Deception, avoidance, manipulation, denial, dismissiveness, obfuscation, and feigned ignorance — these are all tactics of what is described as “distraction politics.” It’s nothing new. People have been using these “techniques” forever in all industries and arenas in order to further their agendas, avoid responsibility, and not be held accountable. However, the use of distraction on the political front seems to have reached stratospheric heights, especially with the advent of social media platforms.
Distraction is employed through the same kind of misdirection used by magicians. It’s the “look over there” trick and getting people mesmerized by a “shiny” object. That shiny object can be a topic, an individual, a group, an event — anything that will garner attention.
As concerns politics, it’s getting the public focused somewhere else instead of on issues that truly need public study and input. In this case, it’s choosing a shiny object — e.g., a far less important issue or something or someone who’s a thorn in somebody’s side — and surrounding it with a lot of hoopla, otherwise known as propaganda. That then gets Americans all hot and bothered about it and, thus, distracted.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, decisions are being made about important issues that impact the public. Craftily, those decisions positively benefit those in power and who have wealth, authority, control, and privilege. It also benefits those who want a specific, often unpopular, agenda advanced that will give them control, and power, and increase the size of the bank account.
For example, let’s take a look at a shiny object example: pronouns.
To date, there are well over a hundred pronouns that a person can choose to be identified by. Pronouns fall under five categories:
- Personal: I, we, you, he, she, it, they,
- Demonstrative: this, these, that, those,
- Relative: who, which, that, as,
- Indefinite: each, all, everyone, either, one, both, any, such, somebody,
- Interrogative: who, which, what), reflexive (myself, herself,
- Possessive: mine, yours, his, hers, theirs, and
- Pronominal adjectives (sometimes called possessive adjectives): my, your, his, her, our, their.
That’s just a sampling — it gets far more complicated (Google “articles about pronouns” and you’ll get over 6 million listings). The point is that the idea of someone choosing to use pronouns outside the binary norm society has adhered to for millennia has now been turned into a cause célèbre.
Is it important for the individual to use outside-the-norm pronouns? Yes, because it’s all about feeling comfortable in their own skin, it helps others know how a person wants to be identified, and it moves into the realm of “accepting me for who I am.”
Is it that important to society? No, because it’s non-threatening — except for those who only want a binary world operating according to their own values, beliefs, scriptures, comfort level, and intellectual capacity. For those in the political arena and its supporting agencies, pronouns are a useful tool for creating a distraction from the larger picture of governing our country and the major issues we’re facing.
Pronouns have now been subsumed into “wokeness” and “cancel culture,” two issues that are having a more direct impact on society and that people are even more up in arms about, literally. This combination is driving a wedge between individuals, groups, and political parties. The result is new levels of extremism and exclusivity that are affecting people’s lives and livelihoods. It’s also causing our societal fabric to come apart at the seams.
Again, really important issues are being decided upon by a small group that has a vested interest in power, control, status, ownership, wealth acquisition, and the maintenance of privilege.
Another important component of distraction politics is “timing.” Issues and events are initiated only when they will provide the biggest bang for their buck. Grand Master chess moves are strategically played out in order to advance agendas, ROIs, and careers.
The public is pretty much unaware of how they are being maneuvered — or they don’t care because their lives are so busy, and they have so much on their plates. Politicians are counting on that. Politicians are also counting on citizens abdicating their wants, needs, and power to “authorities” who, crossing their hearts and hoping to die, have their best interests at heart.
Now, couple all of that with how Attention Deficit Disordered (ADD) our society has become. We’re constantly looking for the next stimulating attraction. Our media outlets have become mega-systems for creating distracting output in every industry: little substance, highly stimulating, low-level consciousness engagement. This “machine” churns out distractions at a furious rate and to ever-greater degrees — and the American public greedily gobbles up their offerings.
Adding to that are the television shows that drag us ever more deeply into meaningless nonsense and vacuous discourse over minutia — ad nauseam. Are they helping us to evolve as a species? No. What they’re instead doing is lowering our IQs and rendering our critical thinking skills useless. But we’re definitely entertained!
So much of our world seems to be focused on the entertainment value of life in general. Life is demanding, difficult, and challenging, so we want relief. Entertainment is served up that feeds our addiction to stimulation and constant need for relief. Politicians, knowing how this whole game is played, hire phalanxes of people whose sole purpose is to strategize timed distractions. They pander to individuals with influence and groups they know they can manipulate who will unwittingly participate in the planned charade.
What this all means is that “reality” is now a contrived construct on a level we’ve never seen before. Today, technology has become so sophisticated it’s being used to hoodwink people and because we’ve become so dumbed down, we fall for it — and we don’t see the inherent danger in it, we just see another shiny, titillating object.
What’s happening is that we’re being sucked down a rabbit hole that we can’t extricate ourselves from. We don’t know who to trust anymore. We don’t know what’s real or manufactured. We can’t clearly distinguish between political agendas and personal agendas. We’re so saturated with distractions that the egregious acts people are committing are waved off as insignificant because our sensibilities have become numb to them.
Extremism — without thought as to consequences — has taken over and that’s what catches our attention. Showdowns in Congress, displays of outrageous behavior, personality worship and cultism, celebrating ignorance, and entrenching back into one-dimensional thinking are wreaking havoc on American society. We’re so inundated with the unending media circus that’s supposed to be “news” that we now feed it into our brains like a blood transfusion — no thinking, just taking it in, letting it infuse us with garbage, and getting suckered in the process.
Crazy is happening everywhere and being perpetrated by so many that we’re no longer surprised. But we do get easily offended, hurt, and feel attacked and persecuted. Why? Because our critical thinking skills are no longer engaged. And we aren’t grasping that this is negatively impacting our emotions and how we interact with each other.
All our media outlets display the worst human behavior imaginable and that’s what people young and old are modeling themselves after. If it’s okay to put on TV, in the movies, on podcasts, and the over 100 social media platforms — and our leaders are displaying the same behaviors — then it’s okay to emulate and ratchet it up to a higher level in order to garner visibility, be an influencer, and acquire “likes.” That plays perfectly into today’s zeitgeist where so many people are seeking attention, to be noticed, to be somebody.
And our leaders blatantly use this to get us hooked, to get our dander up, to get us to “look over there” whilst they do their sleight of hand with important issues.
The final component in the toolkit of distraction politics is “misinformation.” This powerful and highly effective tool is used to disseminate incorrect academic, historical, psychological, societal, and scientific facts and information. In the parlance of marketing and politics, it’s known as “spin.”
Information is purposely misstated, misquoted, misinterpreted, distorted, embellished, and falsified in order to manipulate people into thinking, interpreting, and believing that what’s being presented is the “right & true” information.
Marketing and PR firms, special interest groups, news outlets, and lobbyists take information and massage it by leaving out information, presenting information out of context, purposely misquoting people, and even doctoring pictures. It’s pure manipulation.
Because of the widespread use of misinformation, the American populace has become extremely confused. This has led to people unconsciously or purposely spreading misinformation, advancing bogus conspiracy theories, regressing into ignorance, vilifying people unjustly, verbally and physically attacking people unfairly, and refusing to look at things rationally. It has sown the seeds of uncertainty, distrust, disconnection, divisiveness, exclusion, prejudice, fear, hate, and violence.
It’s no wonder Americans are so filled with anxiety and get defensive at the drop of a misstated pronoun. What’s truly sad is that our news outlets, what were once bastions of objectivity and real journalism, feed our distractedness with a tsunami of hyped-up distractions. All of that plays perfectly into the “Playbook for Politicians.”
Seriously, we need to get out of this predicament. The challenge is that there is a large contingent of Americans who are content to gripe on the sidelines but not get involved. Then there are those who like what’s happening because it dovetails with their own agenda. And then there’s the large contingent that’s unknowingly caught in the shiny object trap because they want attention, they want to be entertained, and they see nothing wrong with things the way they are.
The problem of distraction is huge in American society with major players ensuring we stay addicted. Megan Garber, writing for The Atlantic, proffers “why resisting distraction is one of the foundational challenges of this moment.” It is. At this moment in time, we’re swiftly moving toward rock bottom, something that happens to many addicts. The outcome is truly awful: the loss of everything.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a cure-all for distraction that will work for our entire populace as a whole, especially since there is only a small contingent of people who fully grasp our current situation. Therefore, like addicts, it’s up to each individual to admit that they’re distracted and that their priorities have been forfeited in favor of distraction.
- Individuals need to take an inventory of their life and activities to determine just how addicted they are.
- They then need to set up a program of recovery that includes family, friends, and co-workers who agree to not be enablers.
- New boundaries need to be set concerning when to allow oneself to be distracted and whether to put up with others trying to distract them.
- Getting involved with new and meaningful activities helps keep individuals engaged and occupied rather than at loose ends.
- Volunteering and being of service in order to get out of their own heads while re-engaging with real life.
That probably sounds unfeasible, but it’s the only way to pull ourselves out of the distraction addiction. We also need to get a grip on just how pervasive distraction is in our society, who the players are, how it’s wielded, and how our captains of industry and leaders have led us astray — all for their personal gain.
We each need to take back control of our lives, otherwise, we’re going to perish, doomed by distraction. We need to not fall victim to the “Playbook for Politicians” anymore. We need to hold our news outlets accountable for the mountain of distracting trash they serve up every day — and we have to stop requesting non-stop distraction from them in the first place. The same goes for all our entertainment outlets from video games to podcasts, television, and movies.
Obviously, our biggest challenge will be the addiction to our phones, THE primary instrument of distraction available to us. We can access every tidbit and type of distraction via our phones, something politicians use quite effectively.
The question arises: Do we want to stay in thrall to the maneuverings of politicians and their distraction politics or do we want to stop living vicariously via our distractions and get back into lives of meaning and substance and self-determination? Our future awaits us …
