The Downside of ‘Flooding the Zone’

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.“