The Ultimate Distraction

Nixon went out with a whimper. Trump wants to go out with a bang.

The idea that Trump would start a war as the ultimate distraction from his political problems is not exactly new.

In fact, during Obama’s first term, Trump frequently tweeted his prediction that the President would start a war with Iran to help him win re-election. He became so convinced that starting a war with Iran was a surefire election-winning plan, that he even made a video about it, as I reminded people on my @RealDonalDrumpf account:

In December, as Trump’s impeachment approached and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s own corruption scandals worsened, Secretary of Rapture Readiness Mike Pompeo began the steady drumbeat toward war. As I noted on December 6:

Following his impeachment, Trump retreated to Mar-a-Lago to consider his next big move. With 71% of Americans supporting a fair trial, including testimony from key witnesses such as Mulvaney, Bolton and the increasingly implicated Pompeo, Trump spent his taxpayer-funded vacation the way he spends most of his Presidency: golfing, watching TV and going bonkers on Twitter.

But as the New Year began and GOP Senators began suggesting that they might, maybe, one day be open to calling witnesses, new revelations about Trump’s conspiracy to extort Ukraine—and his unprecedented obstruction of Congress—began increasing the pressure on Mitch McConnell to at least pay lip service to the “Oath of Impartiality” all Senators must swear before an impeachment trial.

The targeted assassination of top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani reinforces the fears of many that Trump would be willing to start a war with Iran simply as counter-programming to a Senate impeachment trial. Whatever happens next, at a minimum, experts anticipate that reprisals from Iran will lead to “dead American civilians.”

Dead American civilians. Trump’s advisers surely warned him that would be the likely result of the killing of Soleimani. But as Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller immediately tweeted, those future deaths were not Trump’s main concern. The primary objective of the mission—DISTRACTION—had already been achieved.

Whatever happens next, the challenge for the journalists is clear. Now that he’s made #WorldWarThree trend on Twitter, Trump is counting on the media to shift to a “war footing” and downplay the ongoing drip, drip, drip of news about his impeachable offenses.

Trump is also hoping that American voters, preoccupied by fears of war, will lose interest in his impeachment trial—and forget about his plan to cheat his way to victory in the next election.

Let’s prove him wrong.

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