“Flood the Zone”
This is the refrain we have heard time and again from those on the inside of this administration.1 The strategy is to overwhelm the news cycle with so many changes, so many events, that people can’t keep up. Eventually, people no longer notice, let alone resist, all the changes, whether or not they are constitutional, and whether or not they are legal.
I am certainly seeing that in my corner of the world. In immigration law, where, arguably, there is the least due process2 and immigrants’ rights are considered optional,3 what is happening should alarm anyone who’s paying attention. Immigration law is the canary in the coal mine of what will happen throughout government if the rest of us do nothing.
While I could go on about immigration, or the threats to the Constitution, that is not why I sat down to write. No: what has been on my mind is much more personal. It has been a really tough year for me professionally, and being human and not always great at compartmentalizing, the stress and misery has bled into other areas of my life as well. Unless I walk away, I don’t see anything changing for the next two and a half years. Nothing externally anyway. The world is on fire.
And when something is on fire, you try not to burn. In today’s jargon, they call this effort self-care. The need for it has grown especially among those of us who work in fields directly impacted by all these new policies. I’ve been all for that, taking basic steps to care for my mind, body, and soul. But if nothing changes, no amount of deep breathing, or taking walks, or yoga, is going to save me from spiraling into a very dark place.
External circumstances will not change; it’s a pretty safe assumption that the country will continue to burn (figuratively) at least for the next two and a half years if not longer. Greed, fear, and other base human urges will continue to motivate many. If there is to be any change, it will have to come from within. I have agency to decide whether to attempt this change; no one else will do it for me–or for you.
So what if I chose to concentrate on other things? Not to ignore the very real damage that is happening to our country, but to also not ignore the small kindnesses I see people offering strangers and loved ones every day, or the triumphs in the young lives of my children and other loved ones.
And what if I not only chose to see these things, but chose to encourage them? What if I paid more attention to the beauty of God’s creation when I went on my walks, or the transcendence of music, or literature, and shared it with others? What if I chose to pay attention to these things, and derive the joy from them that we have always been meant to derive from life?
I’m not talking about an amorphous state of oblivious happiness. Instead, I’m proposing the deliberate choice to seek joy in spite of the many reasons for despair. This would be a joy that comes from different sources. For me, a major source is my faith: faith that this state we’re in is not the end of the story, and that we are loved by an omniscient and omnipotent God who has already shown us how to overcome the circumstances we find ourselves in.
Another source might be hope, based on stories in history where people have been in similar or worse circumstances, and found a way to overcome the fear and darkness of those holding power. Yet another might be the knowledge that, ultimately, by refusing to despair, we are not allowing those powers to prevail.
What would happen if more of us attempted this? Would it change anything?
I believe it would. People who despair are people who eventually lose the ability or desire to change their circumstances, or those of people around them. On the other hand, people who are joyful are also resilient–resilient enough to try again after defeat, and to encourage others to do the same. How much could change if there was more encouragement, more laughter, and more wonder during these days?
For myself, if I did manage to achieve this, my “zone” would be too full of the knowledge of the resilience of ordinary people, and of the love that friends and family have for one another, to be flooded by the despair this administration seems so determined to make us feel.
And that, surely, would be a win in every way.
- Steve Bannon’s ‘Flood the Zone’ Strategy Explained Amid Trump Policy Blitz – Newsweek
Trump, echoing Project 2025, using ‘flood the zone’ strategy to push agenda: Experts – ABC News
DHS vows to “FLOOD THE ZONE” after Supreme Court lifts limits on LA ICE stops ↩︎ - Think Immigration: Dismantling the Immigration Courts – An Attack on Due Process ↩︎
- What rights do immigrants have, and what do they not have? | CNN ↩︎
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