The Politics of Eternal Distraction

We are in the midst of a crisis unprecedented in modern American political history: the President is deploying the military domestically, with the very openly stated purpose not just of quelling civil unrest but violently subjugating his political opponents. It’s a significant authoritarian escalation, and the President has made it clear that he’s going to run the same playbook across the country. But there’s a big lingering question: is it all just a distraction?

Many elected Democrats seem to think so. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer claims Trump is “attempting to distract from his many failures.” Senator Ed Markey said he’s trying to distract the public from the budget fight. Senator Alex Padilla said the same thing. So did Rep. Robert Garcia, a California congressman. Even California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is at the forefront of the political fight in Los Angeles, has adopted the “distraction” language. 

It’s not limited to politicians, either. Jon Stewart said that the ICE raids that sparked protest in Los Angeles were a distraction from the Elon/Trump feud. Which is interesting, because just a few days prior several Democrats were arguing that the Elon/Trump feud was itself a distraction.

This isn’t a novel phenomenon. When Trump announced last week that he was launching an investigation into Joe Biden’s mental capacity, Biden and other Democrats said it was a distraction from the budget fight. When Trump instituted a new travel ban, Democrats said that was a distraction, too. When Gavin Newsom was asked about Kilmar Abrego Garcia being sent to a Salvadoran gulag without due process, he called it the “distraction of the day,” saying we should be focusing instead on Trump’s tariffs (although back in December Senator Chris Murphy said it was the tariffs that were the distraction from Trump’s “real agenda.”) 

It goes on and on. Trump saying he’ll turn Gaza into a resort? Distraction. His plans to annex Greenland and the Panama Canal? Distraction. His joint address to Congress? Distraction. The publication of his tax returns? Distraction (that one’s from 2017, lest you think this is a recent development).

This rhetoric veers quickly into being offensive. The idea that something is a “distraction” pretty plainly implies that it’s not worthy of our political energy, and maybe not even worthy of our attention. That’s a pretty grotesque thing to say about people being forcibly taken from their homes and communities while the military is sent in to crush any resulting dissent. It’s a pretty grotesque thing to say about a man who was shipped off El Salvador without so much as a hearing. Even if Trump was doing these things to divert media attention, the human toll would obligate the Democrats to action.

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