
Is Trump’s ‘flood the media’ strategy working?
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GUEST - Thebe Ikalafeng – Founder of Brand Africa
‘This has been a wild week, with way more news coming out of the new administration than anyone can follow. And that’s likely by design. “The opposition party is the media,” Steve Bannon, who helped run Trump’s 2016 campaign, told PBS Frontline five years ago. “And the media can only — because they’re dumb and they’re lazy — they can only focus on one thing at a time.” So the solution, per Bannon? Overwhelm them
The first three weeks of the Trump presidency have lived up to that idea, often with far more than three things happening each day. There have been dozens of executive orders, an attempted remaking of the federal government led by Elon Musk, potentially consequential Cabinet appointees confirmed, some promised tariffs put in place (and others delayed), deportations, far-reaching and controversial assertions and a new version of America put forward on the world stage.
‘This has been a wild week, with way more news coming out of the new administration than anyone can follow. And that’s likely by design. “The opposition party is the media,” Steve Bannon, who helped run Trump’s 2016 campaign, told PBS Frontline five years ago. “And the media can only — because they’re dumb and they’re lazy — they can only focus on one thing at a time.” So the solution, per Bannon? Overwhelm them
The first three weeks of the Trump presidency have lived up to that idea, often with far more than three things happening each day. There have been dozens of executive orders, an attempted remaking of the federal government led by Elon Musk, potentially consequential Cabinet appointees confirmed, some promised tariffs put in place (and others delayed), deportations, far-reaching and controversial assertions and a new version of America put forward on the world stage.