The GOP's Big, Beautiful Bombs

The middling fireworks had barely fizzled out in the sky over Trump’s empty, energy-impotent, failed birthday ego event in DC, and you just knew something was coming, you just couldn’t be sure what it was.He was embarrassed, infuriated, and publicly humiliated, and something would need to be manufactured to steal the world’s gaze from the optics of No Kings Day’s glorious, exuberant outpouring and his limp, lifeless wannabe dictator farce…Ah, Iran… And there it was.And in the whirlwind of social media in the wake of Trump’s unilateral bombings done without Congressional approval (as well as the very real dangers they have generated across the globe), it can be difficult to remember that this is intentional, albeit deadly sleight-of-hand.With them, everything is a distraction.It’s all about misdirection.When you remember that, you’re able to easily sift the information in front of you and ask yourself, “What don’t they want us paying attention to right now? What are the critical things they want us to forget while our eyes and energy are being pulled toward the fireworks?They don’t want us to see and remember:Unidentified, masked gangs are being released into our communities by the Government to abduct human beings without probable cause or due process.The GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill” will wreak economic and human rights havoc on this nation for decades to come.We just organized the single largest mass protest in history.The US Military has been deployed against US citizens for expressing their Constitutional right to free speech and assembly.A MAGA Christian zealot assassinated a Minnesota Democratic lawmaker, her husband, and their dog in their homes, and attempted to murder another Democratic lawmaker and his family.The Transgender community is being legislatively decimated.Trump’s asinine, unnecessary trade wars have been and still are a disaster.More and more credible, quantifiable doubts are being cast on the 2024 election results.Trump’s approval ratings are historically low.Trump’s name is all over the still-unreleased Jeffrey Epstein files.One of the challenges of this stratospherically corrupt regime is to remain vigilant and focused on the damage they are doing in the dark and quiet places, away from the rockets’ red glare and airborne bursting bombs. We can’t be drawn into the bombast and curated urgency because that’s how we lose the elemental freedoms in the shadows.And while the merited concerns about global annihilation, our Military wastefully being placed in harm’s way, and the rising threat of terrorism here can’t and shouldn’t be ignored, it’s more important than ever that we don’t allow the noise and blinding flashes to so singularly distract that we lose the ability to be organized, strategic, and effective in pushing back against this campaign of misdirection.Trump is the useful idiot of a group of very organized sociopaths, many of whom come from the media. They know how to wag the dog, how to make sure the main thing isn’t the main thing, and how to manipulate eyes to the places they need them pinned to. This is the only real expertise they have.We all need to keep our attention on the small, the local, the unremarkable ways our Republic is being slowly dismantled here on the ground, while we’re all looking at the sky.So stay focused, friends.The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit johnpavlovitz.substack.com/subscribe