Flooding the zone for a more reliable candidate

The planning for a hard-right takeover of the US federal government was detailed and meticulous, and its execution by Elon Musk and his young Silicon Valley storm troopers was ruthless and mostly successful.

They did indeed "move fast and break things", notably in gaining illegal access to the Department of Treasury payments system by sheer intimidation.

That is the system that processes all federal spending and accounts for more than one-fifth of the entire US economy. Court orders to cease and desist straggled in days later, but by then huge amounts of congressionally authorised spending had been stopped in obedience to President Trump’s executive orders, or simply by Musk’s people turning off the taps.

They are out of the building again now, but they have undoubtedly taken copies of all the key accounts with them.

Meanwhile, court orders fly back and forth, but when the restraining orders that would stop Musk’s rampage finally work their way up to the Supreme Court, Trump’s bench of tame Supreme Court judges will throw them out.

This was where the real coup happened. Donald Trump’s role was to provide a constant stream of distractions that drew the media’s attention elsewhere.

He succeeded: the mainstream US media are always suckers for another Trump horror story, however extreme and unlikely.

The strategy he used was best described in 2019 by Steve Bannon, chief Trump strategist in the early days of his first term as president: "The opposition party is the media, and because they’re dumb and lazy they 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 our stuff done. Bang, bang, bang."

And Trump has been delivering enough things to keep the media permanently distracted, which doesn’t really take three things every day. Most days just one will do.

Declare that you will impose tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China. Talk about buying Greenland from Denmark (as if it didn’t have a government of its own).

Have a 24-hour "crisis" when Colombia refuses to admit chained deportees arriving unannounced from America on a US Air Force plane. Threaten to annex Canada.

Impose tariffs on China but postpone the Canadian and Mexican tariffs for a month. Threaten to invade Panama (where the Chinese do NOT run the canal).

Talk about taking over the Gaza Strip and turning it into a "Riviera on the Mediterranean".

Talk about imposing tariffs on the European Union. Say the US wants to "clean out that whole thing" (the Gaza Strip), take over the region and resettle the existing population (Palestinians) elsewhere. Say Canada wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for US "subsidies" (i.e. US payments for Canadian oil, gas, electricity, steel, aluminium and lumber). Flood the zone.

Meanwhile, Trump’s executive orders mirror the to-do list of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s plan for instituting permanent right-wing rule after a Trump election victory.

Take partisan control of key government agencies, terminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, and deport masses of illegal immigrants.

Coming soon: close down the Department of Education, cut Medicare and Medicaid, and slash corporation and capital gains taxes. Let billionaires pay the same flat rate of income tax as single working mothers.

The whole project serves the interests of the rich, the white and the Christian, which means plenty of distractions will continue to be needed.

And this may be the Achilles heel of the entire project, because the Distractor-in-Chief himself is so easily distracted.

Look at the way Trump is talking himself into a preposterous and unsustainable commitment to empty the Gaza Strip of Palestinians and rebuild it on the shores of the Mediterranean as a resort and casino for the world’s rootless people. This is a recipe for American boots on the ground for at least a decade.

Or, closer to home, watch him turn America’s closest ally, biggest trading partner and formerly trusting friend, Canada, into a fearful and disaffected enemy. That’s more than 40 million people, 90% of them living within a four-hour drive of the US border — but 90% of them also do not want to be Americans.

So, Donald Trump is serving the extreme right’s cause well at the moment but, in the longer run, he is just likely to sabotage it with his random enthusiasms and equally random prejudices.

The time will come, probably within a year or 18 months, when the insiders start to see him as a liability and even as a threat to their great project of transforming America.

At that point J.D. Vance will look like a promising, more reliable replacement — and Donald Trump, after all, is but a mortal man.

— Gwynne Dyer is an independent London journalist.