🧩 BND Motif Index · M107
Passing the buck
Someone in charge is never at fault: whatever goes wrong, a war, rising prices, a lost game, they find someone else to blame, the media, the other side, the refs, or their own staff.
- 12claims filed under it
- 2left shows it came up on
- 2center shows it came up on
- 4claims retold online
- 1fact-checker
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🪜 Its family
what it rests on, what rests on it, and the motifs that answer it
⤵️ under it: 🧩 Blame the messenger 🧩 Covering their backs
🔗 goes with: 🧩 Asleep at the switch 🧩 Blame game 🧩 Blame the victim 🧩 The buck stops here
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up, by the show's lean
⚖️ center 2
🐘 right 0
🦗 none of our right shows, so far
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
📰 In the news
the stories its claims were told about, the most told first (matched by our tools, so a link can be wrong)
- 📰 Trump blames Ukraine, not Iran war, for high gas prices 2026-10-05 to 2026-10-07
- 📰 Trump denies considering firing chief of staff Susie Wiles 2026-10-17 to 2026-10-18
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, newest first, in our words, with where each was heard
- 2026-10-21 “MAGA Republicans use culture war issues like attacks on trans people and immigrants as a distraction from their own economic failures.”
🎙️ The MeidasTouch Podcast - 2026-10-20 “Trump has publicly blamed Zelenskyy for the current state of the war.”
🎙️ The Daily (NYT) - 2026-10-17 “Donald Trump is looking to scapegoat Susie Wiles for potential Republican losses in the November midterms.” 🧶 people online
- 2026-10-16 “Trump accused Zelensky of prolonging the war.”
🎙️ BBC Global News Podcast - 2026-10-15 “A rushed, flawed renovation under a no-bid contract caused the Reflecting Pool liner to fail, rather than vandalism.” 🧶 people online
- 2026-10-15 “The U.S. government, not Elon Musk, decides the limits on Starshield usage.”
🎙️ The MeidasTouch Podcast - 2026-10-12 “Republicans are lying, grifting, and blaming Biden for everything to avoid defending their own mistakes and Trump's incompetence.” 🧶 people online
- 2026-10-09 “The New York Liberty lost a crucial playoff game due to a miscommunication or mistake involving a reset timeout, with conflicting claims about whether the team had one left or not.” 🧶 people online
- 2026-10-06 “Trump uses scapegoating as a political tactic rather than implementing helpful economic policies.”
🎙️ The Bulwark Podcast - 2026-10-06 “Donald Trump uses blame as a primary strategy to avoid accountability for failures or catastrophes.”
🎙️ The MeidasTouch Podcast - 2026-10-05 “Donald Trump is falsely blaming the war in Ukraine for the rising prices of diesel and gas.”
🎙️ The MeidasTouch Podcast - 2026-10-02 “Trump said the war in Iran would last 4-6 weeks, then blamed the media.” 🔎 PolitiFact
M107 · first seen 2026-10-05 · last 2026-10-23 · what this is · how the index works