To the Editor:

In 2018, Trump ally Steve Bannon confessed, “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” Jonathan Rauch explained, “This is not about persuasion: This is about disorientation.” “Flooding the zone” is why so many of us find the news is just too much today.  It’s very effective.

But “flooding the zone” also distracts and causes us to “look over there,” while missing “what’s happening here.” So what are we looking at “over there” and missing “here”?

Try this: The world’s richest billionaire, Elon Musk, recently used his X account and some disinformation to thwart a bipartisan funding bill, threatening to use his wealth (over $400 billion, up $136 billion since the election) to primary any Republicans supporting the bill.  President-Elect Trump echoed Musk 15 hours later.  

This bizarre experience of an unelected billionaire calling the shots ahead of the President-Elect led to mocking references of “President Musk”  and a chaotic near government shutdown before a third scaled-down bill was passed. This “flooding of the zone over there” story is well known; what’s lesser known is what Musk gained “here” in the final bill.

First, a limitation on “outbound investment” in China was removed: According to Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D, CT), this bipartisan provision would have kept innovation and manufacturing in the U.S., including many taxpayer funded innovations.   

Musk will benefit; he has invested billions into his Shanghai, China “gigafactory,” which produced 50% of 2024 Teslas. Nearby, Tesla recently broke ground on a $200 million EV battery factory; large battery manufacturing was one of the technologies to be subject to this now deleted provision of the funding bill.

While you were looking “over there” at memes mocking “President Musk,” Musk successfully eliminated oversight on his investments in China. Who’s laughing now?

Also deleted was continued funding of the U.S. agency that since 2016 has been tracking foreign disinformation, especially from Russia and China. As a result, this agency closed on December 23. Done.

While the turmoil over the budget passing “flooded the zone” while you prepared for the holidays, Musk successfully eliminated oversight of one of our nation’s greatest purveyors of foreign disinformation: his own X platform, formerly Twitter.

As citizens, we must see what’s happening “here” behind the “flooding of the zone over there.” The old adage holds true: Follow the money. (And stay tuned.)

Mike Zagrobelny, Chair of St. Lawrence County Democrats
Ginger Storey-Welch, Vice-Chair of St. Lawrence County Democrats