6 The Nation. August 12/19, 2019
W
hen Donald Trump launched
his recent racist attack on
four congresswomen of color,
much of the punditocracy
focused on the question of
whether he was deliberately creating a distrac-
tion and, if so, from which of his other out rages.
One Washington Post writer theorized that it was
an attempt to overshadow speculation about
his possible sexcapades with Jeffrey Epstein, the
financier and Trump acquaintance charged with
trafficking underage girls for sex. Another de-
nied that it was a distraction from
the reporting on the administra-
tion’s migrant mistreatment. New
Yorker columnist Susan B. Glasser
called it “a calculated political
play” to preempt stories that would
otherwise receive much more cover-
age—including the Epstein arrest,
the border concentration camps,
and Robert Mueller’s upcoming
testimony—and credited Trump
with “the extraordinary ability to get Americans
to talk about what he wants them to talk about.”
But in the same magazine, John Cassidy insisted
there was “nothing strategic” about the attacks,
citing reporting by The Wall Street Journal’s
Michael C. Bender, who cataloged Trump’s day
watching Fox News and playing golf.
However, arguing about whether Trump said
or did something as a distraction is pointless. The
president of the United States is simultaneously
a liar, a racist, an accused rapist, a con man, a tax
cheat, a sadist, an egomaniac, a brownnoser of
murderous dictators, quite possibly a traitor, and
quite definitely a dunce who knows virtually noth-
ing about history, politics, or economics. Because
he has no filter or focus and does not listen to his
advisers (except for those telling him how wonder-
ful he is), Trump manifests all of these qualities
all of the time. Every outrage or crime that he
commits is, in this respect, a distraction from the
previous one until the next one.
A debate over distraction is therefore itself
a distraction. It doesn’t matter whether Trump
meant something this way or that; whether tweet-
ing, bloviating at rallies, or bragging to the know-
nothings on Fox News, he can hardly stick to one
topic for more than five minutes. What matters is
why, after years of falling for his stupid shtick, theallegedly intelligent men and women of the main-
stream media keep chasing after it. Glasser has no
business crediting Trump with getting “Americans
to talk about what he wants them to talk about.”
How would she know? I sure don’t. This scribe
of the Beltway beat does, however, know what her
friends and colleagues are talking about, and that
would be Trump. The attraction between Trump
and the media is, unfortunately, mutual.
The thing is, there’s an awful lot of important
policy-related news that could use some atten-
tion. Moreover, these under-the-radar political
machinations help explain why only
four House Republicans could bring
themselves to condemn Trump’s
poisonous tweets telling the four
congresswomen to “go back” to the
countries they came from and why
the GOP continues to support him
even though he’s making a mockery
of almost everything the party used
to say it stood for. And—surprise,
surprise—the answer involves re-
warding Republican donors.
For instance, while the pundit oc racy was play-
ing distraction/no distraction, Joel Clement, the
director of the Office of Policy Analysis at the
Interior Department
until his recent resig-
nation, testified to the
House Science Com -
mit tee about a “culture
of fear, censorship,
and sup pression” that
is undermining scien-
tific investigation and
analysis in the govern-
ment. According to
Think Progress, he said
the department can-
celed a study on the health and safety of offshore
oil rig workers just as the White House was re-
moving many of their labor pro tections. The
Trump administration nixed another study, this
one devoted to the health effects of surface coal
mining, at the same time the White House and
congressional Republicans were working to repeal
regulations in that industry. A third study, on the
effects of PFAS in drinking water, temporarily got
the kibosh because, according to Politico, its release
would have caused a “public relations nightmare.”The Distraction Distraction
Arguing whether or not Trump is diverting our attention is itself a diversion.
Eric Alterman
ACTIVISM
Wo r k e r s
Against ICE
I
n response to the inhuman-
ity of the Trump administra-
tion’s immigration policies,
workers around the country
are rising up to hold account-
able private employers that
participate in the cruelty. In June
hundreds of employees at Way-
fair, a home goods e-commerce
corporation, staged a walkout at
the company’s headquarters in
Boston to oppose its $200,
contract furnishing a child
migrant detention center in
Carrizo Springs, Texas.
In July leaked audio of a com-
pany meeting revealed employees
of the ad agency Ogilvy World-
wide lashing out at their CEO for
pursuing contracts with Customs
and Border Protection. Amazon
workers recently recirculated an
employee letter calling on the
company to cut ties with Palantir,
whose software is crucial to ICE
operations. WNYC uncovered
e-mails that show that the data
analytics firm continues to help
ICE conduct workplace raids via a
mobile app called Falcon, which
runs on Amazon Web Services.
Even art workers are get-
ting involved. Eight artists have
pulled their pieces from the
Whitney Biennial over the refusal
of Warren B. Kanders to resign
from the museum’s board. He
is the owner of the Safari land
Group, a weapons manufacturer
that supplied the CBP with tear
gas used on migrants trying to
cross the border wall at Tijuana
last November.
So far, worker-led protests
have not changed any of these
organizations’ policies, but they
have helped open a front of
resistance to the United States’
anti-immigrant machine.
—Teddy Ostrow
Every outrage
or crime that
Trump commits
is a distraction
from the previous
one until the
next one.LEFT:^ AP^ /CHARLESKRUPA;^ TOPRIGHT:^ ANDY^ FRIEDMAN