Overwhelmed by Trump’s Dizzying Moves? That Might Be the Point.
‘You flood the zone.’
Fearless reporting, a behind-the-curtains look at how journalism is made — and an unabashed point of view. Welcome to Chills.
I was tipped off recently that there are mass layoffs underway at the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations-related body that has the United States as its top donor. This comes as there are nearly 123 million people forcibly displaced around the world, according to the UN Refugee Agency. The damage being done to IOM — and thus refugees and migrants everywhere — is incalculable.
More people will starve and die without the humanitarian assistance of organizations like IOM; desperate refugees will lose their international legal protections with fewer people around to ensure that these rights are enforced.
While this debacle has received less coverage than, say, the decimation of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — which, again, impacts the world’s most vulnerable people — or President Donald Trump’s need to create unnecessary trade wars with Canada and Mexico; or his war on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs; once again, the media is speed-skating to catch up with Trump’s latest jaw-dropping move.
As Trump and his lackey, Elon Musk — two outrageously wealthy, white men — are diligently working to remove anyone or anything blocking them from making more money and seizing more power, the media is suddenly saturated with stories about Trump’s statement yesterday that he wants the U.S. to take over Gaza. This would entail kicking out all 2.2 million Palestinians who live there.
Clearly delusional, Trump said: “I do see a long-term ownership position, and I see it bringing great stability to that part of the Middle East, and maybe the entire Middle East.”
Because an American presence in that part of the world wouldn’t at all inflame, say, Iran, ISIS or Hamas, for example.
But while the chattering classes are busy figuring out whether Trump meant what he said, The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake makes the excellent point that overwhelming the news cycle with Gaza may have been Trump’s entire point. It’s a case of “Nothing to see here — look over there!” Deflection at its most sinister.
In a separate Post story from the end of January, reporters cited the strategy endorsed by Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s first White House chief strategist: “Monday you hit, you flood the zone. Second week you’ll flood the zone.” And, Bannon said, “It’s working. It’s just stunning to me what they’re doing, and it’s not getting covered because it’s too much. They’re overwhelming the system.”
Blake has three other theories as to why Trump would say what he said about Gaza, one of which is that the president’s new imperialistic streak is genuine. You can read Blake’s ideas here.
In the meantime, it’s up to us in the press to continue to cover, in detail, Trump’s and Musk’s oligarchical moves, no matter what bananas things come out of their mouths. Because, in the background, they’re still doing whatever they want, legal or not.
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Crazy as a loon? This loon knows exactly what he is doing! There is no limit as to what crap comes out of his mouth. Done diabolically, which surgical precision. In the meantime he and his lackey, Musk, are methodically tearing apart and destroying everything and anything that stands in their way. George Orwell warned us almost 80 years ago.
thanks for your article. And Musk wasn't even elected.