The Urban Dictionary defines political diversion as politicians and others focusing “on issues that are controversial but in reality have little or no effect on most people in order to divert attention from more important issues they don't want to deal with”.

For more than forty years I told my Introduction to American Government classes that the issues politicians tell us are important are quite often just an attempt to divert our attention from issues that DO matter. Yes, I’m sure I corrupted students, but it is the truth. Politicians and political pundits hold up shiny objects so we ignore the dull, but important, issues. Examples are countless:

• Remember President Clinton? Remember Monica Lewenski? On the same day Lewenski was set to testify before a grand jury about Clinton’s possible perjury, Clinton ordered missile strikes on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan on the pretext that it was producing chemical weapons for Osama bin Laden. No proof was offered, and it was later determined that the company which employed 300 and produced more than half of Sudan's pharmaceuticals for malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases was not, in fact, involved in chemical weapons production.

  In the academic field of International Relations, “Diversionary War Theory” argues that wars are often started by political leaders when domestic problems reach a certain point; leaders start wars to divert attention from economic or social problems. I guess we should at least be glad Clinton didn’t start a war.

• How about the time a couple of years ago when President Biden was accused of planning to impose limits on the amount of red meat Americans could consume in an attempt to reduce greenhouse gasses. Even though the story was a total fabrication, Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO), someone who will never miss an opportunity to use diversionary tactics, said “Why doesn’t Joe stay out of my kitchen?” The initial story printed by The Daily Mail stated that “Biden’s climate plan could limit you to eat just one burger a MONTH, cost $3.5K a year per person in taxes, force you to spend $55K on an electric car and ‘crush’ American jobs.” Again, it was all made up but it was THE important issue for several days.

• The Constitution’s 2nd Amendment is a regular, albeit unwitting, participant in the political diversion game. Politicians consistently claim to be “pro second Amendment” in their campaign speeches and literature, ignoring the historical meaning and interpretation of that Constitutional passage. I wrote about this a few years ago and likely will again soon in light of the numerous mass shootings. Again, the constant talk of “threats” to the right to bear arms are diversionary.

• Of course Donald Trump is the master of political diversion. He used the technique so often that it actually became the topic of a 2020 academic study that concluded “that whenever the media report something threatening or politically uncomfortable for President Trump, his account increasingly tweets about unrelated topics representing his political strengths. This systematic diversion of attention away from a topic potentially damaging to him was shown to significantly reduce negative media coverage the next day”. From the day he announced his candidacy in 2015 through his loss in 2020, more than 30,000 tweets were sent from his account. That’s a lot of diversion.

• For many years the city of Columbia, Missouri has hosted the Columbia Values Diversity Breakfast to commemorate Martin Luther King day. I’ve actually had the opportunity to attend the event, and even spoke on one occasion, and it was extraordinarily moving (in a good way). This year Nclusion Plus, a group performing in drag, was part of the entertainment, and since about thirty middle schoolers were in attendance in the crowd of 2,000, a small number of people complained even though the show was reportedly “high-brow and innocent” and not indecent in any way. Whether the show was or was not appropriate isn’t my concern, but the reaction of politicians is. In short order the Missouri Senate Pro Tem, the state attorney general, and even the governor were tweeting about the event and promising to “investigate”. Politicians used this event as a diversion rather than addressing the numerous real challenges faced by the state of Missouri.

Political diversion has a twin referred to as “whataboutism”, defined by dictionary.com as “a conversational tactic in which a person responds to an argument or attack by changing the subject to focus on someone else’s misconduct, implying that all criticism is invalid because no one is completely blameless”. I used this strategy quite a bit as a kid. Unsuccessfully. When my mom caught me smoking I’d say “what about Joe”? When I brought home poor grades I’d say “what about Jane” (whose grades were actually worse, which says a LOT!).

We see quite a bit of whataboutism these days as well:

• In response to Black Lives Matter people will say “what about black on black crime?” rather than addressing the issue itself.

• When George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, some folks responded “what about his criminal record” as if that had any bearing on the cause of his death.

• When I was discussing the need to address environmental decline with someone a while back this person responded “what about pollution coming from China and India” as if America should take no action because of the failures of other countries.

• When lying or corruption are alleged against a politician, the politician’s defenders will often say “what about….” and identify some other lying, corrupt politician as if that is a legitimate excuse.

Whataboutism concludes that two wrongs make a right.

All of this results in the failure to address real problems such as gun violence, declining public education, child welfare, drug addiction, the national debt, and the hundreds of other issues having a direct impact on the lives of real people, and the public is complicit because we accept it. We get angry about our red meat or guns being taken when neither will happen, but we then ignore what DOES matter.

I personally believe the use of both diversion and whataboutism indicate poor personal character, a lack of sincere curiosity, and/or an inferior intellect. Diverting the public’s attention is much easier than balancing the budget.

David