Trump Floods The Zone
Donald Trump has one favorite tactic he continually uses, mostly because it works so well. Trump regularly "floods the zone" with so many things at once that other people can't manage to keep up with it all. What is becoming evident is that this tactic is likely to continue working for him in his second term as well, if the past few weeks are any indication. Two areas in particular are worth noting: Trump's nomination picks and his interview on Meet The Press which aired yesterday.
Trump rolled out all his cabinet picks in a frenzy. Some of these were qualified individuals who will likely not have any problem being confirmed (Marco Rubio springs to mind). But another group of them are just wildly unqualified and have extreme agendas they want to impose on federal departments. One of these has already withdrawn his name, but the problem goes beyond Matt Gaetz.
If this were any sort of normal Senate confirmation process, the truly unqualified picks would be weeded out forthwith. Word would get back to Trump that some of his nominees simply weren't going to get enough votes to be confirmed, and these people would quietly withdraw their names from consideration. But since the Republican Party has descended into a personality cult, Republican senators have to worry about retribution from Trump for opposing any of his selections. With such a high price on doing their constitutional duty, the Senate Republicans are most likely going to choose only one or perhaps two more of Trump's picks to push back on -- while they let the rest go through. Flooding the zone is going to largely work, in other words.
Currently, the Trump pick that has drawn the most flack -- both from the media and from other Republicans -- is Pete Hegseth. But all the attention focused on him means almost no attention being focused on the other laughably-unqualified selections: Tulsi Gabbard, R.F.K. Jr., Dr. Oz, Kash Patel, and Linda McMahon (just to name the most obvious ones). This could change in the next few days, though, since one of the biggest objections to Tulsi Gabbard was the fact that she made a trip to visit Bashar Al-Assad in Syria while he was denying using chemical weapons against his own population. Since Syria is in the news in a big way of late (and Assad has now fled to Russia), this may be too big a stumbling block for Gabbard to survive.
There's no guarantee, however. While none of those names deserves to be confirmed by the Senate, what is likely to happen is that only perhaps one or two of them will be denied (my money would be on Gabbard and Hegseth, but I realize I could be wrong about either one). GOP senators might have the courage to vote down one or possibly even two, but I seriously doubt they'll have the courage to vote down all of the unqualified picks. Meaning Trump's flood-the-zone tactic will at least partially work.
Yesterday, in an interview that had been taped a few days earlier, Trump appeared on Meet The Press. The interview reportedly took an hour and a half, but only roughly half of this was presented on the show (which makes me wonder what got cut out...). This generated some headlines, since it was the first such interview Trump has done since winning the election. But it was yet another instance of Trump spouting so many lies so quickly that it was impossible to keep up with them all. The interviewer, Kristen Welker, tried to push back on one or two of these, but not very hard. She corrected Trump with actual facts, he denied the facts and repeated his lie, and for the most part she just moved on. But even though Welker occasionally pushed back in a minor way, she still left dozens of Trump's lies to stand unchallenged.
Even the fact-checkers couldn't keep up. Here's how the New York Times opened their fact-checking posting:
In the interview, which aired on Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, Mr. Trump miscast the effect of tariffs, vastly overstated the number of unauthorized immigrants released under the Biden administration, falsely claimed that crime was at "an all-time high," misleadingly described military spending under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and exaggerated his own polling, among other specious statements.
They then detailed eleven of Trump's lies, refuting them with facts. But this still left a few "other specious statements" unaddressed -- including some true whoppers, such as Trump claiming that he actually "saved" Obamacare (when the reality is he did everything in his power to destroy it).
I don't mean to slight either NBC or the New York Times, since nobody has really ever figured out how to combat Trump's absolute firehose of lies. No interviewer (or even debate opponent or moderator) has ever done more than scratch the surface, really. Even if someone successfully gets Trump to face reality and fact in the face of one of his lies, in the same appearance Trump will get away with dozens of others.
Mostly, what Trump does is just deny that facts exist that disprove any of his wild beliefs. He'll just wave them away with his hand or talk over whomever is correcting him or just wind up right back where he started: "Well, everyone knows the sky is actually green, not blue."
The Washington Post kept a running tally of all of Trump's lies in his first term, which topped out at over 30,000. It'll be a struggle to maintain that count in his second term, if that interview is any indication.
Since Trump has set up his own pet social media site, his posts there haven't garnered as much attention as when he used to post on Twitter while president. But once he is president again, his words will carry a lot more weight, so I fully expect the media to once again begin chasing endless distractions from Trump's posts. This is perhaps his easiest way of flooding the zone, since he regularly countered bad news by making some outrageous comment on social media -- which would wind up winning the day's news cycle (with the bad news relegated to a side story).
Trump does all this, of course, because it works so well for him. If he announced one outrageous idea at a time, everyone would have time to process it, debate it, and react to it. But when he announces multiple outrageous ideas every day, people have to pick and choose. Perhaps a few of them get challenged and perhaps Trump even backs down on them, but in the meantime all the rest of them go unchallenged. And as mentioned, nobody yet seems to have figured out any way to combat this tactic effectively. Which is why I expect to see a lot more of it very soon.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Good observations on Trump's style of overwhelming the common sense and need for truthful reporting by the mainstream media (a useful term for what we all know exists).
I spent most of his first term hoping and praying for the obvious response to his 'flood the zone' strategy of public communication: simply stop covering him as if he were a serious public figure.
Yes, he's the president, and the president's statements must be reported, right? But no, wrong, because this president unlike all the others lies on constant, regular, and predictable basis, in a volume that professional reporters and editors cannot be expected to deal with.
So don't. Just don't. Put his published text news releases on the inside pages and way down on the screen, and ignore completely his spoken, televised, or otherwise broadcast lie-fests. Why does he deserve anything else? Are the American people being served by a media that repeats-by-reporting his lies and zone-flooding? I don't think so.
Unfortunately, the media haven't listened to me (or to countless others who feel the same way, I'm sure), and so they continue to be drowned in the flooding of the zone.
Wise advice, John ... for the media and blogoshpere.
@JMCT,
? But no, wrong, because this president unlike all the others lies on constant, regular, and predictable basis, in a volume that professional reporters and editors cannot be expected to deal with.
"unlike all the others"???
Yunno... Hypocrisy is bad enough..
But blatantly DISHONEST hypocrisy that is nothing but a blatant and unequivocal LIE...
Made especially galling that it's a blatant hypocritical LIE about LIES!??
Jeezus, dood.. That takes HYPOCRISY and LIES to a whole new depth of depravity!! If ever the depths of depravity have been plumbed by complete and utter bullshit, you plumbed it with this blatant and bigoted bullshit of a lie..
Have you EVER... and I do mean... EVER pointed out lies that spew from Democrats on a constant and daily basis with the same level of intensity and passion that you whine and cry and stamp your feet about President Trump's supposed and alleged "lies"??
No, you have not..
So, this begs the question..
Why should ANYONE listen to what you have to say, since ANYTHING you have to say vis a vis President ELECT Trump is so blatantly dishonest and so blatantly bigoted and has absolutely ZERO to do with facts or reality??
Asking for a friend.. :eyeroll:
It's funny how the sources for commentaries are nothing but blatant Democrat Propaganda outlets that have little to nothing to do with any facts or reality..
It's always NY Slimes or WaPoop or HuffPoop or Slobs....
Not a single non-biased objective source in the bunch...
EVER...
"Gee!!! I wonder why that is!!!??"
-Kevin Spacey, THE NEGOTIATOR
:eyeroll:
045
On the PLUS side, we can honestly and truly say that the era of BLM is now officially and completely dead...
Stick a fork in BLM.. It's done. :D
With the extremely just Daniel Penny verdict (unlike the Derek Chauvin verdict) the country has declared that Democrats and BLM will never again keep Americans in fear about delivering justice..
PROPER justice..
REAL justice..
Take a hike Democrats and BLM... No one is afraid of ya'all anymore...
046
The above was prompted by this great article..
America's Verdict
A New York City courtroom today issued a stunning verdict: Daniel Penny, a veteran US marine who restrained a threatening homeless subway rider named Jordan Neely, who later died in police custody, is not guilty of involuntary manslaughter or criminal negligence. And the verdict was not just about Penny. Make no mistake: the Black Lives Matter era of “restorative justice” is over and the real spirit of justice is returning to America.
Penny’s trial captured public attention because it dramatically emblematized this critical cultural faultline. Most immediately, it symbolized a recurrent theme in New York City about the failures of law enforcement, and the appropriate response to criminality. But it was also a story that the Left sought to turn into a racial morality play by repeating the BLM playbook they applied to the death of George Floyd, to Trayvon Martin, to Michael Brown and countless others.
https://im1776.com/2024/12/09/penny-verdict/
Do you know what kind of person always believes that everything is about race??
A racist person...
Fortunately for America, with the advent of President Trump returning to the Oval Office...
The time of the racist people (IE Democrats) is over...
:D
047
JL,
Enough Already! - insistence on Donald's eternal innocence. when the game is over and you already won, quit arguing with the video replay.
As long as there are people who continue to claim that President Trump is guilty of something... ANYTHING...
I will continue to point out that President ELECT Trump is 100% completely and utterly INNOCENT of all charges and accusations..
SOMEONE has to bring facts and reality into the discussion..
Might as well be me... As it usually is.. :D
048
What IS it about Democrats that their hate is so deep and so utterly bigoted that it gets people killed??
Seems that some Trump/America hater emailed in a bomb threat directed against Marjorie Taylor Greene's home in Rome, GA..
While responding to the incident, a police officer was involved in a traffic accident where a civilian was killed..
What kind of sad sick pathetic Democrat would do such a thing???
A typical Democrat... :eyeroll:
049
Yeah, the United States has moved on, the world has moved on. Donald Trump doesn't take office until January, but you can see the rest of the world is already treating him like he is the power center of the United States.
And so I'm glad he went. This cathedral reopening is a huge deal to so many people around the world, Catholics, Christians -- it's a historical moment. It was also a chance for him to talk to some of our biggest allies, people he's going to have to be coordinating with on some of these problems that Joe Biden is leaving behind.
Donald Trump is hitting the ground running. I mean, he's already out doing the things that we need him to do to get the country back on track. So between that, between his interview with Meet the Press, you can see here that Donald Trump is not going to have a passive presidency.
This is going to be an active start to this presidency and the rest of the world responds to leadership. We've not had a strong president, we have one now, everybody knows it.
-CNN
After 4 years of bumbling senility and incompetence, we finally have a POTUS with a backbone...
President Trump 2.0 is going to be AWESOME to behold. Given his mandate from the American people and the people he has selected to be on his team, the next 4 years is going to be an American renaissance.. :D
Having a JFK on his team!!?? Musk!!??
I mean, it's like the Justice League, the Avengers and Team Free Will all rolled into one!!! :D
What a time to be an American!!! :D
050
Way back when (2016-ish) everyone here was hysterically screaming and yelling that President Trump is a racist...
So I issued a challenge...
What FACTS did ya'all have that proved President Trump was a racist..
After I (with facts and reality) proved dozens and dozens of "facts" that ya'all claimed proved Trump was a racist were nothing but complete and utter BS, it was finally conceded that President Trump was not a racist.. :D
So, since JMCT has put forth the idea that ONLY President Trump (and no other POTUS) has lied, let's accomplish the same..
Give me a "lie" that President Trump has allegedly stated..
If I can't prove (with facts and reality) that the "lie" is not really a lie then I will match it with a Democrat POTUS who has actually and really lied...
It will be a fun exercise in factual reality and it will get my count number up for donations to Weigantia :D
051
Looks like President ELECT Trump's picks are a sure thing.. :D
There is growing momentum for Cabinet picks who could define Trump’s second term.
Democrats are being put on notice that their Trump/America hating ways will no longer be tolerated.. :D
FBI Pick Kash Patel will clean out the FBI of Trump/America haters and Pete Hegseth will clean out the military of Trump/America haters..
I tell ya, it's going to be an AWESOME 4 years!!
And an awesome 8 more years with President JD Vance after that!!! :D
"Look at the scoreboard NOW!!! Grasshopper!"Serano, MAJOR LEAGUE II
:D
Going back to the Daniel Penny case..
The jury's decision to acquit Daniel Penny was commendable, but it doesn’t undo the deeply flawed and unwarranted decision by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to prosecute a man who believed he was acting to protect others. Penny’s actions on the subway a year and a half ago, when he restrained Jordan Neely—a man threatening the safety of passengers—were intended to save lives.
After the verdict, Bragg issued a statement claiming, “As with every case, we followed the facts and the evidence from beginning to end.” That assertion rings hollow.
Neely, a homeless man with a history of 42 arrests between 2013 and 2021, had reportedly terrified passengers by declaring he was “ready to die.” Questions also arose about whether the chokehold Penny used directly caused Neely’s death. Penny told police that his only aim was to shield his fellow commuters from harm that day.
Despite this, Bragg aggressively pursued charges, including second-degree manslaughter, which carries a potential 15-year sentence, and criminally negligent homicide, with a maximum penalty of four years. When the jury deadlocked on the manslaughter charge, Bragg’s office, with the judge’s agreement, opted to drop it and instead focus on the lesser charge. This strategic maneuver not only appeared ethically questionable but also failed spectacularly when the jury swiftly returned a “not guilty” verdict after less than an hour of deliberation on Monday morning.
Bragg’s decision to target Penny was not an isolated incident. His tenure as district attorney has been defined by misplaced priorities that undermine public safety and a lenient approach to serious crime, contributing to an uptick in criminal activity in New York. At the same time, Bragg has demonstrated a troubling tendency to pursue cases that align with political optics, such as this one, fostering deep mistrust and disillusionment among the city’s residents.
Democrats simply don't DESERVE to have any political power whatsoever..
It's really that simple..
053
Thanks, Elizabeth!
Looks like another one of my predictions have been proven to be factually accurate..
I think I just saw a tumbleweed roll by here in Weigantia.. :D
054
"Gee!!! I wonder why that is!!!??
-Kevin Spacey"
if Donald still needs an alleged sex offender to fill a seat on the board of the FCC, i believe Kevin Spacey is still available.
"Trump is 100% completely and utterly INNOCENT"
no, he is PRESUMED innocent by the LEGAL system. morally, ethically, and in every other way imaginable, he's culpable for doing all those things he was accused of, because he did in fact do those things. the whole country saw the evidence and over half either approved or didn't care. that's on us, and whatever we get, we've earned.
JL
Keyword there being "alleged"..
That is EXACTLY ya'alls problem, JL...Ya'all think that an accusation = guilt.
But ONLY against people people whose political ideology doesn't agree with yours.. :eyeroll:
Kevin Spacey AND President ELECT Trump are 100% completely and unequivocally INNOCENT per the ONLY metric that matters.
055
Ya'all think that an accusation = guilt.
I can't speak for "ya'all" but as far as i personally am concerned, having done something that is illegal is guilt. that's how I would vote if I were on a jury and presented with the evidence to which I currently have access. because of this, i'd probably make a lousy juror, since i've been influenced by exposure to pertinent information outside of a courtroom.
per the ONLY metric that matters.
what metric matters or doesn't is a matter of opinion, not fact. public opinion appears to be that 52% of voters think what Donald did doesn't matter, while 48% think it does. the court of public opinion and the supreme court of the United States are on donald's side regarding the crimes he committed and subsequently got away with. good for him.
JL
kevin Spacey was also found not guilty, in his case not guilty of seven counts of sexual assault. his civil cases are still pending.