Steve Bannon calls it “muzzle velocity”. The media, Donald Trump’s former adviser said in 2019, were “dumb and lazy, can only focus on one thing at a time ... All we have to do is flood the zone. Every day we hit them with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done … but we’ve got to start with muzzle velocity.”
Trump’s first three weeks seem to have followed Bannon’s plan to the letter. Not only has the bombardment of extraordinary orders blasting out of his White House overwhelmed the media – freezing trillions in federal grants; closing America’s $US40 billion ($64 billion) foreign aid agency; redundancies for entire federal workforces including the CIA – his idea, announced on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), to “own” and rebuild Gaza into the “Riveria of the Middle East” appeared to shock even his closest advisers.
