In 2018, President Trump’s infamous former chief strategist Steve Bannon said that “Democrats don’t matter; the real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with s---.”

Trump’s “flood-the-zone” strategy is working right now about as well as Bannon could have ever imagined. A media so flooded with breaking news faces the prospect of something like reporting on a game of Whack-a-Mole. By design, many of Trump’s significant pronouncements and questionable activities are drowning under layers of excrement, whereas traditionally they would have generated headlines.

Trump’s extreme conflicts of interest are one such story. It is completely lost on the public that Trump is enriching himself daily with millions — potentially even billions — of dollars through his vast, diverse, growing domestic and international business empire.

And the 47th president is only just getting started.

Trump is the first president to own a controlling stake in a publicly traded company. Trump Media and Technology Group (symbol DJT) debuted on NASDAQ in March. Its home page exclaims, “A Uniting Force For Freedom of Expression — No Political Discrimination, Canceling Cancel Culture, Standing Up to Big Tech and Follow the TRUTH.”

Barron’s, a respected financial news source, reported on Inauguration Day that this company “is largely a cipher with scant disclosures, hardly any revenue, and no coverage on Wall Street. The stock has meme-like qualities, trading on presidential utterances and spikes in volume that vanish as quickly as they arise.”

Not only is Trump Media a shaky investment, but it represents a political-financial alternative universe that has become “normalized.” Consider that the president owns approximately

© The Hill