US President Donald Trump. (SAUL LOEB / AFP/ Getty Images)
The term “weapons of mass distraction” evolved from the similar-sounding “weapons of mass destruction”. That term was introduced to the global lexicon in 2003, when it was littered all over the submission by the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, to the UN Security Council on the invasion of Iraq.
Weapons of mass destruction described nuclear weapons. The term weapons of mass distraction was a wonderful play on words used to describe the way in which the elites of society use technology, entertainment and so forth to distract the larger public from focusing on their shenanigans and the main problems facing society. Frequent reference was made to the dying days of the Roman Empire, where the masses were distracted from their poverty and social decline by the excesses of the elites through the barbaric entertainment of watching people being slaughtered in the Colosseum and other public arenas.
Today, we are distracted from being active participants in politics by weapons of mass distraction such as the plethora of social media, the fabulous lives of celebrities, gossip, commercially dominated sport and other meaningless, trivial pastimes.
But what if we are not being distracted from politics, and the politics itself is the distraction?
The evidence of politics being a farce and meaningless theatre is easily discerned. US President Donald Trump’s fortnight in office is ample proof. He armed himself on day one of his new term of office on 22 January 2025 by signing a staggering 26 executive orders while rescinding 78 of his predecessor Joe Biden’s previous orders. Even the signing of the orders was pure theatre. You could see the flourish of his signature as he held court in his office with the world’s media looking on.
How could anyone suggest that any other event could prove a distraction from this blockbuster?
It did not bother him when he incorrectly accused Spain of being a part of Brics, as if it were a crime to belong to the bloc of countries.
And the orders themselves, were they a distraction? Not all of them. Obviously there was the immediate effect of orders that called for the imposition of tariffs on countries such as China, Mexico and Canada. Then there’s the temporary establishment of the Orwellian department of government efficiency (Doge), which is tasked with wreaking havoc on the state by essentially downsizing the entire American bureaucracy and removing those seen not to be loyal to the new political administration, such as the federal investigators who built the legal case against the 6 January protestors.
Doesn’t this Doge, headed by the richest person in the world, Elon Musk, give you Harry Potter vibes? It’s like when, in the Order of the Phoenix movie, the ministry of magic through the deliciously named Dolores Umbridge enters Hogwarts through a bureaucratic order under the guise of helping the school become more efficient by its teachings being in line with the prescripts of the ministry of magic.
But many of Trump’s orders were, to say the least, more about the title than giving impetus to the matters raised. For instance, there is an order on lowering the cost of living, which is essentially a decree that instructs all agencies and departments to disentangle the US economy.
“Drastically lower the cost of housing and expand housing supply; eliminate unnecessary administrative expenses and rent-seeking practices that drive up healthcare costs; eliminate counterproductive requirements raising the costs of home appliances; create employment opportunities for American workers including drawing discouraged workers into the labour force; and eliminate harmful, coercive ‘climate’ policies driving up the costs of food and fuel,” reads a White House press release.
This order is meaningless. It is ideologically loaded, bereft of any possibility of intelligent discussion and provides no leadership. Of course, your 16-year-old will tell you: who cares, when you can create a moment where you are signing a decree in public like a latter-day Egyptian pharaoh and watch the rats and mice in the government administration scurry around looking for the cheese you claim they have.
I am sure that many can attribute this political theatre of the absurd to its principal actor, Donald Trump. He is said to be the exception. But his crassness should not deflect that all politics is now just theatre and symbolic, rather than a platform for intelligent, honest and genuine engagement on the issues vexing society.
In South Africa, we are distracted by similar side issues that take centre stage? Our main issues are poverty, unemployment and inequality. Everything else comes a distant second and should be informed by these three problems.
But what dominates our discourse? Through what lens do we look at issues? We are distracted by who has the upper hand in the government of national unity, the ANC or the Democratic Alliance. Or how the ANC is going to deal with Jacob Zuma and uMkhonto weSizwe. Previously it was the spectre of Julius Malema and his red dungaree army in the Economic Freedom Fighters.
Where is the titillation of corruption and the exuberance of power, when there is the spectre of institutional government failure? Even when there is legislation passed that is intended to take us forward, it is dumbed down into the mundane and theatrical.
Soon we will enter the phase where the various regional and provincial conferences of the ANC will be the main issue, and it will be about which faction is winning or losing.
Politics, both party and social activism, has been reduced to this dance of party politics that is about winners and losers, factions and gossip.
Why is this? Whose agenda does this serve? If politics is meaningless, will that not result in social turmoil and chaos? Will we enter into some sort of Darwinian period where individuals retreat into self-serving atoms — a dog-eat-dog world, a survival of the fittest?
It is becoming clearer that in liberal democracies (essentially all those who have chosen Western-inspired democracy), those chosen to lead do not believe that their primary role is to listen to and serve the people of the country. Every day people lose a little more belief in democratic institutions, be it the judiciary, a government department or local agencies.
Our president is yet to explain why he deemed it unnecessary to tell the South African public that our army was deployed to a Southern African Development Community peacekeeping force, whose task would not be just peacekeeping but to help the army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a war against internationally backed militia.
There is an obvious lack of accountability to the people.
We have witnessed in the past 10 to 15 years the rejection, almost vilifying of left-wing populism. Indeed, populism itself has been associated with fascism. It was an insult to call someone a populist, just as it was wrong to raise the issues that are popular with the people. Basically you were being accused of using the issues of the people to serve your personal agenda.
We were being told that your personal agenda and the people’s agenda cannot coincide; rather your agenda should serve the agenda of business, finance and capital, and the people can or will benefit afterwards — this was said to be a more sustainable method.
The result is that we rejected left-wing populism, and out of that emerged this dazed and confused right-wing macho populism as espoused by Trump, Zuma and the various emerging European right-wing populists.
The global and nationalist so-called left-wing transformed themselves into centrists who stand for nothing, the left is now regarded as extreme and delusional.
In the past 10 years, I have had the privilege to visit three socialist countries — China, Cuba and Venezuela. The major difference I have observed in all three countries is that they have political leaders at all levels of society who are eminently clear that it is their immediate task to serve the people, not the political party, not other elites, be it burgeoning capitalists or celebrities, but the people themselves.
It has become clear that in these socialists countries, their leaders are a lot more scared of disappointing their people than the leaders we elect in liberal democracies. The results of this leadership can be felt in their social engagements; you witness a people who truly care for each other and their country. There is no laager mentality of us against the world but rather a collective spirit.
In Venezuela, for instance, more than 90% of their coffee used to be imported, and so when the US imposed its economic blockade and sanctions, they could not get these imports.
Today, more than 90% of coffee on Venezuelan shelves are locally produced. This means their government was able to not just assist local farmers to grow coffee, but also helped them with the agro-processing, packaging, distributing and marketing thereof.
These socialist countries are living proof of what is possible when politics is not the distraction nor the destruction, but lives to lead and serve the people.
Donovan E Williams is a social commentator.