Diversionary Words: Trump, China and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Diversionary War Theory (DWT) posits that leaders engulfed in a domestic crisis will attempt to divert the attention of citizens by initiating an armed conflict against an external actor. War, under this logic, is a mechanism designed to distract, boost the leader’s popularity, or relegate the responsibility for the crisis to an outside scapegoat. In this article, I apply a discursive variation of DWT to account for and describe the shift in Donald Trump’s approach to China during the COVID-19 crisis. This analysis concludes the domestic political and economic difficulties Trump was grappling with during the 2020 presidential election motivated him to blame the Chinese government for the detrimental effects the pandemic had on the United States. Trump’s strategic use of novel social media platforms was instrumental in his campaign to name, shame, and scapegoat China to divert attention from the domestic crisis as well as to boost his popularity.