Trump's Rage Machine Runs on Distraction

Froma Harrop on Jan 13, 2026

Surely, I have plenty of company in wanting to jump off the Donald Trump distraction express. Rage is its fuel. A weekend isn't short enough to contain the demands on attention. Just this last two-day break encountered: The cinematic ICE raids in Minneapolis. Threats against Exxon for its skepticism over Trump's plans for Venezuela. A stated willingness to bomb Iran. His vow to take over Greenland "one way or another." A patently sham investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Angst over the social unrest in Minneapolis took center stage with the fatal shooting of Renee Good the focus of back-and-forth anger. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem declared that the ICE officer fired at Good out of self-defense: "I saw the tapes. I know what happened." But she didn't. An investigation of the tapes is still in progress.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey didn't know either, though he insisted that Good was an innocent mother murdered in cold blood. "I'm biased because I got two eyes," he said. "Anybody can see these videos. Anybody can see that this victim is not a domestic terrorist."

Experts in law enforcement kept saying that they must wait for an investigation before reaching for a conclusion. What happened could have been an ICE officer being run down or an ICE officer acting out of self-defense.

There's another interpretation of the tapes that might muddy the waters. Was Good really just a sweet mother with stuffed animals in the back of her SUV? That ignores the possibility that she was invoking white privilege. You see her beefy wife is holding the phone in the ICE agent's face and taunting him, "You wanna come at us?"

Then there's the part where Good refuses orders to get out of the car. She smiles at the officer, under her halo of strawberry blonde hair, and says, "That's fine, dude, I'm not mad at you." Then she starts driving off.

ICE critics swallow the presentation whole. They don't see the hint of mockery -- an air of "you wouldn't do something to a nice white lady like me." It would seem unlikely that a person of color, male or female, and in a lesser vehicle would have flipped off the police like that.

My two eyes added that scenario to the others. It didn't follow that the ICE officer had to shoot Good, but informed law enforcement opinion seems right: An investigation is in order.

Both sides on such emotional confrontations ensure Trump's control of the news. Trump needs Americans to keep fighting one another. The fight is the objective. It's more important than winning the fight.

"I bring rage out," Trump has said. "I do bring rage out. I always have. I don't know if that's an asset or liability, but whatever it is, I do." Trump has conceded that enraging people is the secret sauce in his political effectiveness.

After all, that is how he managed to put together a violent attack on the Capitol based on proven lies of a stolen election. Sure, he'd passed them off to his low-information followers, some mentally unbalanced, many with rap sheets. But they were people whom he'd already pumped up over a variety of grievances. Some beefs were real, but the phony ones worked, too.

And how easy inventing new conflicts has become now that seemingly everybody has a video camera on their cellphones -- and Trump is supplying daily new "footage" for their social media feeds.

Alas, we can't depend on a clever opposition to deny him the dramatic street scenes he gins up, directing attention away from what he doesn't want spotlighted. I mean, who is talking about the Epstein files these days?

Follow Froma Harrop on X @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

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