open the floodgates

Republicans whipping votes for a winner-take-all system believe that McDonnell's support would open the floodgates for other wavering legislators.

The French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said this week that the opposition parties would “open the floodgates of public spending wide at a time when we should be restoring our accounts.”

That seemed to open the floodgates for Garfield content that embraced odd humor native to the internet.

And when the battleground shifted to marriage, Johnson followed, backing Louisiana Amendment 1 in 2004, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman, against legal challenges that he warned would "open the floodgates to chaos and anarchy."

Such mass pardons would open the floodgates to future political violence by Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and any paramilitary group that supports Trump.