Distraction Politics in the Era of Trump
Graphic by: Eric Spencer
Distracting the public is an art form long performed by corporate media and politicians alike, but in the era of Trump this art has been taken to new heights. Do you ever get the feeling that the stories you hear in the news and the issues discussed in Washington are not relevant to your life, and the most pertinent issues to the health of our nation are almost completely ignored?
Stories that dominate the attention of corporate media and dominate the discourse in Washington are often not the stories that have the most impact on our lives.
Russian collusion is a clear example. In 2018, at the height of the Russia hysteria, a Gallup poll was conducted. It found less than 1% of Americans considered Russia a top problem, yet our politicians and the corporate media seemed to talk of nothing else.
Saudi Arabia and Israel have an alarming influence over our politics. From war crimes in Yemen to Palestine, the U.S. has not just been complicit, it has directly aided these crimes for political purposes. If one is so concerned about the influence of foreign governments, Saudi Arabia and Israel clearly have more influence on policy making in the U.S. than Russia.
When the Mueller Report was released, which found no evidence of Russian collusion, the Washington establishment and corporate media shifted their focus to impeachment. But impeachment on what grounds?
Perhaps for the multitude of Trump’s financial crimes, or maybe for aiding the Saudis in genocide in Yemen. Maybe for Trump’s environmental policies that will surely exacerbate climate change and perhaps doom us all.
No, the political establishment is going after him for threatening one of their own, Joe Biden and his corrupt son Hunter. Hunter had been sitting on the board of a Ukrainian energy company collecting over $50,000 a month despite the fact that he had no experience in this industry.
Corporations pay for access to leaders and this is how they do it. Politicians across both political parties are guilty of this form of what can only be called bribery.
The president’s “mean” tweets are another go-to distraction that corporate media hammers away at, as if what he says is worse than what he does. The media and the Democratic establishment choose to spend more time criticizing him for insulting people than killing them.
As Vice News, The Guardian and others have reported, Trump has increased the number of drone-strikes by over 400% since he took office. Those killed by drone strikes are 90% civilians. According to the media, this isn’t nearly as big of a story as what rude thing Trump said that week.
The reason the political establishment hates Trump is not for his horrendous policies, but for his poor bedside manner. The establishment wants a president that appears measured and stately while behind the scenes is inevitably doing the bidding of the elite. With Trump, the mask is off. He puts an ugly face on the government’s already ugly deeds.
Tweets, Russian collusion, not giving enough weapons to Ukraine or toppling foreign governments are not the issues people hurting in this country want addressed.
They want to know why they are drowning in student debt, and why we have an unprecedented number of homeless on the streets, including around 70,000 homeless veterans. They want to know why they don’t have health care, or a decent paying job, why they don’t have clean water to drink or why their sons and daughters are still dying in foreign quagmires. Is Russia to blame for these things?
Politicians and the media, with straight faces, tell the public that we can’t afford things that help people. We can’t have what every other industrialized democracy has.
Democrats and Republicans just recently increased the military budget by more than $80 billion per year, bringing our total “defense” budget to well over $700 billion. The $80 billion increase alone would bring an end to homelessness and have enough left over to pay for free college.
When it comes to funding offensive and illegal wars, there are no debates, no town hall meetings, and no talk of how are we going to pay for it. Even with the recent release of the leaked Afghan Papers, which revealed that the government has been lying to the public about the state of the war for well over a decade, our wars are never questioned.
The new version of NAFTA called the USMCA was just passed and will inevitably outsource more jobs. The recent renewing of the Patriot Act will continue to infringe upon the constitutionally guaranteed rights of Americans, yet we see little to nothing in the news about these crucial stories.
The same corporate conglomerates that own major media outlets also bankroll the majority of politicians across both parties. There is no real opposition party in America, and these corporations will always prop up stories that do not threaten their profits and push those that do to the margins.