strategy is too advanced for us to know what games he's playing, so I don't have to explain it."