Trump's Psy-Op Strategy Explained Using the Panama Canal

Awareness keeps us sane in chaos.

The Panama Canal

It didn’t take long for Donald Trump to get to it.

Just a few minutes.

Seconds after calling himself a "peacemaker" and a "unifier" during his inauguration speech, Trump quickly pivoted to threatening allies and the world. But it wasn’t the usual suspects. He barely spoke about China, Mexico, or even Europe—his favorite punching bag during his first term. Instead, he mentioned Panama.

Six times.

Not once. Not twice. But six freaking times.

No other country right now offers Trump more psy-op benefits than Panama. And he’s going to milk it to the last drop. It is the most winnable of all the topics on his table. Unless the opposition figures out why Trump is after the Panama Canal, they’ll be playing catch-up all the way to the end.

Trump’s psychological operations—the ones that have turned him into the Pied Piper of the United States—have certain critical ingredients. If you understand those ingredients and the order in which they’re built, you can mount countermeasures.

The Right Amount of Crazy

This is the baseline requirement for any project selection. If you bring Trump ten different projects to pick from, he will first order them by the level of shock it can deliver to the system and the topic’s ability to control the media cycle. If it can control national media, great. If it can control international media, even better.

Panama beautifully ticked both the boxes for Donald Trump. The mainstream media did not even think Panama Canal existed, but suddenly it was all over the headlines for weeks after Trump injected them into his daily musings. His threat of invasion, raised the level of crazy to the next level, waking up the international media into action. Even news channels in Asia started doing segments on Panama Canal.

Trump needs the crazy because it allows him to suck all media oxygen towards him.

There must be a modicum of truth