Don't Be Distracted By Stormy Daniels

Source: Vogue

Don't Be Distracted By Stormy Daniels

JANUARY 12, 2018 6:44 PM
by BRIDGET READ

The latest tabloid factoid on Donald Trump dropped on Friday, capping a particularly heavy slew of outrageous stories about his behavior that have circulated through the media in the last 24 hours. To recap this latest trending topic as briefly as possible, the Wall Street Journal reported that a month before the election, a former adult film star named Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000 by Trump's lawyer for her silence in regards to a consensual sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006 in Lake Tahoe. (Donald and Melania Trump were married in 2005.)

So now everyone is making jokes about Stormy Daniels, a.k.a. Stephanie Clifford; and, of course, there is an abundance to be made: from her larger than life personal style to her couldn't-make-it-up porn alias. And maybe we all just want a break from the rest of the slog of Trump-related gaffes, offenses, and rushed Tweets that had been clogging up the news cycle this week. Except that, unfortunately, we've learned that giving attention to the Stormy Daniels' of Trump's past and present gets us nowhere.

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The problem isn't in allowing ourselves to get up-in-arms about Trump's virulent bigotry— the problem is ignoring the deeply unpleasant reality of what's really going on in the corridors of power in favor of grasping onto the most salacious, Trump-ian gossip fodder, because it's easier than focusing on the policies that Trump himself is having difficulty understanding as President of the United States. Trump's comments about "shitholes" came during a meeting to attempt bipartisan agreement on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which threatens an estimated 800,000 previously protected undocumented young people if it is fully repealed. Trump made his comments in a meeting attended by Republican hardliners on immigration who were ready to sink bipartisan plans from the "group of six," who were attempting to reach a compromise on the fate of DACA and the Dreamers. In other words, "this was a coordinated effort by Republicans who saw the proposal as a complete non-starter," as CNN reports.

Paying attention to how these Trump soundbites mushroom on social media and the collective energy they suck out of understanding the nuts-and-bolts political matters they come out of is important. Lawmakers are seven days away from a potential government shutdown, and Democrats are facing a decision whether to force one by refusing to submit to a deal that harms young undocumented people, or push for a victory, albeit one that comes with compromises. This is likely what people on the left should be reading and thinking about, and pressing their representatives on—but it becomes drowned out by the denouncements of Trump's language, and his character, and his gross personal behavior, all of which are easier to make.

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Read more: https://www.vogue.com/article/dont-be-distracted-by-stormy-daniels