To me, by far the most appalling thing about this whole Steve Bannon situation is that he has been convicted of felonies, pardoned, convicted (and sentenced?) for another felony obstructing congress, and is under investigation or indictment at the state level for the crimes he was pardoned for, yet the man still roams free as can be with no constraints or limits on his ability to stir up coups on the internet. The coup attempt in Brazil is also a failure of our own justice system to hold people accountable. Simply, they are taking too long- it's been 2 years, and we've now had another election wherein the coup planners have been re-elected and put in more prominent power but yet have not been held accountable for what they did in 2020. This only encourages this kind of behavior at home and abroad.
Bannon (and Trump, among many others) is an example of what you get when there is no justice (because you are rich or because you are connected, or because you were just asking questions or just saying things).
In a sense, Bannon is right about the system needing to be torn down if it delivers us people like trump, Gosar, MTG, Kari Lake, Hannity, Tucker.... too many to name.
I would name some left side people, but the primary danger from them seems to be to pronoun usage and to the sensibilities of people who think that racism is a good thing, rather than to the institutions of government, the US debt and economy, the defense of UKR, etc.
If I had done the things that Trump or Bannon or a lot of these other people have done, my ass would be rotting in jail, if someone hadn't offed me.
There really needs to be a change in American law.
Once someone is convicted by a court their presumption of innocence ends and they should begin to serve their sentence while they appeal the conviction. No more rich and well connected white guys being released "pending their appeal" while they continue to grift and run their criminal enterprises.
Charlie, I loved your podcast today, especially the comments criticizing you and your "disrespectful" comments about the Republican House. Keep up the snarky work and let those bastards keep calling you out.
It's funny how these "America First" folks want to burn America to the ground. It's time, far past time actually, to play the game we're in and to take the fight to these people.
Nice going Charlie! And great post. I only wish that, in addition to calling out the Bannons of our world, there was more urgency in focusing on the backbone of all of this authoritarian resurgence: the billionaires who fund all of this and have done so for generations. That’s where the real cancer and rot springs from. Without the support of Koch, et al, almost none of the reach and influence of these fascistic people and causes could exist. It’s not just the Bannons who are getting a pass. It’s the who class of seditious, anti-democratic billionaire oligarchs!
Bannon and Trump are viruses riding the vector of technology into rage filled brains. They would be politically irrelevant without the free-for-all of modern social media. It's disgusting to see their poison infecting the minds of Brazilians.
Conspiracy and hate are the Republican Party. "Take down the globalists, groomers" blah blah blah
Congrats on getting under the skin of the Media Research [sic] Center. The truth drives these self-deceived folks crazy. They are a very real danger to our way of life; our best weapons against them are 1) the truth and speaking it relentlessly, and 2) laughter. Keep it up, Charlie!
I come here to ask the Bulwark hive mind a simple question: What motivates Bannon in his attempt to bring global chaos and disorder? Is it simple grift, or is there some deeper psychological/biographical factor we can point to that drives him?
In the case of Trump, his motivations seem pretty straightforward to me: He was never accepted by the landed gentry of the NYC/NJ area, beginning with his father. He is fueled by overwhelming insecurity, self-loathing, and spite, forever chasing external validation and attention.
Can someone remind me why many people believe the country can breathe a sigh of relief after the November election and think the results have put our democracy back on track?
No, the absolute worst did not happen but look what did happen…a puppet GOP Speaker at the mercy of the dangerous, lunatic fringe was elected, representatives who were aligned with the insurrection are now in charge of vital committees while other fringe and dangerous members are calling the shots.
The ability to hover over footnotes now is great. I just noticed it yesterday on The Triad. Very helpful with Charlie's annotated recap of the piece by the Rip van Winkles at Media Research Center, who apparently have been asleep for the last seven years.
The tension between freedom of speech and the consequences of freedom of speech in the modern media space is getting more and more serious, and we may be coming to a point where some reevaluation needs to occur. The idea that the antidote for harmful or inciteful and dangerous speech is just more speech is becoming increasingly untenable. In a world where you choose what speech you're exposed to (or algorithms choose it for you), and where critical thinking seems to be in short supply, or where critical thinking has just devolved into an anti-establishment reflex, this environment where anyone can say anything and reach millions of people all over the world becomes increasingly unviable.
A return to the Fairness Doctrine, in theory, may help, but in practice, I don't know how you implement it anymore. The problem is no longer simply radio and television. And even if it were enforceable, you could still see it abused. Remember when Hannity wasn't just Hannity, but Hannity and Colmes? Colmes would be trotted out as the ritualized whipping boy, the stupid liberal who didn't show the audience a different perspective so much as suffer abuse at the hands of Hannity to show how right the Conservatives were, and how wrong the Liberals were.
We live in a world of demagogues and lemmings right now, and if it continues, it will end badly. Free speech absolutism, as a guiding philosophy, seems to me incapable of fixing it. It just makes it worse.
As with so many in MAGA (I), Bannon likes to tell us what he is against (the Establishment) but not so much what he is for. But as with so many in MAGA (II), it is disingenuous how much he likes to portray himself as a reformer when, if you follow the pea in the shell game, it always comes back first and foremost to personal ambition. Bannon, like Trump and so many others, is a Career Opportunist. He seeks his niche, assesses what will garner him the most fame and fortune and media exposure, and exploits the weak links to climb the ladder. He pursues all of it without doing the dirty work himself, pulling the strings behind the scenes (and now, increasing, in plain sight) while relying on others to do the heavy lifting while he both takes and basks in so much of the credit.
It's easy to get mad at him for how he has gamed the system, but if true accountability is the goal, the rot must be traced back to the source. At heart Bannon is a parasite. He needs a host, and without his enablers he has no power. That comes from hyperpartisan media outlets, social media, and hero worship from adherents who gain both hope and momentum from him feeding off of them -- a most creepy and dangerous symbiotic relationship. There is more to the Bannon Mystique than just the man. Cut off his power sources and you render him irrelevant. Alas, that is much easier said than done. He knows that, and he takes full advantage of it.
There are several phrases I keep coming back to when it comes to the global right wing anocracy movement:
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." - Barry Goldwater
"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." - Ronald Reagan
"I think that one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around the camp fire, but are lousy in politics." - Newt Gingrich
"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." - Grover Norquest
You cannot have mainstream political figures within the GOP--to say nothing of its infotainment wing--saying this kind of stuff for 5 decades and then expect something like January 6th to never happen at some point in the future. The GOP has been trying to bring down the government since the 1980's and has been accepting of radicalism in its mission to do exactly that. So it's no wonder that when the government was getting ready to certify Joe Biden that MAGA wanted to "starve the beast" of the certification process, because government was the problem, not the solution. The GOP has long been sowing the seeds of antigovernment revolution and destroying the government as we know it.
lying, cheating, self-deluding, antisemitism , nazism , sedition, protecting anti-democratic efforts , underminding institutions....even a attempted coup...seems all fine with the GOP....but oh God, charlie sykes mentions "self-gelded" ..and the sparks fly, as tempers are aroused [sighs] ..the GOP has more than lost itself in its own unreality ..they have left gone from hogwarts to never-never land, and now move into the matrix :(
Steve Bannon is a much more rumpled, obese and dangerous version of Abbie Hoffman (who had a sense of humor). And Steve’s knuckledragers are much more dangerous than Abbie’s Yippies. “Revolution for the hell of it” now has a purpose: burn the whole thing to the ground!
Snap out of it, folks- this shit will continue for as long it’s allowed.
To me, by far the most appalling thing about this whole Steve Bannon situation is that he has been convicted of felonies, pardoned, convicted (and sentenced?) for another felony obstructing congress, and is under investigation or indictment at the state level for the crimes he was pardoned for, yet the man still roams free as can be with no constraints or limits on his ability to stir up coups on the internet. The coup attempt in Brazil is also a failure of our own justice system to hold people accountable. Simply, they are taking too long- it's been 2 years, and we've now had another election wherein the coup planners have been re-elected and put in more prominent power but yet have not been held accountable for what they did in 2020. This only encourages this kind of behavior at home and abroad.
Bannon (and Trump, among many others) is an example of what you get when there is no justice (because you are rich or because you are connected, or because you were just asking questions or just saying things).
In a sense, Bannon is right about the system needing to be torn down if it delivers us people like trump, Gosar, MTG, Kari Lake, Hannity, Tucker.... too many to name.
I would name some left side people, but the primary danger from them seems to be to pronoun usage and to the sensibilities of people who think that racism is a good thing, rather than to the institutions of government, the US debt and economy, the defense of UKR, etc.
If I had done the things that Trump or Bannon or a lot of these other people have done, my ass would be rotting in jail, if someone hadn't offed me.
There really needs to be a change in American law.
Once someone is convicted by a court their presumption of innocence ends and they should begin to serve their sentence while they appeal the conviction. No more rich and well connected white guys being released "pending their appeal" while they continue to grift and run their criminal enterprises.
Charlie, I loved your podcast today, especially the comments criticizing you and your "disrespectful" comments about the Republican House. Keep up the snarky work and let those bastards keep calling you out.
It's funny how these "America First" folks want to burn America to the ground. It's time, far past time actually, to play the game we're in and to take the fight to these people.
Nice going Charlie! And great post. I only wish that, in addition to calling out the Bannons of our world, there was more urgency in focusing on the backbone of all of this authoritarian resurgence: the billionaires who fund all of this and have done so for generations. That’s where the real cancer and rot springs from. Without the support of Koch, et al, almost none of the reach and influence of these fascistic people and causes could exist. It’s not just the Bannons who are getting a pass. It’s the who class of seditious, anti-democratic billionaire oligarchs!
Bannon and Trump are viruses riding the vector of technology into rage filled brains. They would be politically irrelevant without the free-for-all of modern social media. It's disgusting to see their poison infecting the minds of Brazilians.
Conspiracy and hate are the Republican Party. "Take down the globalists, groomers" blah blah blah
Congrats on getting under the skin of the Media Research [sic] Center. The truth drives these self-deceived folks crazy. They are a very real danger to our way of life; our best weapons against them are 1) the truth and speaking it relentlessly, and 2) laughter. Keep it up, Charlie!
I come here to ask the Bulwark hive mind a simple question: What motivates Bannon in his attempt to bring global chaos and disorder? Is it simple grift, or is there some deeper psychological/biographical factor we can point to that drives him?
In the case of Trump, his motivations seem pretty straightforward to me: He was never accepted by the landed gentry of the NYC/NJ area, beginning with his father. He is fueled by overwhelming insecurity, self-loathing, and spite, forever chasing external validation and attention.
But Bannon? I'm clueless...
B
Can someone remind me why many people believe the country can breathe a sigh of relief after the November election and think the results have put our democracy back on track?
No, the absolute worst did not happen but look what did happen…a puppet GOP Speaker at the mercy of the dangerous, lunatic fringe was elected, representatives who were aligned with the insurrection are now in charge of vital committees while other fringe and dangerous members are calling the shots.
How is this putting democracy back on track?
The ability to hover over footnotes now is great. I just noticed it yesterday on The Triad. Very helpful with Charlie's annotated recap of the piece by the Rip van Winkles at Media Research Center, who apparently have been asleep for the last seven years.
The tension between freedom of speech and the consequences of freedom of speech in the modern media space is getting more and more serious, and we may be coming to a point where some reevaluation needs to occur. The idea that the antidote for harmful or inciteful and dangerous speech is just more speech is becoming increasingly untenable. In a world where you choose what speech you're exposed to (or algorithms choose it for you), and where critical thinking seems to be in short supply, or where critical thinking has just devolved into an anti-establishment reflex, this environment where anyone can say anything and reach millions of people all over the world becomes increasingly unviable.
A return to the Fairness Doctrine, in theory, may help, but in practice, I don't know how you implement it anymore. The problem is no longer simply radio and television. And even if it were enforceable, you could still see it abused. Remember when Hannity wasn't just Hannity, but Hannity and Colmes? Colmes would be trotted out as the ritualized whipping boy, the stupid liberal who didn't show the audience a different perspective so much as suffer abuse at the hands of Hannity to show how right the Conservatives were, and how wrong the Liberals were.
We live in a world of demagogues and lemmings right now, and if it continues, it will end badly. Free speech absolutism, as a guiding philosophy, seems to me incapable of fixing it. It just makes it worse.
As with so many in MAGA (I), Bannon likes to tell us what he is against (the Establishment) but not so much what he is for. But as with so many in MAGA (II), it is disingenuous how much he likes to portray himself as a reformer when, if you follow the pea in the shell game, it always comes back first and foremost to personal ambition. Bannon, like Trump and so many others, is a Career Opportunist. He seeks his niche, assesses what will garner him the most fame and fortune and media exposure, and exploits the weak links to climb the ladder. He pursues all of it without doing the dirty work himself, pulling the strings behind the scenes (and now, increasing, in plain sight) while relying on others to do the heavy lifting while he both takes and basks in so much of the credit.
It's easy to get mad at him for how he has gamed the system, but if true accountability is the goal, the rot must be traced back to the source. At heart Bannon is a parasite. He needs a host, and without his enablers he has no power. That comes from hyperpartisan media outlets, social media, and hero worship from adherents who gain both hope and momentum from him feeding off of them -- a most creepy and dangerous symbiotic relationship. There is more to the Bannon Mystique than just the man. Cut off his power sources and you render him irrelevant. Alas, that is much easier said than done. He knows that, and he takes full advantage of it.
There are several phrases I keep coming back to when it comes to the global right wing anocracy movement:
"Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." - Barry Goldwater
"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." - Ronald Reagan
"I think that one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around the camp fire, but are lousy in politics." - Newt Gingrich
"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." - Grover Norquest
You cannot have mainstream political figures within the GOP--to say nothing of its infotainment wing--saying this kind of stuff for 5 decades and then expect something like January 6th to never happen at some point in the future. The GOP has been trying to bring down the government since the 1980's and has been accepting of radicalism in its mission to do exactly that. So it's no wonder that when the government was getting ready to certify Joe Biden that MAGA wanted to "starve the beast" of the certification process, because government was the problem, not the solution. The GOP has long been sowing the seeds of antigovernment revolution and destroying the government as we know it.
lying, cheating, self-deluding, antisemitism , nazism , sedition, protecting anti-democratic efforts , underminding institutions....even a attempted coup...seems all fine with the GOP....but oh God, charlie sykes mentions "self-gelded" ..and the sparks fly, as tempers are aroused [sighs] ..the GOP has more than lost itself in its own unreality ..they have left gone from hogwarts to never-never land, and now move into the matrix :(
Steve Bannon is a much more rumpled, obese and dangerous version of Abbie Hoffman (who had a sense of humor). And Steve’s knuckledragers are much more dangerous than Abbie’s Yippies. “Revolution for the hell of it” now has a purpose: burn the whole thing to the ground!
Snap out of it, folks- this shit will continue for as long it’s allowed.
Can Bannon and Santos be extradited to Brazil together to save on airfare?