100 Days and Counting …
The “flood the zone with sh*t” strategy has worked for Donald Trump’s first 100 days. Now it’s time so take a breath, settle down, and focus on the biggest crises we face.
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Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Quote of the Day: “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with sh*t.”
Steve Bannon, on how President Trump could overwhelm opposition during his first term.
Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone” comment immediately entered the lexicon of political and policy strategy. It certainly captured the spirit of the Trump 45 Administration’s effort to break the mold of how Washington works.
As we’ve seen, Trump 45 was nothing compared with Trump 47, which has accelerated the pace, scope and audacity of its effort to remake the federal government and, indeed, America and the world.
Many of us, and certainly me, were not prepared for the onslaught of sh*t since January. The manifestly unqualified Cabinet appointments. Elon Musk, DOGE and its completely lawless attack on the federal government. Immigration policy that deprived immigrants – and U.S. citizens – of their due process rights to rendition them to El Salvador like enemy combatants.
It was, and is, exhausting. (In honor of the 100th day of Trump 47’s presidency, Rolling Stone has published 100 Actions That Define Trump’s Horrifying First 100 Days in Office.) I still do not have a handle on it all. My initial goal, to write at least weekly about national politics, has not been met. It feels like there’s just too much — Everything Everywhere All At Once.
In recent weeks, though, a few things have pushed me towards re-engaging with the flooded zone. The main impetus has been remembering how much I love my country, and what I want to do about it. I’ve been asking myself, “If not me, who? If not now, when?”That phrase is variously attributed to Rabbi Hillel, John F. Kennedy, and Congressman John Lewis, so I figure I am in pretty good company.
Another factor has been the fellowship and good example of many of my friends, who have moved past the shock and awe to organize protests, call their congresspeople and march to the barricades.
Finally – and this comes from the part of me that’s observed politics for many years – there are opportunities arising. As is often the case, the authoritarians have overplayed their hand, mistaking a narrow mandate for the right to go hog wild on the Constitution and the American people.
The challenge under this onslaught is to pick our battles. Mary Beth Rogers, who was the chief of staff to Governor Ann Richards, analyzed issues facing the Governor’s Office in terms of two axes: urgency and importance. She created a chart with four quadrants:
URGENT NOT URGENT
IMPORTANT
NOT IMPORTANT
Some things are urgent but not important (press inquiries, e.g.). Some are important but not urgent (fixing the criminal justice system, e.g.). The point is, often things that were urgent were not actually important, and the Governor’s Office did not need to expend critical energy to chase them.
This is our challenge today. The zone is flooded with sh*t, but not every outrage can take up all or much of our energy. With this in mind, I want to suggest three issues to which we all should be paying close attention, and which subsume many of the day-to-day outrages we are seeing.
The Rule of Law
Respect for the legal system and its processes is pretty much the only thing now keeping us from an authoritarian dictatorship. And much of the zone-flooding of the last 100 days has been directed to expanding presidential power in disregard of the rules. Just a few examples:
Standing up a government “agency” – DOGE – without any authorization from Congress and with no oversight of its actions.
Using executive orders – which do not have the force of law – to impound or divert congressionally appropriated funds.
Depriving people, including American citizens, of due process rights in their immigration cases. None of the 288 people sent to El Salvador thus far received due process. It gets worse: we now know that at least three children who are U.S. citizens have been deported, including one with Stage 4 cancer – again, without any due process.
Openly defying the Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion that he should facilitiate getting Kilmar Àbrego Garcia back from El Salvador.
And there’s much more.
This is the big one, folks. If the president and his administration are not subject to the jurisdiction of Congress and the courts, then we are back to tyranny. And there is no doubt he and his administration want to break the rule of law, at least as it applies to them.
Too bad – we almost made it to 250 years.
Ukraine
Trump’s foreign policy, if it can even be called that, is a mess: threatening Mexico, annexing Canada, acquiring Greenland – all bluster with no strategery. His transparent designs to turn Ukraine over to Russia is the worst. As a result, our allies know the U.S. cannot be trusted to lead the world anymore. Unfortunately, so do Russia and China. (Alas, poor Taiwan … )
Ukraine is the geopolitical and moral keystone of our foreign policy. America’s role in the world will be determined in large part by whether the American people – our so-called leaders have already abdicated – summon the will to defend freedom and the international order in the battle for Ukraine.
The Economy
President Trump has always had a critical mass of Americans who thought he was a competent businessman and, therefore, a good steward of the American economy. Hi actual record as a businessman is more mixed. Actually, that’s not accurate. His record is dismal. It was only his star turn on “The Apprentice” that created the illusion of his competence.
But Trump 47 has so far been an unmitigated disaster for the economy. His bizarre and inexplicable tariff policies have wreaked havoc with global financial markets (more on that in a sec). His immigration crackdown has deprived critical American industries of important parts of their workforce. The chainsaw he’s taken to the federal government has weakened consumer safety and protections and, with it, consumer confidence.
It will get worse, and soon. Retailers like Costco and Best Buy began stocking their warehouses earlier this year in anticipation of the Trump tariffs. Once the tariffs were announced on “Liberation Day,” shipping from countries like China, Japan, and Vietnam fell off a cliff. For example, take the Port of Los Angeles, the nation’s busiest shipping port. According to the April 24th Los Angeles Times,
Imports at the Port of Los Angeles are expected to plunge in the next two weeks, even as negotiations over the final tariffs that China and other countries must pay are still being negotiated by President Trump.
That was the sobering message that port Executive Director Gene Seroka had Thursday for the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners during an update on port activity.
“It’s my prediction that in two weeks’ time, arrivals will drop by 35% as essentially all shipments out of China for major retailers and manufacturers have ceased, and cargo coming out of Southeast Asia locations is much softer than normal,” Seroka told the board.
Figures from Wabtec Corp., which tracks port cargo, predict the slowdown in container volume hitting as soon as next week. [Ed. Note: this week] That’s when 17 vessels are scheduled to arrive with 85,486 20-foot-equivalents (TEUs) of goods, down 28.6% from this week and 10.5% from last year.
The decline will continue the following week, when 16 vessels are supposed to arrive carrying 74,925 TEUs, down nearly 33% from last year, according to Wabtec.
What does this all mean? The most terrifying words in a consumer-driven, late-stage capitalism economy: empty store shelves, and as soon as the next couple weeks. And this is happening while DOGE and the Republican Congress are seeking to cut school lunches, SNAP programs, and other webbing of the social safety net. I mention this not as a political drag on his approval ratings, but as an actual hardship to be suffered by the American people, who will not go quietly into that dark night.
There are 1,360 days remaining in the second term. Every day, another outrage will emerge. In 100 days, Rolling Stone will be able to compose a list that is twice as long as the previous one. And we will be challenged to focus upon – and act on – the one that are most urgent and important. So keep calm and carry on. Hug your friends and loved ones, and take heart: Trump 47 carries the seeds of its own destruction — Donald Trump. Our focus should be on protecting democracy as best we can.
This weekend … People who read about My Decade As a Monk may recall that the religious order of which I was a member owned and operated a summer camp and retreat center in the Hill Country. I spent many summers there.
Like all religious orders, Marianist vocations have been decreasing while older members retire and die off. They have done a good job of developing and empowering laypersons as collaborators, but there are just not enough people to go around. After almost 90 years, the order is shuttering its ministry there in preparation for selling the property. This weekend marks the closing ceremonies, and I am joining many friends who have been part of that ministry on Sunday. I will write more about it later this week.
The Tecaboca property near Mountain Home, Texas.
I was okay until you mentioned how many days are left in this term. But I think you hit the three big ones. People have to grit their teeth and do the next right thing they can think of, which is impeding the man in DC, and his minions.
Absolutely spot on. I don’t know how you were able to wrestle the insanity and chaos of Trump’s first 100 days into a coherent assessment, but you sure did, brother. I will be sharing this widely.