The MAGA Guide to Deflection: When in Doubt, Blame Beyoncé

It's more important to Trump and the GOP to lie about Black public figures than it is to protect Epstein’s victims.

Donald Trump is many things — indicted, delusional, sweaty — but subtle has never been one of them. So when he took to Truth Social and called for the prosecution of Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, Kamala Harris, and Al Sharpton over “totally illegal” 2024 campaign endorsements, the stench of desperation wasn’t just obvious — it was basically its own weather system.

According to Trump, these Black public figures were secretly paid millions of dollars to throw their weight behind Kamala Harris. Never mind that FEC records show nothing of the sort, or that Beyoncé’s “eleven million dollars” turned out to be a reimbursed production cost of around $165,000. Facts are not the point here. The point is to create just enough smoke to keep people from looking at the four-alarm inferno that is Trump’s name appearing multiple times in the Epstein files.

This is not just projection. It’s not even garden-variety misdirection. This is political arson. Trump and his allies are throwing names like Beyoncé and Oprah into the fire because they know exactly what it does — it triggers a base that responds to racial panic like Pavlov’s dogs respond to bells. MAGA doesn’t want justice for Epstein’s victims. MAGA wants to be told that a cabal of rich Black liberals stole their country, and Trump is happy to give them that bedtime story, again and again, in slightly dumber packaging each time. He’s betting that if he feeds his base enough racial resentment, they’ll forget he was partying with a known child trafficker.

Some mornings, I wake up and feel like I barely recognize this country. And then there are days when a Talking Heads lyric loops in my head — “And you may find yourself … living in a shotgun shack.” Those are the days I realize maybe I know America all too well. Maybe we all do. We know it through its cycles of outrage and amnesia, its ability to normalize absurdity with astonishing speed. The outrage cycle is so predictable now it might as well be pre-programmed. Beyoncé performs at a rally and it’s a national emergency. Trump gets caught rubbing elbows with Epstein, and it’s Tuesday. The sheer transparency of this hypocrisy would be funny if it weren’t operating with deadly precision.

And if we want to understand how we got to this moment — where a twice-impeached felon can credibly threaten democracy while screaming about Beyoncé’s endorsement fees—we have to understand how we got here in the first place. That means looking at something most Americans never think about until it’s too late: political infrastructure. Not just laws and offices, but the systems, pipelines, and reinforcement loops that sustain power. As outlined in a recent analysis of political infrastructure published in Urban Studies, this machinery includes institutions, operatives, donors, and even cultural norms that keep the system self-sustaining — regardless of outcomes.

I remember talking to a friend back in 2007. He looked around at the state of the country and said, “It can’t get worse than George W. Bush.” And I told him, clear as day, “It can always get worse.” That wasn’t a joke. That was a thesis. And here we are in 2025, hearing people say, “Trump is the worst president of all time. It can’t get any worse.” And once again, I have to remind them: Yes, it can. That’s the first rule of politics. It can always get worse. If you understand political infrastructure — how power protects itself — you know this isn’t a bug in the system. It’s the system functioning exactly as designed.

It’s also why we need to talk about normalcy bias, which is the psychological tendency to assume that life will continue functioning the way it always has — even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. You don’t have to be happy to suffer from it. You just have to believe the rhythm of your life will hold steady, no matter who holds power. It’s why so many people didn’t take Trump seriously the first time. It’s why a lot of people don’t vote at all. They think their lives will chug along the same way no matter who’s in office. That’s not just wrong — it’s a dangerous fantasy. Authoritarianism doesn’t arrive with a bang. It arrives with the quiet hum of routine. It gets mistaken for background noise until it’s too late to mute it.

And this fantasy isn’t limited to people who sit out elections. It also infects people who throw their votes at third-party candidates during presidential races and act surprised when the country slides further into fascism. I need to say this clearly, because too many people in political media won’t: third-party presidential candidates in America are not serious. They do not run to win. They run to play spoiler. The Green Party, the Reform Party, the Peace and Freedom Party — these are not political machines. They’re not building infrastructure, coalitions, or down-ballot pipelines. They exist to split the vote and disappear into the ether, only to reemerge four years later like seasonal allergies. Jill Stein doesn’t exist between election cycles because she’s not interested in governing. She’s interested in disruption without responsibility.

The grift works because the American electorate has been sold a fantasy that the U.S. is a functioning multiparty democracy. Technically, that’s true. But practically? We are a two-party system in multiparty drag.

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This distinction matters. Because in this country, every institution that governs elections is built for binary combat. Winner-take-all electoral systems do not reward idealism. They punish it. Political science is a science for a reason. It’s predictive, not aspirational. That’s what makes these third-party campaigns so infuriating to those of us who actually study the system — they sell a dream they know is mathematically impossible, and in doing so, they weaken the only available defense against the real threat. Their voters aren’t principled rebels. They’re willing participants in political cosplay. At least MAGA voters know their guy has a shot. Third-party voters are sold on unicorns and rainbows, and they act shocked when the sky doesn’t open.

The math doesn’t care about your feelings. And the system definitely doesn’t. It’s why systems theory belongs in this conversation. Systems don’t just function — they self-regulate. They learn how to absorb threats, neutralize opposition, and replicate outcomes. In our case, the outcome is a democracy that keeps producing authoritarian results. And the only way to understand that is to understand that both major parties are machines. The Democratic Party is a machine — an often clumsy, inconsistent one, but a machine nonetheless. The Republican Party is also a machine, but theirs has been stripped of brakes, mirrors, and anything resembling moral calibration.

They’ve been inching toward this for decades. Before Trump. Before the Tea Party. Hell, before Reagan dismantled the New Deal coalition and started pretending public education was some socialist handout. The GOP used to compromise. That was once a requirement of governance. But compromise requires independence, and they gave that up a long time ago. They surrendered themselves to Trump not because they had to — but because they wanted to. He gave them permission to be the worst versions of themselves with no consequences. And now they’re just passengers in his clown car, too cowardly to reach for the wheel.

That doesn’t mean Democrats are above it all. Racism is not a partisan defect. It’s baked into the American operating system. I believe Kamala Harris was subjected to soft racism within her own party — and in some corners, hard racism. But let’s not pretend both parties wear the same stains. If you’re a racist and you decide to go into politics in this country, you already know which party is going to butter that bread. One party has racial blind spots. The other uses racism as its central organizing principle.

And this brings us back to Trump — the master of using race as both shield and sword. Every time he’s cornered, he doesn’t just lash out randomly. He lashes out racially. When Epstein’s name won’t stop trending, he doesn’t file a lawsuit or issue a coherent denial. He accuses Beyoncé and Oprah of election fraud. That’s not strategy—it’s instinct. He knows exactly how his base operates. The more legal trouble he’s in, the more Black public figures he’s going to drag into the spotlight. Because nothing rallies MAGA like a good old-fashioned dog whistle set to the tune of “Blame the Blacks.”

This isn’t politics — it’s rhetorical terrorism. And it’s laced with every logical fallacy in the book. Post hoc ergo propter hoc: “Oprah endorsed Kamala. Kamala won. Therefore, Oprah cheated.” That’s not an argument. That’s toddler logic wrapped in Latin. Or take the ad hominem fallacy — he doesn’t disprove anything these figures stand for, he just attacks their character, their race, their presence. Because to MAGA, the mere existence of Black people in power is the crime.

And it needs to be said plainly: It is more important to Trump and the GOP to lie about Black public figures than it is to protect Epstein’s victims. They have chosen to run political cover for a sex trafficking operation rather than lose grip on their favorite conspiracy crutches. They’re not just lying — they’re betting that you’ll be too exhausted to care.

What we’re witnessing now is the full industrialization of racial distraction. Trump and the GOP have learned that they don’t need policies, or ideas, or even a coherent platform—they just need a rotating list of Black people to scapegoat and a base eager to believe that injustice only exists when it affects them. It’s not subtle, it’s not clever, and it’s not even particularly new. It’s the Southern Strategy with TikTok language and Newsmax filters. It’s Lee Atwater in a red hat.

And the thing is, it works. Every time Trump name-drops another Black celebrity, the MAGA internet kicks into gear. Suddenly, message boards are flooded with fake spreadsheets, memes, and dollar amounts that exist nowhere in actual FEC filings. The goal isn’t to prove anything — it’s to create noise. It’s to overload people with just enough fake smoke that they stop asking where the fire is. That’s not politics. That’s stochastic terrorism with an entertainment budget.

It’s also why every Democrat with a functioning spine needs to stop coddling this myth that third parties are fighting the good fight. They’re not. They are feeding a fantasy. They exist to create just enough fragmentation to let the authoritarian candidate win. They do not challenge the machine — they run interference for it. And the sooner we stop pretending otherwise, the better.

Because while Jill Stein is dusting off her press kit and Tulsi Gabbard is busy laundering disinformation in her new role as Director of National Intelligence, the Republican Party is plotting its next act of performative outrage. And it will almost certainly involve race. The pattern is too obvious to ignore. Any time Trump loses control of the news cycle — whether because of Epstein, a court date, or one of his own campaign gaffes — he reaches for the same lever: the one labeled “Black people.” It’s predictable in the way stomach flu is predictable. You don’t know exactly when it’s coming, but you know you’ll regret eating that gas station sushi.

And as exhausting as it is, we can’t afford to get desensitized. We can’t let the repetition turn into acceptance. Because the more familiar this gets, the easier it is to stop being angry. And when you stop being angry, you stop resisting. That’s what normalcy bias is designed to do. It’s not just about assuming things will stay the same— it’s about letting yourself believe the worst will eventually become tolerable.

It won’t.

The stakes are too high, and the tools being used against us are too calculated. This is not just Trump being Trump. This is the full weight of a party apparatus that has chosen to function as a vessel for white grievance and executive impunity. It is powered by propaganda, maintained by apathy, and fueled by people who think their vote is too pure to be practical. That’s not revolution. That’s complicity with a fresh coat of paint.

Every time someone like Cornel West or RFK Jr. throws their name into the ring, the result isn’t disruption — it’s dilution. It’s voter suppression in a tweed jacket. And every time a well-meaning liberal says, “But shouldn’t we have more choices?” the answer is: Yes, we should. But we don’t. And pretending otherwise doesn’t make you principled. It makes you useful to the people tearing the country apart.

We are not trapped in a two-party system because of bad luck. We are trapped in it because our political infrastructure, electoral math, and media environment were all designed to produce that outcome. To run a viable third-party campaign in this country would require generational investment, cultural power, and a coalition strategy so sophisticated it could rival Coke vs. Pepsi. That is not what we’re seeing. What we’re seeing is grifters who vanish after November, leaving the rest of us to clean up the mess.

Trump knows this. MAGA knows this. That’s why they’re so comfortable running dirty. They don’t need to win fair. They just need the opposition fractured, confused, and busy arguing with itself about whether Kamala Harris is too ambitious or whether Beyoncé got paid too much for lighting cues. Meanwhile, they’re out here putting accused traffickers in their inner circle and treating Epstein’s survivors like inconvenient speed bumps on the road to fascism.

And here’s what should haunt everyone reading this: the people defending Trump through all this aren’t confused. They’re committed. They’re not misled — they’re loyal. They’ve made peace with what he is because they’ve made war on what this country could be. They’ve chosen the lie over the law. And every time we act like this is just a weird blip in history, we give them more space to maneuver.

So no, this isn’t about Beyoncé. It never was. It’s about turning justice into a punchline. It’s about using celebrity as cover for corruption, and racism as strategy for survival. It’s about a man who has run out of alibis but never runs out of scapegoats. And it’s about a system that keeps letting him do it because too many of us are still hoping for a fair fight in a rigged game.

The time for civility theater is over. The time for pretending the third party is going to save us is over. The time for thinking that racism is just a side effect and not the engine — is over. Trump isn’t just distracting the country from Epstein. He’s distracting it from itself. And the more we pretend we don’t see the strings, the more tangled we become in them.

Because yes, it can always get worse. But only if we let it.

Kristoffer Ealy is a political science professor who teaches at California State University Fullerton. He is the author of the upcoming book, Political Illiteracy: Learning the Wrong Lessons.

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