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You are here: Home / White House / The Downside of ‘Flooding the Zone’

The Downside of ‘Flooding the Zone’

February 21, 2025 at 6:19 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Playbook: “Much has been made of Trump 2.0’s use of ‘flooding the zone’ to overwhelm its perceived opponents and implement its policy agenda. But the flip side of flooding the zone is that it can be difficult to drive a coherent message; you’re trying to occupy the same zone you’ve already overstuffed with news.”

“Inasmuch as the glut of news itself presents Trump as a man of action, that can be helpful to his agenda. But if those cuts are instead seen as simply chaotic and haphazard, or contribute to a sense that Trump is not actually in control and that Musk has been left to free-agent his way through the government, it carries real political risk for their entire project.”

“There’s an important distinction between controlled chaos and just, well, chaos.“

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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