Tim van Opijnen | Washington’s distraction tactics: an absurd spectacle
Now that the Epstein files are increasingly putting the White House in a tight spot, there is only one solution left, writes columnist Tim van Opijnen: distract the public with an even more bizarre story. And indeed, last week Trump decided to release the files related to UFOs.
I have a joyful curiosity for online Reddit fora like de subreddit r/UFO, a space where the tin-foil hat stigma has (supposedly) been shed and replaced by earnest inquiry into UAPs or “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena”, a more palatable term for what is still, fundamentally, lights in the sky. I tell myself it is research for that sprawling science fiction novel I perpetually threaten to write.
In recent years the community has been treated to live-streamed congressional hearings featuring a parade of former military personnel recounting incredible tales. But echo chambers tend to consume themselves; wonder dimmed as interdimensional grifters spun grander stories, each new “revelation” conveniently timed to secure another sold-out speaking slot and another tome of second and third-hand accounts.
Joke
However, with Seth Meyers, one of the White House’s despised late-night jokers as prophet, the absurdity surrounding the UFO-phenomenon is poised to leave the sphere of influence surrounding the edges of the internet. Seven months ago Meyers joked: “We’re just one Epstein story away from Trump announcing that UFOs are real.” This past week, as Prince Andrew, a royal symbol of unchecked privilege was finally arrested, and the former prime minister of Norway faced gross corruption charges in connection with the Epstein scandal, the pressure on the White House reached a fever pitch. A single solution seemed to have remained: Trump took to his social media platform, to declare that he had instructed his administration to release the files related to UFOs.
This administration operates from a playbook wherein the most egregious acts are buried beneath the most absurd performances. Pam Bondi, the current Attorney General of the United States, whose continued presence in government stretches credulity given her past election fraud fabrications and vows to prosecute political enemies, found herself cornered in a congressional hearing regarding her own mishandling of the Epstein files. Her response? To shriek about the Dow Jones reaching “50,000!”
But this response was nothing compared to the utterly flummoxing official HHS video featuring Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., alongside... musician Kid Rock that was released this week. I still struggle to process the images: a shirtless RFK Jr. in jeans, pedaling an old-fashioned exercise bike in a sauna, then taking a “cold plunge” still in jeans, before sipping what looked suspiciously like raw milk in a hot tub.
Middle finger
Kid Rock, meanwhile, offered his customary middle finger, while subjecting us to another of his talent-deficient, culturally irrelevant ‘anthems’ from a bygone era. My mind, searching for a comparative frame of reference, considered the sheer impossibility of, say, Thierry Baudet as the Dutch Minister of Health, collaborating with Ali B on an official government health video. The very notion is ludicrous, a thought experiment in pure insanity. And yet, here we are. This spectacle, this systematic erosion of institutional dignity and trust raises the primal question: Who is this for? And what, precisely, is it meant to distract us from now?
The answers are not hidden behind a shroud of mystery. RFK Jr.’s position within the administration grows more tenuous by the day. His Senate confirmation hearing was a masterclass in semantic evasion, where he insisted he was merely “pro-vaccine safety,” not anti-vaccine. He denied any involvement after he visited Samoa’s independence celebrations in 2019 and a measles outbreak swept the Island, claiming the lives of 83 children. Emails, pried loose via freedom of information requests by Reuters and The Guardian, now reveal that he indeed played a role in discouraging vaccine use in Samoa, promotion of unscientific alternatives, and direct lobbying of Samoan governmental figures to impede vaccine implementation. RFK Jr., it appears, lied under oath, a felony punishable by imprisonment.
Autism
This is not merely a matter of perjury. He has packed committees with self-appointed “experts” who now echo his dangerous mantra that vaccination is a “personal choice”, a cruel jest in a country where healthcare access remains unaffordable to many. His spring 2025 declaration that he would pinpoint the cause of autism by September culminated in a joint presentation with Trump, blaming pregnant women taking Tylenol. He has stopped the progress of breakthrough research and vaccine technology by canceling approved funding. And now, to cap off this monument to irresponsibility, last week, on a podcast, he casually declared his immunity to germs, having “snorted cocaine off of toilet seats.” While kitchen sponges harbor far more fecal bacteria than a toilet seat, his pronouncement merely underscores his profound detachment from scientific reality. It begs the question: What on earth is he doing making policies on research and public health? Even his own words, delivered during a House and Senate committee hearing, should haunt everyone: “...people shouldn’t take medical advice from me...”
The question that gnaws is whether these increasingly outlandish distractions are, in fact, working. Are we so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of absurdity that we can no longer process the Epstein files, the UAPs, Iran, tariffs, Greenland, Venezuela, ICE, boats in the Caribbean, and healthcare simultaneously? The Reddit UFO communities, usually so myopically focused on “disclosure,” are themselves signaling a shift. They, too, seem to recognize the performance for what it is: an absurd spectacle. And while I harbor that lingering desire to believe in UFOs and aliens, what people truly crave, with an intensity that borders on desperation, is accountability, and an economic, health and justice system that actually works for its citizens, not just for the “Epstein class.” The aliens, it turns out, can wait. The truth, however, and the fight for it, cannot.
Tim van Opijnen is a professor of pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, in the United States, where his lab develops new antibacterial treatment methods. He writes a monthly column for Folia about conducting research in Trump’s America.
