While we stare at the Trump-Musk trash fire, real issues continue to burn for real people

(First published in the New Daily June 7, 2025)

Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash

(I have been recovering from surgery and unwell, so sorry for the delay in uploading!)

For people who watch politics as entertainment, waking up on Friday was like Christmas, your birthday and the time your enemy was publicly humiliated all at once.

The girlies are fighting! The worst people you know are having a bad day! The first buddy and the US President are getting a divorce! Social media platforms at dawn! Happy pride!

For people who have been following since the first dumb tweet signalling the alliance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the rush was like a collective K-Hole, where every new post was like a fresh hit.

Secrets. Extortion chess. Deportation threats. The Alien vs Predator meme had never been more relevant.

For a moment, it was a simpler time, a throw-back to when millennials were wearing business-casual in the club. Where the most cringe thing you could do online was forward a chain email or willingly participate in a flash mob.

United in glee, group chats lit up and favourite takes on-sent. Kilometres of columns, explainers and opinion pieces were churned out. No doubt the weekend has wrought more.

But for people who watch politics closely, it was a Friday.

Nothing has materially changed with the bust up.

It’s entertainment, but it’s not going to change agendas, outcomes or make people’s lives better. Because the truth of politics is never in the spectacle – that’s just the razzle dazzle that hides what is going on.

The United States is an empire in decline, hastening its own breakdown through non-stop culture wars and emotions dressed up as facts.

While senior Democrats tweeted the popcorn emoji, it’s own party was at war because the former chief spinner for Joe Biden quit the party and announced a book deal.

Like most of what is left of the modern western ‘centre left’ political apparatus, the Democrats can excuse support and complicity in a genocide but they draw the line at ratting on your party.

Happening at the same time, but drawing little attention as usual was a report in the Jerusalem Post that the Israeli military was preparing to send a “direct message” to the unarmed humanitarian crew of the ship, Madleen, which is attempting to reach Gaza to distribute food, medicine and other aid.

The report referenced a plan to arrest and deport anyone on board who “def[ied] orders or provoke[d]” the Israeli military.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition reported its first vessel, the Conscience was struck twice by drones in early May, scuttling a similar mission. No official confirmation has been issued of who was responsible.

But we don’t have to look too far back in history to find examples of Israel’s response to civilians who attempt to break its blockades.

In 2010, the same year flash mobs were taking over public squares, Israeli forces raided the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in Mediterranean international waters resulting in the death of nine (officially ten after an injured person in a coma died four years later) people on board and dozens injured.

The people who resisted Israel’s boarding of the ship were said to have been armed with iron bars and knives. The Israelis had guns.

A later UN report into the incident found “the circumstances of the killing of at least six of the passengers were in a manner consistent with an extra-legal, arbitrary and summary execution” and described the response as “betray[ing] an unacceptable level of brutality”.

Not a sideshow, history. But where is the focus?

At the same time, we have manufactured consent to increase fossil fuel approvals and consumption, rather than decrease it.

It’s been labelled ‘energy security’ but it amounts to the same thing.

There is a reason people like Tony Blair are being used as cover – it is much easier to say former UK Labour prime minister Tony Blair says the rapid phasing out of fossil fuels is “doomed to fail” than lobbyist funded by petro-states says keep fossil fuels burning, if you are trying for the illusion of credibility.

Again, not a sideshow – something with actual consequences.

The current UK Prime Minister is now dancing with far-right party Reform over net zero (which is not even real zero) while also throwing out Enoch Powell dog whistles on immigration, claiming England risked becoming an “island of strangers” just last month. (The irony of the man leading the nation known for colonising and displacing millions of people now complaining about multiculturalism should not be lost here either).

In Australia, environment minister Murray Watt hasapproved a carbon bomb in the expansion of the North West Shelf, and in the near future is considering another six gas projects and two greenfield coal mine sites. All while belonging to the party of climate science of course.

But in Australia, when not consumed by the White House’s latest season of White House Survivor, the focus is still on the domestic sideshow; rehabilitating the status quo and ensuing the Liberal party remains relevant.

More people voted for independents and third parties than the Coalition. But we are still supposed to care what the Coalition thinks about very modest changes to superannuation tax concessions for the 1 per cent and also whether the party holds on to nuclear.

Apparently, the only way to address fossil fuel rebates and any tax reform is through bipartisan consensus. Very Sensible People will say these things with a straight face claiming it’s the only way to ensure policy consistency, as if future parliaments and politicians are bound by decisions former versions of their parties made years ago.

But here is the thing, sideshows might suck up the most oxygen and they can be entertaining as hell. But the real action is in what is actually happening that will make material differences to people’s lives. And that’s not something they ever want to put a spotlight on.

So enjoy the Trump-Musk trash fire, but stay focussed on what matters. On what power doesn’t want you to see. They don’t have to hide it – and often they don’t, it’s sitting out there in the open.

They just keep it boring.