What a perceptive phrase! You've got it exactly right. Its what the Republicans do so expertly with agitprop, ramp it up and down, time it to external events, use one issue/action (real or imaginary) to support or reinforce another, or to destructively interfere with embarrassing news; yet not unleash too many simultaneously so that they distract from one another. Outrages and scandals should interfere constructively, to use a term from physics. Herr Goebbels would have been proud.

Unfortunately, the free press would never cooperate in what you suggest. No, its not that the press is fascist, but it is a commercial enterprise. They want to maximize viewer eyeballs for their advertisers, they are not in business to inform or educate, they are organized to sell commercials. Their own surveys tell them what the public wants to see, and what it takes to keep them tuned in. They learned that during Watergate, and it has been confirmed repeatedly since. Americans find government BOOOOR_INNNNG. They've been trained that way. They want sports, reality shows, commodified sex and violence and happy endings.

They want kitten videos, not C-Span. Why watch Liz Cheney when Tiger Woods is on the links and Mad March is on prime time.