I think my zone is now officially flooded.

I don't quite know how else to put it, really. Trying to keep up with political events when every headline seems like it could be just as easily have read "More Chaos Ensues" is a downright daunting task. Donald Trump's "flood the zone" strategy is tough enough to keep up with as it is, but at this point it is almost impossible to comment intelligently about any of the most impactful stories of the day because of the constant contradictions and incoherence emanating from the White House.

Case in point is all the questions hanging over the negotiations between America and Iran. The two weeks of the announced ceasefire will end tomorrow... or maybe Wednesday (it is unclear). The U.S. will be sending the vice president to Pakistan to engage in high-level talks... or maybe not; he might not actually go. It depends on who you ask and who you believe. Iran may not even show up to the talks... or maybe they will. That's unclear too. We're either very close to an agreement to end the war... or we're miles apart on even the basics. There is no clear picture about any of it -- it is all seat-of-the-pants planning and execution.

The Strait of Hormuz was "open to all"... until it was closed again and cargo ships were being fired upon by Iranian forces. Donald Trump is either itching to bomb all the power plants and bridges in Iran... or he's just bluffing and is desperate to find a way out of the mess he has created. The price of oil is down... oh, wait a minute, it's shooting back up again.

Chaos ensues.

Speaking of the price of oil, gasoline prices at the pump in America won't fall below $3 a gallon until next year... or they may be down to that within a couple of months. This contradiction was perhaps the most jarring, since it was a member of Trump's cabinet who made that long-term call, before the White House insisted that things will return to normal almost immediately after the war is wrapped up.

Things have gotten so chaotic and the zone so flooded that the news that a third member of Trump's cabinet is stepping down in disgrace was barely a blip in the headlines today. Normally a story like this would be front-page news and crowd everything else out of the spotlight, but in these chaotic times its just a footnote, or a sideshow.

And all of this is just focusing on the things that really matter -- this is after filtering out all the nonsense from the Trumpian firehose of idiocy that continues to spew unabated (ignoring distractions like: "Trump picks fight with the Pope," and: "F.B.I. director sues magazine over story of his drunken incompetence," in other words).

I can take some comfort in at least knowing that I'm not alone in being bowled over by all of the chaos. Donald Trump's job approval rating continues to head downward as he starts to lose even some of his faithful supporters. Whether it is disapproval over the war, over inflation, over high gas prices, over the image of Trump-as-Jesus, or over any number of other things (there are so many to choose from), Trump has now slid in the polls to his lowest ratings of his second term. The NBC Decision Desk just released a poll showing Trump at only 37 percent job approval, with 63 percent disapproval. That is pretty close to 2-to-1 against. From the story: "Two-thirds of respondents also disapproved of Trump's handling of inflation and the Iran conflict.... And broadly, one-third of Americans believe the country is on the right track while two-thirds believe it is on the wrong track -- the most pessimistic outlook in Decision Desk polling since Trump retook office last year."

The only sliver lining to all of this chaos is that Democrats' chances in the midterm elections (which are now less than seven months away) now seem pretty excellent. Democrats are now not just hoping to take back control of the House of Representatives but are also getting increasingly bullish on their chances of taking back the Senate as well (something which only a few months ago seemed preposterously out of reach). This will be the first chance most voters get to weigh in on what Donald Trump has been doing, and plenty of them are angry and determined to demonstrate their disapproval.

But let's get back to the big picture -- I sat down today intending to analyze the chances for success of the upcoming talks in Pakistan, but at this point that seems like a fool's errand. Trump's negotiating team consists of a real estate developer, his son-in-law, and JD Vance -- none of whom have any diplomatic experience (or in-depth knowledge of nuclear science, which could be critical in these negotiations). Secretary of State Marco Rubio is nowhere to be seen.

Trump's bluster (if it can be believed, which is as always a rather large open question) seems to indicate that he wants the Iranians to fully surrender their long-held positions, give America everything we want, and (oh by the way) please reopen the Strait of Hormuz too. The Iranians don't seem particularly inclined to follow this script, however. They've got to at least get some face-saving measures that they can spin as a big victory for their own domestic audience -- a basic negotiating stance that Trump seems completely oblivious to.

No matter how many times he claims the contrary, Trump (and Israel) did not achieve one of the main objectives of this war. The regime in Iran has not changed. The people did not rise up and overthrow their theocratic government. The military is still largely in control of everything.

How many of the other war goals Trump initially had are going to wind up being unmet is the biggest question about the talks. Will Iran continue to fund proxies throughout the region (Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, etc.), or will they agree to abandon them? Will Iran continue (after rebuilding their infrastructure) to manufacture missiles and drones in large numbers? And the biggest question of all: will the Iranians give up the 970 pounds of highly-enriched uranium they still have and will they agree to never again enrich uranium above the low levels needed for nuclear power plants? This is the biggest sticking point for Iran, so it's hard to see them completely capitulating on the issue (no matter how much Trump wants them to).

The laughable thing in all of this is that what will be touted as the biggest win for America will merely be a return to the status quo ante -- in other words, it could easily have been achieved by not starting the war in the first place. Iran now knows precisely how much leverage it has over the entire rest of the planet due to their geographical position on the Strait of Hormuz. They know that very cheap munitions can hold the entire world at bay -- a cost/benefit ratio that it staggering. The low cost of some mines, some missiles, some small boats, and some drones can achieve something that all the multimillion-dollar high-tech weapons systems of the U.S. cannot prevent. So yes, whenever the war ends the Strait will be reopened. Iran may or may not charge a "toll" (read: extortion money) to every ship travelling through it, but at least it will be safe to transit.

Which, as mentioned, is precisely where we all started from. The Strait was open, before the war began. Getting back to that point is no great achievement, to put this another way. But it will be presented as a huge military victory by Trump, that much is certain (even if nothing else is right now).

It is impossible to predict what is going to happen over the next two days. I wouldn't bet on any outcome, at this point. I think the chances of talks actually happening is slightly greater than them not happening, but this is just a gut feeling based on absolutely nothing tangible. Before all the chaos of the past few days, I would have also said that the chances of the ceasefire being extended -- even for a short period of time, perhaps another week -- were also better than 50-50, but at this point I have no idea whether that is correct or not. At this point, a solid win would be if the Strait is reopened and America stops their blockade of Iranian ports, while all the other issues continue to be negotiated. That would give both sides something to brag about while they worked the other issues out. But I have no idea whether that's even possible, at this point.

So you'll have to forgive the discombobulated nature of this column today. My zone is now flooded. More chaos will ensue, that seems about the only rock-solid prediction I can make. Maybe things will be clearer tomorrow. Then again, maybe they won't. That's the best I can do, for now.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant