The strategy has existed since at least 2018, when the former Trump administration strategist Stephen K. Bannon boasted of the ability to overwhelm Democrats and any media opposition through a determined effort to “flood the zone” with initiatives.
This time, the flood is bigger, wider and more brutally efficient. As President Trump begins his second term, he has enacted his agenda at breakneck speed as part of an intentional plan to knock his opponents off balance and dilute their response.
Firing inspectors generals. Sweeping clemency for Jan. 6 defendants. Investigations of perceived enemies. A federal hiring freeze. Moving to end birthright citizenship. An immigration crackdown. Terminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Revoking security clearances.
On Tuesday, just when Democrats thought they might come up for air, news broke that Mr. Trump had ordered a freeze on trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans, prompting a new round of outrage.
But the flood has had its intended disorienting effect: How can Democrats fight back when they can’t catch their breath?
“It’s been overwhelming sensory overload,” said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
“One moment I’m on the phone with someone who does cancer drug clinical medical trials for the government who has been slated for removal because one small part of her job is outreach to the minority community,” he said. “The next moment I’m talking to lawyers at the Department of Justice and they’ve been slated to be involuntarily reassigned. It just doesn’t stop.”
One of the architects of Mr. Trump’s rapid-pace strategy is Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff for policy, who has pushed the flood-the-zone tactic. Mr. Miller believes that those he regards as Mr. Trump’s enemies have limited bandwidth for opposition, and he has told people that the goal is to overwhelm them with a blitz of activity.
“The breakneck speed is putting everyone on their heels,” said Ryan Walker, the executive vice president of Heritage Action for America, a conservative advocacy group that has developed policies embraced by Mr. Trump. Mr. Walker said he had seen a “sea change from the first administration” in terms of how quickly the new administration was working.
Some Democrats have suggested that Mr. Trump and his aides may soon run out of steam, exhausting their policy moves and eventually themselves. Mr. Raskin said Democrats needed to fight the feeling of being disoriented, weather the torrent of news and determine which policies they could actually fight in court.
“Everyone needs to maintain as much mental clarity and emotional composure as possible,” he said. “We need to figure out where the administration has clearly violated the Constitution, such as with birthright citizenship, and where the courts will still work for us. In other cases, we’re going to have to be creative and nimble.”
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, called a meeting on Wednesday to open a “comprehensive three-pronged counteroffensive” against Mr. Trump’s blitz. Democrats believe the Trump administration erred badly by freezing grants relied on by many Americans, and will discuss contesting that move through legislation and a communications strategy.
“It’s a little bit like drinking from a fire hose,” Representative Gerald E. Connolly of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said of the pace of Mr. Trump’s moves. But he said that speed is likely to cause sloppiness and mistakes.
“They’re going to stumble,” Mr. Connolly said. “They’re going to screw up, and we’re going to pounce when they do. In their haste to remake the federal government, they’re going to make big, big mistakes.”
There was a similar feeling from advocacy groups trying to keep up with Mr. Trump’s sweeping immigration changes. Within hours of taking office, Mr. Trump sought to bar asylum for people arriving at the southern border, suspend the Refugee Admissions Program and declare migrant crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border a national emergency. The administration welcomed news crews to ride along with federal agents as they pursued undocumented immigrants.
“The Trump administration is issuing multiple overlapping orders in an effort to have us play Whac-a-Mole. But we are prepared to do that,” said Lee Gelernt, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represented the group in many of the highest-profile cases during the first Trump administration, including a challenge to the family separation policy.
During the first Trump administration, many on the right were still learning how to use the levers of government to achieve their goals. Now they have entered office ready for a full-scale blitz.
“They were not this prepared,” Mr. Walker said. “They had not done this much homework before getting into office. And importantly, they’ve been able to find acting folks in all of these agencies to get this stuff across the finish line, and that is a feat of personnel management that we just didn’t see in the first administration.”
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia and the chairwoman of new House subcommittee aiming to scale back government by working with Elon Musk’s government efficiency effort, said Democrats should get used to late-night policy moves that were unknown during the Biden administration.
Mr. Trump’s agenda was endorsed by the voters, Ms. Greene said, and he is working “as fast as humanly possible” to enact it.
“That requires staying up late at night,” she said.
On Mr. Bannon’s “War Room” podcast this weekend, his voice was filled with pride as he praised the pace of the new administration.
“If you look at the scale, the depth and the urgency, that comes from years of people working on this,” he said. “This didn’t happen overnight.”
He singled out Mr. Miller for praise, before encouraging the administration to push forward relentlessly.
“All pedal, no brake. Drive it. Drive it. Drive it,” he said, adding: “When you’ve got this kind of momentum, you do not stop, you do not think. You go, you go, you go.”
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