[uhmyeh]

This stuff was popular in the Reagan era too. Odd to see it reappear right after Ronnie Junior left office

They need performative theatre of such dramatic potential they can distract from the Senates bill about banning Congress owning stocks

Edit: I don’t mean just the stock bill. They need to keep Overton window where it is.

[nonethewiser]

Im not ruling out these UFO hearings are a conspiracy. Some sort of intelligence misdirection. But I recognize this is pure speculation.

But cover for not banning congress from stock trading? Really? What is your basis?

[mrguyorama]

The tactic isn't about any one thing but rather just keeping a distractable and gullible voting bloc from paying attention to any one thing and forming a coherent ideology or reconsidering their faith in a politician for obvious nefarious things. The republicans are MUCH more effective at doing this than democrats, but they have no qualms about massaging how news gets disseminated in order to hush up bad things and emphasize stupid things.

[likeabbas]

But there are democrats joining republicans in investigating this. Senator Gillibrand and Chick Schumer have introduced legislation specifically targeting this.

[lamontcg]

Gives the Qanon crazies on the right wing something a bit safer to chew on.

[likeabbas]

Or this situation gives the dogmatic hacker news posters something to hit refresh for

[lamontcg]

Win-win-win for the politicians on either aisle looking to pacify the masses.

[uhmyeh]

Colleagues in PR who have contrived one scenario after another in the media to make events go viral at the expense of others

Are you seeing aliens all over? Sure is convenient they can travel time and space and just happen to crash on Earth … just like in TV shows!

There are models to refer to; how much attention we process on average. Gaming that with noise is not hard for mega billion dollar corps and politicians comfortable with never working