“FLOODING THE ZONE WITH

“The real opposition is the media.  The way to deal with them is to flood the zone with sh*t.”—Steve Bannon, conspiracy-theorist, ex-Trump aide, and convicted criminal, describing his strategy to keep Americans from recognizing the truth by rapidly releasing massive amounts of misleading information.

Pssst!  Come here quick.  Don’t let anyone see you!  They don’t want you to hear this!

Did you know that the polio vaccine causes cancer?  Did you know that no vaccine has ever been properly tested?  Did you know HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, it’s actually lifestyle?

Did you know Lyme Disease is really a biological weapon developed by the military?  Did you know herbicides are making our kids transgender (why those damn farmers!)?  Did you know antidepressants cause school shootings?  And that antidepressants are harder to stop taking than heroin?  And didn’t you know that you could get better grades when you use heroin?

Did you know COVID was genetically engineered to make white people and Africans sick, but not those of Asian and Jewish ancestry?

Did you know those 5G waves coming into your cellphone give you cancer?  Did you know vaccines haven’t stopped infectious disease—it was all because of malnutrition?

What, you didn’t?  Good.  Because they’re all lies.

Before we talk about the title of this piece, let’s set the stage by talking about one of the most dangerous nominees put forth by the new President—Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr., sometimes shortened to RFK, Jr.  For brevity, I’ll shorten again.

I’m just going to call him “Jr.”

Jr. was born into one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in America.  He traded on his last name in ways they rest of us can’t.  Despite being kicked out of some pretty cushy prep schools for drug use, he was accepted to Harvard (on what some call America’s connections-based affirmative action plan) and got a law degree from the University of Virginia.  He was heavily into drugs, and it’s likely that if he’d been born into the kind of families most of the rest of us came from, he’d still be strung out in a ditch somewhere.

This isn’t to downplay the horrors of drug addiction.  It’s an awful disease that takes many lives, and this country has ignored it for far too long.  But there’s a different accountability if you come from a powerful family.  There are different resources, and you don’t have to suffer like most Americans.  When Jr. was convicted of heroin possession in the early 1980’s, a crime that would have gotten the rest of us sent upriver, he received only a slap on the wrist and probation.  He was hired out of law school as a U.S. attorney but resigned when he failed the bar exam.

Eventually he got his life together.  He became an environmental lawyer, taking on polluters and big corporations.

Somewhere in there, he went off the rails again.  He plugged himself into the growing antivaccine movement. 

At first, vaccine skeptics were largely far-left granola types who wanted to pull their kids out of society and raise them in communes.  This put Jr. in good company.  He was pro-choice, pro-environment, pro-conservation, against corporations and wall street, and supportive of national health care. 

But later, as the Rush Limbaugh-led government conspiracy movement began, right wingers started gravitating to the antivax cause, as did many members of the religious far-right, who insisted vaccines were somehow an affront to the Almighty.

This strange blend of characters began to coalesce, and Jr. cashed in.  He’s made millions from an organization called the Children’s Health Defense (CHD), for writing and speaking the sort of nonsense listed at the beginning of this post.  Last year alone, he personally pulled in $10 million.

And Jr.’s slick.  He’s become adept at taking half-truths, cherry-picked and incomplete data, as well as downright disinformation, and putting it into chart and graph form that looks impressive.  Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, one of the country’s leading infectious disease specialists, calls Jr. someone who “has perfected the art of selling illusion as fact.”

Through it all, Jr. began to develop what can only be described as a cult following.  Growing ever richer, he and the CHD began to show up everywhere, hawking their antivaccine rhetoric.  When 2 children died in Samoa after receiving a vaccine that had been inappropriately mixed with a dangerous sedative, the CHD and Jr. dropped in, and helped turn the whole thing into a media circus.  Of course, he now denies that he encouraged vaccine refusal.  But somehow vaccination rates plummeted across the island.

The following year, disaster struck.  An unprecedented measles outbreak hit the largely unvaccinated island.  Dozens of children died.  Anyone who wants to learn firsthand details should read the comments of Hawaii’s Governor, Dr. Josh Green (I’m the Current Governor of Hawaii.  I’ve Seen what Vaccine Skepticism can Do ), who was one of the first responders to the deadly outbreak. (For insights, see below).

Jr. basically washed his hands of the whole thing, and instead tried to blame pretty much everyone else, not unlike that Orange Guy who’s trying to appoint him to the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).  But the tracks are easy to follow.

By 2023, Jr. saw another opportunity.  A lifelong Democrat, he announced himself as a candidate for his party’s nomination for president.  No one took him particularly seriously.

When it was apparent his attempt was going nowhere, he launched an independent bid for office.  Because the public wasn’t exactly thrilled by the likely nominees of the two major parties, Jr. initially polled 22% of potential voters.  It soon fell off to around 5%.  It wouldn’t be nearly enough to get him to the oval office.

Undeterred, he sought a deal from the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamila Harris.  Promise to appoint me to your cabinet, Jr. said, and I’ll throw my support behind you.  Although welcoming the support, Harris said she could make no such promise.  So, despite his liberal background, Jr. decided to make a deal with the devil.

Would Trump have been elected without the votes Jr. pulled his way?  Frankly, I doubt it.  But that’s the way it turned out, and in short order, Trump announced Jr. as his nominee for Secretary of HHS, despite Jr. having no background in administration, and outside of vaccine denial, none in health care, either.  In gratitude for the nomination, Jr. suddenly caved on abortion rights, environmental protections, and conservation, to become a “drill baby drill, ban the EPA” Trumper.

Outside of the lies and conspiracy theories, other issues have been raised about the sort of person Jr. has become.  Family and close friends describe him as an abuser of women, a sexual predator, a bully, a sadist who tortured animals, along with other traits that border on sociopathy.  His second wife committed suicide, an act that allegedly was due in part to her own drug addiction that worsened during her marriage. 

I won’t go into any of that, because it’s frankly not much different than a number of other Trump nominees, although Jr. does have that brain worm excuse.  But he attracted votes to the President, and apparently that’s the only thing that matters.

At this point, some in the MAGA world would say, “but there’s more to it!  He wants us to be healthy!  He wants America to eat better, stay fit, and avoid chronic diseases!”

Right, like that’s going to happen in a Trump administration.  The first person in Washington who strongly advocated for a healthy diet and exercise was Michelle Obama.  Remember?

She was skewered by Republicans.  Sarah Palin declared that she was trying to take away children’s desserts!  Others said it was Big Government Nanny State Socialism at its worst (that term is thrown around so much, why don’t we just abbreviate it to BGNSS).

As a part of her effort to bring about self-improvement, Michelle encouraged Americans to grow small gardens, even on backyard plots of land.  To demonstrate this, she even personally planted a garden at the White House.

One of the first things Melania did when she and Trump moved in?  Invited reporters to film her and young Baron ripping the garden out.

Look, we know what interventions worked for tobacco.  They were adamantly opposed by conservatives, just as they would oppose similar efforts to improve diets today.  Drastically restricting advertising.  Taxing unhealthy foods, both to discourage intake and raise money for treatment.  Subsidizing healthy fast-food alternatives focused on food deserts, especially for those who are working two jobs, caring for children, and unable to take a three-transfer bus ride to Whole Foods, much less have the time to prepare a meal.

Would these be timely measures to improve diets and health? Or would they be trashed as BGNSS interference?  Looking at the current administration, I think the answer is pretty obvious.

The U.S. Senate has four physicians in its ranks.  Only Bill Cassidy of Louisiana has expressed any concern about Jr.  The other three, Paul, Barrosso, and Marshall, are basically Trump rubber stamps.

Who knows how all of this will end?  But with H5N1 looming on the horizons, it’s not hyperbole to say lives hang in the balance.

So what about the Bannon quote that began this piece?  We don’t have much time left, but the term “flood the zone” is familiar to football fans.  Send your eligible receivers sprinting into one corner of your opponent’s secondary—one defensive zone—with the idea that the defense will be so confused that at least one receiver will be open.

The past two weeks have seen this unfold.  A massive flood of executive orders, many of which are blatantly unconstitutional, but will nonetheless be upheld by our far-right Supreme Court.  All of it flying directly into the face of the American public.

More about this next time.  But in the meantime, know that government funds are now in the hands of Elon Musk, including your Medicare and Social Security.  Staff have been locked out or fired. 

All foreign aid except for (you guessed it) military aid to Egypt and Israel has been shut down.  As we speak, Malaria control programs in Uganda have ground to a halt, rehydration fluid-salts can no longer reach villages in Zambia, and in other underdeveloped countries, programs to prevent HIV and Tuberculosis have been stalled.

Even George W. Bush’s Malaria Initiative treatment program, the largest in the world, has been hit.  Nearly 70% of its staff has been fired.

Gee, Elon must be proud.

More on the Flood the Zone with Sh*t strategy next time.  We haven’t even gotten to tariffs, deportations, and military threats (among other things). But with the recent massive firings of FBI and other government officials, it’s clear the purge is on.  And for anyone who has time for any extra reading, take a glance back at my post Purge at your Own Risk  I was hoping it would turn out to be an exaggeration.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

See you next time.  Be careful out there.     

For further reading:

‘He’s a liar.’ Green outraged after Kennedy denies role in Samoa measles outbreak

RFK Jr. misled the US Senate on measles deaths, Samoa’s health chief says | AP News