Trump picks cultural fights to distract Americans from his policies and their results

by Ezra Klein at Vox

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/9/16447610/trump-pence-nfl-distraction

"SNIP...........


This weekend was our umpteenth reminder that the core of Donald Trump's political strategy is exacerbating cultural conflict to distract from his policies and results.

The provocation was almost childish in its transparency. Mere weeks after choosing, at a rally, to reawaken conflict over the NFL’s protests, Trump sent Vice President Mike Pence to a NFL game where a protest was inevitable, with explicit instructions to walk out the moment the players took their knee. Pence did as he was told, and we in the media did as we were told: swarming to cover the Trump administration’s latest mortar attack against our attention spans. Just to make sure there was no mistaking whose plan this was, Trump tweeted that it was his idea:

Follow
Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
I asked @VP Pence to leave stadium if any players kneeled, disrespecting our country. I am proud of him and @SecondLady Karen.
2:16 PM - Oct 8, 2017
58,177 58,177 Replies 26,903 26,903 Retweets 125,673 125,673 likes
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This is, in other words, the distraction Trump wants. Which raises the question: What conversations is he trying to distract us from?

Well, there’s the ongoing crisis in Puerto Rico, which the Trump administration mismanaged from the outset and is now trying to hide by pushing out weird propaganda videos and ceasing to report the number of Puerto Ricans with access to power and clean drinking water. (Those reports were restored after ferocious criticism: The current percentages are 11.7 and 59.5, for the record.)

...........SNIP"