The Trump Overreaction Trap: Stop Taking the Bait

Donald Trump doesn’t govern. He performs. He’s not a politician; he’s a showman, a carnival barker in a red tie, whipping a crowd into a frenzy while picking their pockets. And his greatest trick—the thing that keeps the show running—is that every single time he pulls some cheap stunt, we react like it’s the fall of Rome.

It’s not that what he’s doing isn’t dangerous. It’s that not everything is equally dangerous. If we treat every move like a five-alarm fire, then when an actual five-alarm fire breaks out, nobody will notice. That’s not an accident. It’s the plan.

Flooding the Zone: The Whole Playbook, Right There in the Open

Steve Bannon—yes, that Steve Bannon, the Rasputin of Mar-a-Lago—once described their strategy in five words: flood the zone with shit. Translation: Dump so much noise into the system, so much outrage, that no one knows where to look.

And here’s where we keep screwing up: we look everywhere.

Let’s go to the tape.

• The DEI Purge: In one of his first moves back in office, Trump gutted every diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiative in the federal government. The response was immediate, loud, and justified—because representation, fairness, and opportunity matter. But while the country was focused on that battle, his administration quietly pulled the U.S. out of the World Health Organization. A global health crisis, and we’re flying solo. And that’s the point: Trump floods the zone so we’re forced to fight on multiple fronts, making it harder to focus on the biggest threats.

• The Birthright Citizenship Executive Order: This one got the full five-alarm treatment—because, yes, it’s a direct shot at the Fourteenth Amendment. But also? It’s legally doomed. It’s a distraction, designed to light up the news cycle while the Supreme Court casually retools voting rights in the background.

• The January 6 Pardons: This is the real deal. This is how democracy dies—not with a bang, but with a well-timed legal memo. This is what deserves sustained, focused, strategic outrage. Instead, it’s fighting for airtime with whatever nonsense Trump tweeted this morning about the Barbie movie.

The Art of Not Taking the Bait

Here’s the thing: outrage is a finite resource. Spend it wisely.

What Not to Do:

• Don’t Treat Every Tweet Like a Crisis – It’s a shiny object. Ignore it. Remember when Trump tweeted that NATO countries “owe us money”? The media erupted, national security experts went into overdrive, and cable news turned it into a week-long panic attack. But NATO isn’t a debt-collection agency, and nothing changed. Meanwhile, Trump was reshuffling the Pentagon, moving loyalists into key positions. That should’ve been the headline.

• Don’t Let the Media Set the Agenda – If the headline is about Trump’s golf game, change the conversation. When Trump skipped out on a G7 session to play golf at Mar-a-Lago, the outrage was deafening. “Dereliction of duty!” screamed the headlines. But while we were yelling about tee times, his administration was gutting asylum protections and pushing a Supreme Court case to weaken federal oversight of elections. If we let the media chase gossip, we’ll miss the story that actually matters.

• Don’t Punch at Shadows – If an executive order is unconstitutional, let the courts do their job. Focus on the fights that won’t fix themselves. Trump signed an executive order attempting to strip birthright citizenship—a blatant violation of the Constitution. The immediate reaction was apocalyptic. But the courts will strike it down, just like they did with his attempt to unilaterally end DACA. Meanwhile, his allies in Congress were quietly working on new voting restrictions that won’t die in the courts. That’s where the real fight is.

How to Shift the Conversation Effectively

It’s not enough to not take the bait. You have to turn the bait into something else. You have to redirect the energy. The question isn’t “how do we stop talking about Trump’s latest stunt?” It’s “how do we make sure that when we talk about Trump, we’re controlling the conversation?” Here’s how.

1. Refocus the Narrative—Relentlessly.

Every time Trump launches a dumb controversy, ask: What does he not want us talking about right now? Then make that the conversation.

2. Stay on Message. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat.

The reason Trump’s slogans work is that he never stops saying them. His opponents, meanwhile, talk like they’re writing a new college thesis every time they go on TV. The rule of political messaging is simple: If you’re sick of hearing yourself say something, that’s when the public is just starting to hear it.

3. Set the Agenda Before He Does.

Trump gets away with chaos because the opposition is always reacting to it. The solution? Stop reacting. Start forcing.

The Media’s Role: How to Stop Them From Taking the Bait

The modern media ecosystem isn’t built to inform—it’s built to enrage. Networks thrive on controversy. Social media companies rake in profits from viral outrage. So how do you break the cycle?

1. Starve the Story. If a scandal has no oxygen, it dies. Don’t share it, don’t comment on it, don’t make it trend.

2. Punish Bad Journalism. If a network spends three days covering Trump’s diet Coke habit instead of voter suppression laws, call them out.

3. Reward Substance. Support journalists doing real reporting. Retweet the important stories.

4. Control the Questions. When politicians go on TV, they should control the conversation. If an interviewer asks about Trump’s golf game, pivot. Force the conversation back to real issues.

The media isn’t neutral—it’s a business. If outrage stops selling, they’ll stop selling it.

The Stakes Are Bigger Than Trump—And We Can’t Afford to Lose

Trump is just the most obvious example, but this problem is bigger than him. The cycle of outrage and distraction is a system, and that system will survive long after Trump has left the stage—unless we dismantle it.

The stakes aren’t just one election cycle, one bad actor, or one corrupt administration. The stakes are democracy. The stakes are truth. The stakes are whether we’re a country that reacts to a circus act or one that fights for something real.

The fight against authoritarianism isn’t won with more outrage. It’s won with strategy. It’s won with focus. It’s won by refusing to let the loudest voice in the room set the rules of engagement.

Every single day, ask: What do we want the conversation to be? Then force it. Control the message. Drive the narrative.

Because if we don’t—if we just keep taking the bait—then we’ve already lost.