The Chinese balloon captured more attention than I would have predicted. There is a growing unrest among U.S. citizens about the threat to their hegemony, and the balloon represented the Chinese threat. Whether or not it was an intentional breach of airspace doesn’t matter - it became a scapegoat for our fears.
1) one of those events that captures immediate social network imagination and easily meme-able. 2) ridiculous fear-mongering and attempts to paint current white house as impotent (and media is generally sympathetic to this kind of positioning)