Is the Tower of Babel a Story of Language?

The silence at the beginning of 12 is intentional to sort of say, okay, this isn't working, this is how it's gonna. Part of the argument of the book is that if we understand the Tower of Babel in the traditional way as being about multilingualism and the call of Abram isn't solving that, then it's an abiding problem. How has this passage been used in recent history politically? What's the danger of, because it feels like we're getting really into the weeds and esoteric about this or that?, he asks.