Bellwether

Bellwether (pronounced bel-weth-er)

(1) A wether or other male sheep that leads the flock, usually bearing a bell.

(2) A person or thing that assumes the leadership or forefront, as of a profession or industry.

(3) Anything that indicates future trends (gauge, indicator, sign).

(4) As “bellwether state”, “bellwether seat” etc, an electoral division or constituency which, over a long period, has tended to predict the outcome in wider electoral contests (presidential, congressional, provincial, national etc).

(5) In finance, as “bellwether stock”, a stock or bond widely believed to be an indicator of the overall market's condition and future direction.

1400-1450: The construct was bell + wether.  The late thirteenth century word clearly existed in Anglo-Latin but in the late twelfth century it had been used as a surname.  The prevalent meaning became “lead sheep” (with a collar on which a bell was hung) of a domesticated flock, while the figurative sense (leader, chief) dates from the mid-fourteenth century.  Used in its original sense (a sheep with a bell attached to a collar), bellwether has no synonyms but they do exist when the term figuratively is applied (a person or thing that shows the existence or direction of a trend; index), including trendsetter, trailblazer, front runner, pacesetter, leader, omen, gauge, indicator, sign & harbinger.  Thus in fashion, historically, the bellwether has tended variously to be what was first seen on the catwalks in Milan, Paris or London while in the years immediately after World War II (1939-1945), it was the artistic movements in New York rather than Paris that became the bellwether of global directions in the visual arts.  The alternative forms were bell-wether and (the now archaic) belwether; bellweather was a misspelling.  Bellwether is a noun; the noun plural is bellwethers.

A model in a “strapless fuchsia top and pants covered in shimmering, sculpted rose embellishments” from Rahul Mishra’s (b 1979) Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2025/2026 collection (Becoming Love), Paris Fashion Week, 2025.  Paris remains the industry’s bellwether but not everything seen on the catwalk is a harbinger.

Bell, in the sense of the percussive, hollow instrument (usually of cast or forged metal), typically cup-shaped with a flaring mouth, suspended from the vertex and rung by the strokes of a clapper, hammer, or the like (resonating upon impact producing “the sound of the bell”), was a pre-1000 word, from the Middle English belle, from the Old English belle & bellan (to roar), from the from Proto-West Germanic bellā, from the Proto-Germanic bellǭ, from the primitive Indo-European bel-; it was cognate with the West Frisian belle, the Old High German bellan, the Low German Belle & Bel, the German bellen (to bark), the Middle Dutch bellen & belen, the Old Norse belja, the Danish bjælde, the Faroese bjølla, the Icelandic bjalla, the Norwegian bjelle and the Swedish bjällra. and the Dutch bel.

Wether (originally “a castrated male sheep” but later used generally of “male sheep”) dates from pre 900 and was from the Middle English wether, wethir & wedyr, from the Old English weðer (ram), from the Middle English wether, wethir, wedyr, from Old English weþer (“a wether, ram”), from the Proto-West Germanic weþru, from the Proto-Germanic wethruz (source also of the Old Saxon wethar, the Old Norse veðr, the Old High German widar, the German Widder and the Gothic wiþrus (lamb)), literally “yearling’, from the primitive Indo-European root wet- (year), (source also of the Sanskrit vatsah (calf), the Greek etalon (yearling) and the Latin vitulus (calf, literally “yearling”); it was cognate with the Old Saxon withar, the Old High German widar, the Old Norse vethr and the Gothic withrus.  The ultimate source was the primitive Indo-European wet- (year).  The word wether came to be used both of male sheep (rams) and male goats (busks) castrated at a young age.  Usually, it’s safe practice for wethers to share paddocks or be housed with female sheep or goats, but intact rams & bucks usually are kept separately.  “Wether wool” was wool from previously shorn sheep.  The now obsolete dialectal form was wedder and in historic documents, as late as the nineteenth century wether was a (now archaic) spelling of weather.  Used as a verb, “to wether” was to castrate a male sheep or goat, the victim said to have been “wethered”.

In idiomatic use, a “bellwether state” “bellwether district” or “bellwether seat” is an electoral division or constituency which, over a long period, has tended to align with the outcome in wider electoral contests (presidential, congressional, provincial, national etc).  The classic example is the bellwether state in US presidential elections that historically votes for the winning candidate in successive elections (ie sometimes returning a Democratic and sometimes a Republican majority).  It’s an accepted part of the jargon of political science but really doesn’t adhere to the etymology of the original idea of sheep “following a leader”.  In elections, one state, district or constituency generally doesn’t “follow another” because votes tend simultaneously to be cast and although there are examples (in countries with multiple time-zones) of early results in one place become available while polling is still happening in others, (1) those results are always from a very small proportion of the vote (2) most votes in places still voting have already been cast and (3) the time overlap usually is brief.

A Lindsay Lohan-themed weathervane.

In the political context, rather than bellwether, a better term might be “weather vane”.  A weather vane is a type of anemoscope (the construct being anemo- (from the Ancient Greek ᾰ̓́νεμος (ắnemos) (wind)) + scope (from the Ancient Greek σκοπέω (skopéō) (examine, inspect, look to or into, consider)) which is an elegant description of a simple, mechanical device rotating around one axis and attached to an elevated object such as a roof.  As a weather vane responds to the wind, it rotates to show the wind direction, the letters “N”, “S”, “E” & “W” displayed on static, extended prongs indicating respectively north, south, east & west.  The term is sometimes clipped to “vane” and they’re known also as “wind vanes” and “weathercocks”, the latter use dating from so many historically being formed in the silhouette of a rooster.  The reason “weather vane” works better than “bellwether” as a word indicating “current political climate” is that there’s no suggestion the wind “follows” the vane; instead, the position of the vane simply reflects the direction in which “the wind is blowing”.  That’s why it can be used to mean (1) an indicator; something that reflects what the current situation is and (2) a person or organization that changes their attitude and position based on the prevailing conditions rather than displaying any conviction.

So while a homophone, “weather” enjoys a different meaning from “wether”.  Weather was from the Middle English weder & wedir, from the Old English weder, from the Proto-West Germanic wedr, from the Proto-Germanic wedrą, from the primitive Indo-European wedrom (to blow).  The distinction between “the weather” and “the climate” is the former is the state of the atmosphere at a specific time and place (expressed via measures such as temperature, relative humidity, cloud cover, precipitation, wind strength etc) while the latter is the weather aggregated over periods (which can be a season, year, decade, century, epoch etc) or regions.  Such is the significance of the weather that the term “the weather” can refer explicitly to its more severe aspects.  That’s how Guadalcanal's Weather Coast in the Solomon Islands gained its name; unlike the island's northern coast (site of the capital Honiara), the southern Weather Coast faces the prevailing southeast trade winds and open ocean swells.  As a result, it experiences heavier rainfall, rougher seas, flooding, and generally harsher weather; it’s literally the island’s “weather-beaten coast”.

Vane was from the Middle English vane, a Southern Middle English variant of fane, from the Old English fana (cloth, banner, flag), from the Proto-West Germanic fanō, from the Proto-Germanic fanô, from the primitive Indo-European pehn- (something woven; weave; tissue; fabric; cloth).  It was cognate with the Saterland Frisian Foone (flag, banner), the Dutch vaan (banner, flag), the German Low German Fahn (flag) and the German Fahne.  In engineering, vanes typically exist in multiples and are relatively thin, rigid, flat, or sometimes curved surfaces radially mounted along an axis; they can be slow-moving (as on a windmill) or run at very high speeds (as in turbines).  In ornithology, the vane is the flattened, web-like part of a feather, consisting of a series of barbs on either side of the shaft.

A captured German V2 rocket (1945, left) and a full-size clay mock up of a design proposal for 1961 Cadillac, General Motors Technical Center, Warren, Michigan, (1959, right).  When the V2 used as a weapon (1944-1945), the term used was "fins" but the rocket scientists of the 1950s popularized "vanes".  On the cars, it was always "fins" but the lower units (seen on Oldsmobiles in 1961 and Cadillacs in 1961-1962) informally were dubbed "skegs", a borrowing from nautical architecture.

A recent adoption of vane was to describe the guidance or stabilizing fins attached to the tail of bombs or missiles.  Fins had of course long been a feature of directional weapons (arrows the classic example) and they’d appeared on the earliest aerial bombs.  Had the convention been: “fins are static and vanes can move” that would have made sense to laypersons but that wasn’t the way the military-industrial complex used the labels which resulted in non-specialist writers sometimes using “fin” and “vane” interchangeably.  That was understandable because while in the terminology of aerodynamicists the words are not exactly synonymous, there’s enough overlap to encourage confusion.  As a general principle, the primary purpose of a fin is to act as a stabilizing surface enhancing stability, the tail fins on a bomb, artillery shell, rocket, or missile the classic examples; until relatively recently, almost always they were fixed.  By contrast, a vane is a thin blade-like aerodynamic surface that interacts with airflow; they may be static or movable and are used for stabilization, steering or control.  To engineers the distinction was significant and for others it made sense because the nerdier "vane" was for rocket scientists while fins were things Detroit was putting on Cadillacs.  That meant some vanes could move while others were fixed and were thus functionally equivalent to fins.  Except for historians of such things, any distinction probably isn’t important and the two are so entrenched in ordnance and aerospace nomenclature, they’re both here to stay; in modern use the only discernible definitional difference being some emphasis on the component’s shape rather than whether it moves.

Map of the US expressed as "Red", "Blue", "Bellwether" & "Swing" states.  The apparent red-blue dichotomy is a product of the voting system, the vote spread broadly similar to patterns in other two-party systems.

Electoral behaviour in the democracies of the English-speaking world is not as predictable as it was in the days of relatively stable two-party systems.  Even in the US where the Democratic and Republican party machines have ensured there’s something of an institutionalized duopoly, their internal fissiparousness of both (TEA (Taxed Enough Already) & MAGA (Make America Great Again) etc) has made the use of historic data less useful.  What does seem clear is among the “less useful” concepts in the US are the “bellwethers”, states or districts that historically were remarkably reliable in picking winners in national elections.  In presidential contests, some were striking in this: Nevada between 2012-2020 voted for the winner in every election (except 1976) and Missouri did the same between 1904- 2004 except in 1956.  Much maligned Ohio was once also a Bellwether; between choosing a loser in Barry Goldwater (1909–1998) in 1964 and crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947) in 2016, Ohioans otherwise got it right.

Map of the US expressed as "Purple" states.

Political scientists explain the change by pointing out the electorate, geographically, has become much more polarized, states now increasingly sorted by education level, urbanization, ethnicity, and partisan identity.  Once consequence of this was previously competitive states can drift permanently into one party's column, thus the growing number of “Red” (Republican) and “Blue” (Democrat) states and although psephologists have published district-by-district analyses showing all states really are “shades of purple”, because of the way the electoral system works in the US, the shades don’t matter because mostly the delegates in the Electoral College are determined on “winner takes all” basis.  Thus it’s correct to speak of “red” and “blue” states and the “winner takes all” approach does distort political perceptions; were a system of proportional representation (or even a preferential system) to be adopted, the electoral outcomes would be very different on the basis of the same patterns of voting.  What this shift in behaviour has meant is political scientists tend now to focus less on the historic bellwethers and more on the “tipping-point states” (the relative handful of "swing" states which have evolved to be the most competitive and thus likely to be decisive in provides the needed Electoral College votes).  In recent elections, the tipping point states have been Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Because there are more of them, in Congressional elections, the notion of “bellwether districts” remains more useful but even there it has become diluted.  Historically, there were literally dozens of House districts that routinely elected a representative from whichever party won the national House vote and in a real (ie statistically verifiable) sense such districts really did reflected “the median American voter”, a concept now less identifiable.  What has happened is that the forces of geographic polarization, partisan realignment, residential self-sorting and the decline of split-ticket voting means the number of genuine bellwether districts dramatically has shrunk, a stark change from the trend first identified in the late 1990s of the number of “safe seats” decreasing.  Concurrent with that has been the movement in the number of House districts carried by one presidential candidate but represented by the other party in Congress.  In the 1970s and 1980s there were hundreds of such mismatches while today there are but a handful with many congressional districts effectively “safe” for one party or the other; now it’s only “reprehensible or extraordinary circumstances” (they can be local or national) likely to shift things.  While it’s true there are a small number of competitive districts (in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan) that have in recent elections been reliable bellwethers, there seems among political scientists little confidence these can be guaranteed to maintain the pattern.  The bellwethers “happened” because there was for at least decades a large “middle ground” of persuadable “swing voters” distributed throughout the country but modern American (and this predates Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) who does get blamed for much) politics increasingly is characterized by semi-stable partisan coalitions and fewer swing voters.  So, “bellwethers” are now quite likely to be temporary coincidences rather than a durable phenomenon so the predictive power of the concept is now much weaker.

1968 Holden HK Monaro GTS 327.

The In Australian federal elections, the seat most recently dubbed a “bellwether” was the NSW (New South Wales) division of Eden Monaro (established in 1900), its good burghers for four decades reliability voting for the party destined to take office.  Between 1972-2013, Eden-Monaro was won by the party winning the general election and in another quirk unusual over such a long period (and uniquely among Australia’s historic bellwethers), none of the sitting members retired, resigned or had the decency to drop dead; all were defeated on polling day.  The Monaro region lies in what was the traditional country of the Ngarigo people and “Monaro” was said to be was from the Aboriginal word maneroo, most often translated as meaning “treeless plain”, “high plain” or “high plateau” although the APH (Parliamentary Handbook of the Commonwealth of Australia) lists the alternative etymology as an “Aboriginal word meaning 'the navel' or 'a woman's breasts'.”

Marlboro cigarette magazine advertisement, 1967.  There was a time when such imagery was thought "positive product association".

In the early years of colonial settlement, the word often was spelled “Manaro” but the pronunciation is believed always to have been me-nair-oh.  Despite that long history, when in 1968 GMH (General Motors Holdens, GM’s local operation) introduced the Monaro, the pronunciation used was mon-ah-ro and that was attributed to events far away.  The choice of name is attributed to one of GMH’s technical designers in 1967 driving through Cooma and seeing the sign “Monaro County Council”.  At the time, there had been no decision about a name for the new Holden coupé (the body style a first for the company) and what appealed to the designer was (1) the sign reminding him of the famous “Marlboro Country” cigarette advertisements (then much admired) and (2) the obvious similarity with “Camaro”, the “pony car” introduced that year by Chevrolet as a competitor for Ford’s wildly successful Mustang.  Apparently, when “Monaro” was suggested as a name, instead of a committee being formed in the usual corporate way, so things could be “discussed”, immediately the name was adopted.  Although the Camaro (pronounced kam-ah-ro) wasn’t then sold in the Australian market, it had been well-publicized so Holden taking advantage of the “linguistic association” was not surprising.

1967 Chevrolet Camaro RS-SS 396.

That was a decision more quickly made than the process at Chevrolet which produced Camaro which emerged from a committee after the alternatives had been considered and discarded.  These days, conjuring up novel words for products (as well as product differentiation it avoids any legal squabbles) is common but in the mid-1960s, GM must not have wanted to risk being accused of linguistic impurity so told the press there was an entry in a (very) old French-English dictionary defining camaro as “companion”. “comrade” or “friend”.  Mischievously, Ford retaliated with a more recent Spanish dictionary in which a camaro was listed as a “small shrimp-like creature”, provoking Chevrolet into responding that a camaro was “a small, vicious animal that eats Mustangs”.  In the same era, that carnivorous notion really was the basis of the name of the de Tomaso Mangusta (Mongoose, 1967-1971), chosen after Alejandro de Tomaso (1928-2003) and Carroll Shelby (1923–2012) had a falling out, explained by the mongoose being a beast famous for hunting and killing cobras.  Unfortunately, the legend about the origin of the Camaro’s name is thought a myth, Chevrolet just “making it up” at a time when the company was using model names starting with “C” (Corvair, Corvette, Chevelle, Caprice) and the story of a journalist unearthing yet another dictionary that disclosed the definition “loose bowels” wholly is a myth.

Distract

Distract (pronounced dih-strakt)

(1) To draw away or divert, as the mind or attention.

(2) To disturb or trouble greatly in mind; beset.

(3) To provide a pleasant diversion for; to amuse or entertain.

(4) To separate or divide by dissension or strife; to confuse.

(5) To make “crazy or insane” (now rare except in the idiomatic “drive to distraction” and its variants when the concept of “mad” is used in its colloquial sense).

1350–1400: From the Middle English, from the Medieval Latin distracten (to turn or draw (a person, the mind) aside or away from any object; divert (the attention) from any point toward another point), from the Latin distrahō (to pull apart), the construct being dis- + trahō (to pull), from distractus (drawn apart), past participle of distrahere (to draw apart), the construct being dis- + trahere (to draw).  The dis prefix was from the Middle English dis-, from the Old French des from the Latin dis, from the proto-Italic dwis, from the primitive Indo-European dwís and cognate with the Ancient Greek δίς (dís) and the Sanskrit द्विस् (dvis).  It was applied variously as an intensifier of words with negative valence and to render the senses “incorrect”, “to fail (to)”, “not” & “against”.  In Modern English, the rules applying to the dis prefix vary and when attached to a verbal root, prefixes often change the first vowel (whether initial or preceded by a consonant/consonant cluster) of that verb. These phonological changes took place in Latin and usually do not apply to words created (as in Modern Latin) from Latin components since the language was classified as “dead”.  The combination of prefix and following vowel did not always yield the same change and these changes in vowels are not necessarily particular to being prefixed with dis (ie other prefixes sometimes cause the same vowel change (con; ex)).  Distract, distracting & distracted are verbs & adjectives, distractionism, distractibility, distraction, distractedness, distracter & distractee are nouns, distractable, distractible, distractionary, distractive & distractful are adjectives and distractedly & distractingly are adverbs; the common noun plural is distractions.

Diversions are where one finds them.

The sense of “to throw into a state of mind in which one knows not how to act; cause distraction in; confuse by diverse or opposing considerations” has been in use by at least the 1580s.  Obviously related (and emerging a decade-odd later) was the stronger sense of “disorder the reason of, render frantic or mad”, once in common use and preserved (in rather diluted form) in the idiomatic phrase “driven to distraction”.  The literal senses of “pull apart in different directions and separate; cut into parts or sections” were in use from the late sixteenth century but are now functionally extinct.  The adjective distracted dates from the 1570s in the sense of “perplexed, harassed, or bewildered by opposing considerations” and came directly from the verb distract; from the 1580s it gained the meaning “disordered in intellect, frantic, mad”.  The noun distraction came from the mid-fifteenth century distraccioun (the drawing away of the mind from one point or course to another or others), from the Latin distractionem (a pulling apart, separating), the noun of action from the past-participle stem of distrahere (draw in different directions).  The sense of a “drawing of the mind in different directions, mental confusion or bewilderment” dates from the 1590s, and the meaning “violent mental disturbance, excitement simulating madness (in driven to distraction etc) was known from the turn of the century.  The meaning “a thing or fact that causes mental diversion or bewilderment” was in use by at least 1615 but, like other related forms, it probably was long in oral use.  The special use of distraction in medicine was used to describe “traction so exerted as to separate surfaces normally opposed”; it is long archaic.  The old idea of “distraction” meaning “crazy or insane” survives in the idiomatic phrases “drive to distraction”, “driven to distraction” and “crazy or insane” are now used in the colloquial, non-clinical sense meaning “a bit stressed or discombobulated”.  Usually, the phrases are used by those being so annoyed by someone or something they cannot focus on the task at hand.

Of Dr Faustus

Title page of the 1620 edition of the ‘B’ text of Doctor Faustus (first published in 1616 as The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus).

English playwright, poet and translator Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) was the enfant terrible of the Elizabethan age (1558–1603) and the circumstances surrounding his murder at a youthful 29 death has long attracted speculation.  Marlow’s most famous work was The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (clipped usually to “Doctor Faustus”), a tragedy (some critics class it as a morality play) first staged around 1594.  Kind of the ultimate cautionary tale, it was based on German stories about an eminent scholar who sells (for eternity) his soul to the devil in exchange for 24 years magical powers.  The plot is charmingly simple: it follows Dr Faustus down the magical path lad for him by the demon Mephistopheles to his ultimate downfall as he fails to repent before his damnation.  An entertaining work, Marlow’s play also has the virtue of brevity unlike Goethe’s (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832) sprawling Faust in two parts; Goethe’s Faust may be the author’s magnum opus and the finest achievement in German literature but it is very long.

Faust and Mephistopheles (1869), oil on canvas by Alfred Louis Vigny Jacomin (1842-1913).

What enabled Mephistopheles to tempt Faustus was that the doctor, who regarded himself an expert of just about every aspect of science and philosophy, had become enchanted by the idea of necromancy, something not easily explored in the temporal world.  Dating from the late twelfth century, necromancy was from the Middle English nigromancye, from the Old French nigromancie, from the Medieval Latin nigromantia, from the Classical Latin necromantia, from the Ancient Greek νεκρομαντεία (nekromanteía), the construct being νεκρός (nekrós) (dead) + μαντεία (manteía) (divination).  The spelling in the Medieval Latin with the element niger (black) was influenced by the notion of this being a “black (in the sense of “dark”) art; the modern spelling had emerged by the mid sixteenth century.  Necromancy, as understood by Faustus, meant the sorcery associated with raising or reanimating the dead and the Devil uniquely was well placed to provide instruction but there would be a price to be paid.  One of the devices Marlow has Mephistopheles (and sometimes the Devil himself) use to divert Faustus’s thoughts from anything which might bring about his repentance and save his soul are “distractions”.  The distractions are presented as essentially theatrical spectacles in the form of sensual pleasures, promises of power and trivial entertainments, all designed to ensure spiritual distraction; it was something like Faustus’s Elizabethan TikTok feed.

Distractions played a part: Al Gore (b 1948; VPOTUS 1993-2001 & NPOTUS 2000, left) and crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; NPOTUS 2016, right).

The distractions take many forms but their principle purpose is to divert Faustus from thinking about or speaking of Christ and heaven, thus the famous rebuke: “Thou shouldst not think of God.”  What Lucifer does is stage a pagent of the Seven Deadly Sins, a masque-like parade of Pride, Covetousness, Wrath, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth, and Lechery to amuse and seduce Faustus away from repentance.  As one might expect of weak, mortal man, Faustus delights in the spectacle: “O, this feeds my soul!”; well the Devil knew his customer.  Also provided are texts teaching transformations, conjuring, and occult knowledge, intellectual distractions appealing to Faustus’s vanity and appetite for mastery of new and unexplored subjects.  This is however a play written for the stage and it has a beginning, middle and end with much of the middle devoted to diversions: invisible tricks played on the pope (said to be very popular with contemporary audiences), conjuring spirits for emperors and nobles, practical jokes, feasts, and displays of magical power.  What Marlowe does is show Faustus squandering his grand bargain on shallow amusements rather than profound knowledge; comparisons have been made between what was promised would be the role of the “Information Super Highway” (dating from the time when “Al Gore invented the Internet”) and TikTok feeds.

Helen of Troy (1898), oil on canvas by Evelyn De Morgan (1855–1919).  Helen has for millennia been depicted by painters and sculptors and historians of art have used the images to track changes in Western ideal of female beauty.  

Near the end, when an Old Man urges Faustus sincerely to repent, Mephistopheles counters with Helen of Troy as an erotic and aesthetic temptation, Faustus responding with the famous: “Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships…?”  Helen represented the ultimate sensual distraction from salvation; as the Devil and advertising agencies understand: sex sells.  As a psychological study, Marlow’s work is a clever piece of the way manipulation can work, certainly with a victim as vain and self-absorbed as Faustus who Mephistopheles can convince repentance has become impossible, trapping him in a twilight zone between fear of the consequences of his actions and his irresistible urge to taste the distractions offered.  For those attracted by the comparisons with the internet, a major theme of the play is the notion of distraction, Faustus almost never allowed (or willing, depending on the reading), to sustain serious contemplation of repentance, Marlowe presenting damnation not as an open rebellion against God, but a gradual surrender of attention to spectacle, appetite, vanity and diversion. 

Of Marjorie Taylor Greene and flying saucers

Marjorie Taylor Greene with assault rifle, campaign material, 2020.

Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG, b 1974; US Representative (congressperson) (Republican-Georgia 2021-2026)) parlayed a career as a conspiracy theorist (evils of Islam, anti-Semitism, white genocide / replacement, Pizzagate, QAnon, etc (although she later disavowed her acceptance of what QAnon promotes)) into a seat in the US House of Representatives.  Once very much a Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) fan-girl and a devotee of the his MAGA (Make America Great Again) cult, during the second Trump presidency she made a remarkable volte-face, accusing him of betraying the “America First” movement, criticizing his policies (both domestic and foreign) and reluctance to release files related to convicted paedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein (1953–2019).  With apologies to William Congreve (1670–1729) who included the original line in his tragedy The Mourning Bride (1697): “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a MAGA woman scorned.” and Mr Trump responded to this treachery by attacking her in a post on his ever-entertaining Truth Social platform, vowing to have her “primaried” (denied a place on the Republican ticket for the mid-term congressional elections in November 2026).  As recent Republican primaries have demonstrated, Mr Trump continues to hold the party in his thrall and MTG might have expected to suffer the same fate.  Accordingly, she resigned her seat so Mr Trump can treat that as a victory although she became what Lyndon Johnson (LBJ, 1908–1973; VPOTUS 1961-1963 & POTUS 1963-1969) called “outside the tent” (his argument being often it was preferable to have malcontents “inside the tent pissing out rather than outside pissing in”).

Marjorie Taylor Greene in happier times.

Outside the tent, the scorned MTG renewed her attacks.  Most displeased at US military action against Iran, she called for the cabinet to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the constitution and remove the president from office (on the grounds of physical or mental incapacity) and, in a rhetorical flourish, suggested the Republican Party should be “burned to the ground.”  That was good but she also provided a critique of the administration’s tactic of “rolling out distractions”, calling the Pentagon’s release of “UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) files” as “look at the shiny object”, propaganda, placed in the public domain to divert public attention from matters such a high gas (petrol) prices, inflation and foreign military operations.  She dismissed the “UFO files” (the Pentagon prefers the nerdier UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena)) as revealing “nothing” and said the release was a mere strategic diversion, the administration knowing news outlets would think it a “sexy” topic that would displace gas and egg prices from the headlines and hopefully encourage the usual suspects in the public arena to start arguing about flying saucers.  Her core point was instead of publishing “UFO files” containing nothing substantive, the administration should fully disclose the Epstein files with no redactions beyond what was necessary to “protect the victims”.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, post MAGA.

President Trump said he’d directed the Pentagon to make available on their website 161 (with more to come) files “related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs)", because of “the tremendous interest shown”.  Of course, as MTG pointed out, there is also “tremendous interest” in what’s as yet unseen in the Epstein files.  What MTG claimed was the public’s “tremendous interest” is seeing “names named” in the Epstein files was in conflict with the equally “tremendous interest” Mr Trump told her his “friends” had in the information remaining suppressed.  According to her, Mr Trump asked her to remove her support from releasing the Epstein files because placing them in the public domain would “expose and hurt ‘good people’ he knew at Mar-a-Lago”.  That clash of interests hasn’t gone away so while it can’t be predicted whether it will involve the White House’s new ballroom or some other “shiny object”, more distractions may be expected.

Of political distraction

In political science, “distraction” is used in two ways.  The first sense describes forces or events which operate to divert a government’s attention from the matters on which they intended to focus.  Sometimes, this can happen because external events impose themselves or it can be a product of the attention of those in government being drawn to “other matters”.  The most amusing of these are personal vendettas which can assume a life of their own but they can involve just about anything.  The more interesting “political distractions” are those governments, parties or individual politicians “manufacture” to divert public attention away from damaging scandals, corruption, policy failures or unpopular legislation.  As one might imagine, given those imperatives, politicians often feel the need to distract the press and public for the public from thinking or talking about their many failings.  The orthodox approach among political scientists is to list diversions in six categories:

(1) Toss a dead cat on the table.  This describes the tactic of suddenly introducing an outrageous, shocking or highly controversial topic into the public arena, something designed to force the media and public to become interested in the new matter and forget or at least neglect whatever damaging discussion was dominating news cycle.  Aspects of the “culture wars” are dependable dead felines which is why matters such as trans-women’s participation in women’s sport do seem often to “crop up” when a politician’s poll-numbers are looking dire.

(2) Take out the trash.  The polite term for TotT is “Strategic Timing” which describes announcing policies likely to be unpopular policies or controversial executive orders on days when public attention is guaranteed to be fixed elsewhere, such as during big sporting events or during major holidays.  The trick to a successful execution of TotT is just to do it without leaving a “paper trail” (which can now be electronic).  That was a mistake made a certain bureaucrat in the UK government who, within minutes of the second jet hitting New York’s World Trade Center on 9/11 (11 September, 2001), sent a memorandum to her department head suggesting “It's now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury.”  What was meant by that was that the coverage of the terrorist attacks would “swamp” just about everything else, meaning the government wouldn’t have to try to “defend the indefensible”.

(3) Tail Wagging the Dog: In political science this tactic is glossed as “Diversionary Foreign Policy” and refers to governments initiating or escalating foreign conflicts, border tensions, or military action to create the “rally 'round the flag” effect and divert attention from domestic matters which are proving tiresome.  Cases studies of “wagging the dog” are numerous but in the case of nations inclined often to embark upon foreign military actions, it can be difficult to be sure a certain venture is an example or just “business as usual” foreign policy doctrine in action.  When, in August 1998, Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001) ordered a missile strike on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, that was claimed by the White House to be based on “solid intelligence” the facility was (1) connected with Osama bin Laden’s (1957-2011) al-Qaeda terrorist group (1957-2011) and was “manufacturing or storing the VX nerve agent”.  Although a successful military operation (ie the factory was destroyed with a low civilian casualty toll), the administration was forced subsequently to concede the intelligence was “not as solid as first portrayed”.  In Sudan, the locals had few doubts about the president’s motivation, the Monica Lewinsky (b 1973) scandal at the time dominating the US news cycle.

Distracting: English model Penny Lane (b 1991), Miami Swim Week, June 2026.  Her "catwalk strut" in a black, cut-out monokini with a matrix of thin, horizontal straps slashing across the midriff was the sensation of the show. 

(4) Scapegoating.  Although it’s the always reliable “blame the Jews” which is the standard template for scapegoating, the formula is adaptable to circumstances which can extend from religion & ethnicity (the way the Jews are exploited containing elements of both) to occupational categories, social class, political alignment and more.  Scapegoating can be a handy device of distraction when managing disquiet over issues such as unemployment, failing infrastructure, the spread of disease, crime, urban congestion, economic difficulties, rising prices or the weather (it really has been done).  Of late, the perfect scapegoats have been “illegal migrants” (often clipped to “illegals”), now in ample supply.

(5) Culture Wars.  Culture wars long pre-date Antiquity but in their modern sense were really a creation of the left, political parties (labour, socialist etc) which, even though for decades rarely being in power, were able in many places to become the central dynamic of the political process by “setting the agenda” some of their ideas becoming the dominant orthodoxy.  However, the right stumbled upon culture wars after the re-orientation of Western economies to the neo-Liberal model which tended to damage the interests of the working class.  What distractions like the culture wars (abortion, guns, right to drive huge pick-up trucks etc) offered to the right was the intoxicating prospect of persuading the working class to vote contrary to their own economic interest.  Threats to a way of life (trans people, climate change theories etc) have been added as culture war theatres as they proved to have traction.

(6) Flooding the Zone.  In the pre-digital age, this was called “drowning them in paperwork” which, although a mixed metaphor, conveyed well the notion of providing so much data it was impossible effectively to process.  In the age of social media, the technique has had to be adjusted because there are now some who will ignore the distraction and relentlessly focus of a single issue of interest but it does still work, advances in AI (artificial intelligence) meaning it’s now possible to release huge tranches of “redacted documents”.  At the micro level, the principle can be used by issuing literally dozens of executive orders (some of which the administration may have no intention of effecting and exist only as “sacrificial devices” in order to divert attention from a certain order.  Of course, just as AI can be a shield, it can also be a weapon, journalists and others now able to apply a Bot to a tranche, enabling in a short time the sort of analysis which would take a team of humans months or even years.

The ultimate usual suspect: Noam Chomsky's thoughts on distraction

In full flight: Noam Chomsky (left) discussing something with Jeffrey Epstein (right) while flying somewhere on a private jet.  Professor Chomsky is believed “deeply to regret” his association with Epstein, a man he once described as a “highly valued friend”.   The image was released by the US DoJ (Department of Justice).

Linguistics theorist & public intellectual Professor Noam Chomsky (b 1928) has for decades been something of an institution of the left, his critique of the policies of the US government in most aspects unchanging yet still attracting interest with each iteration, despite much of the mainstream media in the US maintaining what was, in effect, a ban on him appearing.  Unlike his work in structural linguistics, the complexities of which were understood by a relative few, Chomsky’s political writings were more accessible, something which some criticism from political scientists and those specializing in international relations who found his “elegant reductionism” just a form of simplification for mass-market appeal; political scientists much prefer the arcane.  Chomsky regards the tactics of distraction as tools in the strategy of manipulation and regards the art and science of distraction as the most significant of the ten vectors of manipulation practiced by the “political class” (political operatives and the news media).

(1) The strategy of distraction.  The primary element of social control is the tool of distraction, used to divert public attention issues and changes determined by political and economic elites; the most common tactic is the “flood”: “flooding” people with continuous distractions and insignificant information.  Distraction strategy is also essential to limit or even prevent public interest in the essential knowledge in the area of the science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics: “Maintaining public attention diverted away from the real social problems, captivated by matters of no real importance.  Keep the public busy, busy, busy, no time to think.”

(2) Create problems, then offer solutions.  This method is also called “problem–reaction-solution.”  It creates a problem, a “situation” that will induce some reaction in the audience and, in time, will see them demanding a “solution”.  Examples include allowing urban violence to spread or intensify (if necessary, agents of the state can even arrange the attacks), then responding to demands for “security” by passing laws allowing a harsh crackdown and restrictions on social rights.  Such a tactic can augment a manufactured “economic crisis”, one of the solutions being a reduction in spending on public services, even to the point of their widespread disestablishment.

(3) Gradualism.  The “gradual strategy” is a form of the “thin end of the wedge” and is a way of eventually achieving something which would have been unacceptable had there been an attempt to implement the change is “one hit”.  What’s done is that measures are applied gradually over years or even decades, the public acting like the tale of the frog in the pot of water being slowly brought to the boil.  That famous example turned out not to be how frogs react to gradually increasing water temperature but, in the West, it’s something like the way the radically new socio-economic conditions of neo-liberalism were imposed during the 1980s and 1990s.  Had the architects attempted to impose at once what proved to be the eventual outcome, the public would likely not have accepted the change.

(4) Deferment.  This is a “long game” tactic, the theory being a way to have the public accept an unpopular policy is to present it as “painful but necessary”, the psychology behind that being the notion it’s more palatable to accept a future sacrifice than an immediate slaughter.  Intriguingly, deferment is said to be effective because there is much to suggest there’s a general public belief “everything will be better tomorrow” and that the sacrifice suggested will finally be avoided.  That may sound surprising but the findings are said to be “solid” and mean people “get used to” the inevitability of the change and, “with a sense of resignation”, will accept things.

(5) Infantilism.  The theory (adopted also in many forms of advertising) is that if information is presented in a way one might to a child of twelve, (in other words as if addressing an adult with a mentally deficiency), the recipient will digest it with the lack of critical sense typical in a child of that age.  Not all political scientists are convinced this approach works in matters of public policy but its success in the marketing of at least certain products is acknowledged.

(6) Emotional appeals work better than anything analytic.  The idea is that stressing the emotional aspect of something can be effective because it tends to induce a “short-circuiting” of a recipient’s capacity for rational analysis, and finally to the critical sense of the individual.

(7) Keep the public in ignorance and mediocrity.  The object is to make the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used to control and enslavement.  Most obviously, this is achieved by keeping the quality of education provided to the lower social classes at a most mediocre level, ensuring a wide “ignorance gap” exists between them and the hegemonic class.  Instead of knowledge, the lower classes are given diversions such as reality TV and an endless diet of football matches.

(8) Self-identification of the lower classes with ignorance.  Apparently, this wasn’t something anticipated by the theorists but among sub-sets of the marginalized class, what evolved was a kind of “cult of ignorance” in which being uneducated and vulgar is fashionable and a form of class solidarity, toxic masculinity said by some sociologists to be a modern manifestation.

(9) Strengthen a sense of self-blame.  By definition, if individuals blame themselves for their misfortunes, they won’t blame the government and expect solutions to be provided although, impressionistically, it would seem demands often are made of governments regardless of a misfortune’s cause.  Still, if individual blames themselves, (failure of effort or ability), the hope is instead of rebelling against the economic system, the individual descends into an acquiescent insensibility and hopefully a state of depression which tends to inhibit getting out of bed, let getting ideas about staging a revolution.

(10) Knowledge is power.  Just because something is a cliché doesn’t mean it’s not true and in recent decades there does seem to have been a growing gap between knowledge in public hands and that owned and operated by the power elite.  The system of control has developed a sophisticated understanding of human beings, both physically and psychologically meaning mechanisms of control can now be more targeted.  There were optimistic types who believed placing AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities in the hands of the masses might redress this imbalance but there seem little to suggest the technology is doing anything other than strengthening the existing hegemony.