Re: Pete. So sorry for the loss of your best friend. I was really touched listening to your description of your morning routine with Pete, meeting him at the top of the stairs, cuddling, and then guiding him down. We develop these rituals with our pets without even realizing that that's what they are. When our pets leave us, as they must, the absence of those routines leaves a painful, blank space in our lives. It sounds like he had a great life with you.
Bannon is the guy yelling "fire" in the movie theater but nothing happens to him. Now he's telling Barr "we're coming for you, bro!" This tub of rancid lard is going to get someone killed. Just evil.
Could someone give me an explanation or lead me where I could find an explanation for the millions of people who see these dangerous clowns and say, "I'm with you". Not the politicians who have their own motivations that are all about power. But the millions who literally cannot see what is staring them in the face. What brings them to this delusional state? What is the common denominator among them? Is it something in the way they were brought up? To submit/admire authoritarians? Have they all experienced trauma, see themselves as victims, and look for a "savior"? How come so many people truly believe and act on the messages from people like Bannon, Guiliani, and Trump? I struggle to understand. Are we living in another age of the Authoritarian Personality? I would think that understanding the motives would help Democrats couch their message in a way that would resonate with these folks, if that is even possible.
I actually recommend folks take a gander at that Coulter piece. I didn't realize how thoroughly she had reversed herself on Trump, although her rationale for doing so largely seems to be that he wasn't as cruel in his presidency as he promised to be during his campaign. She really takes Trump to task, though, for fleecing the "deplorables."
There are also 29 comments, as of now, on that article. Those are also worth taking a look at. The commenters are very siloed, and seem to continue to throw out talking points that have been debunked since even before the election, like "when I went to bed, Trump was up, then when I woke up, he wasn't. How is that possible, unless they stole it?" These are people who have learned nothing in 2 years.
Sane, decent people KNOW how evil people like Bannon are. We know the Republicans have devolved into a cult and we would like to ensure Trump and his toxic ilk have no access to power ever again. However, the loudest Dem voices prefer to criticize Biden and argue over words like Latinx rather than focus on the existential threats facing us.
The January 6 committee is doing good work but from where I live in flyover country, the Dems have so bungled the messaging on everything, that Trump's obvious guilt doesn't matter. I am beyond despair at this point.
The problem with Bannon is he's not the cause of the sickness on the right, he's a symptom of it. We keep saying Bannon or Miller or Trump triggered this sickness, but they didn't, they merely latched onto what was already there. We're kidding ourselves if we think anything different
Yes, Jennifer Senior's piece on Bannon is stellar work, but at times it lapses into a misguided bemusement at the man. He would be a joke, except for the violence. Chris Wylie, the former programmer at Cambridge Analytica recalls in his book, Mindfuck, a meeting in which Bannon was gleeful about the ability for microprofiling and targeted messaging - in part using the Facebook data on Amercians, if I recall correctly - to engage and enrage young, mainly white, men. This was not long before Charlottesville.
I'm not sure if the best thing or worst thing about Bannon is that there's no agenda; the violence is the point. This from a failed media and finance guy who's otherwise unemployable and on his final, hail Mary career in endless fundraising and incitement. As Clark Gable put it, talking about corraling wild mustangs no one wanted anymore in The Misfits, it beats wages. Hitler wasn't going anywhere as an architect, either.
Bannon is a clear danger to himself and others. That he hasn't been detained and institutionalized by now speaks to the limitations of democracy.
The Bannons of the world, whether on Radio or Podcasts have learned from Religion: tell a story over and over. Tell the same basic story to reassure the faithful when they waver. The story may be evil, but the process and results are very similar.
On Bannon and what could perhaps be called "Bannonism":
I got to thinking & researching a bit the other day about what takes people into a Leninist "burn it all down" way of thinking, and the best I can come up with is this:
Vertical inequality--which is to say that those with merit attain heightened status--can eventually translate to *horizontal* inequality--but not by race, by *economic class*. If the folks who make it to the top are then able to effectively pull the economic ladder up from under them by corrupting the "meritocracy" into ensuring that even if their kids are mediocre at best, they still inherit the best schools, the best universities, the best jobs, the most financially-successful marriages, and then wash, rinse, and repeat on the next generation with their grandkids, then the system starts to look pretty rigged for anyone not upper middle class or better by marriage (there are often two post-college incomes under a single upper-middle class household or higher today). If the economy is rigged, and the school system is rigged, and the universities are rigged, and the job market is rigged, then OF COURSE people excluded from that system-rigging are going to then say that the election is rigged when their candidate loses. Everything else in the country is rigged, so why *wouldn't* the elections be rigged?
Bannon is a man who has seen the system rigged from the inside (Goldman, Navy officer corps, Hollywood, government), and has mostly benefitted from his position in that system, but he is empathetic to the (mostly non-college men) who are excluded from that rigged system and that is who he is speaking to. He sees the immorality in the economy and across national institutes, he sees the post-college liberal class being at the heart of that institutional corruption, and he sees them not doing anything to change the economic situation--in fact, they'll bitch about billionaires concentrating wealth while they're doing the same damned thing in the upper middle class tier of the economy--and as a result, he has encouraged his audience to burn down the system since those who are benefiting from it the most seem to be decadently indifferent to the people they are locking out economically. If there is no economic fairness in society, it becomes a system of exploitation, and on a long enough timeline, the people on the exploited end are going to find that all their peaceful options for changing those corrupted institutes are coming up short, and that's when they move to the more violent ones.
I'm reminded of two quotes here, one by JFK and the other by Teddy Roosevelt:
"When you make peaceful change impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable."
"Wars are often better than certain kinds of peace."
The Gableman incident has not gotten nearly as much coverage here in Wisconsin as is warranted, considering what a profound impact on the state he had as a Supreme Court justice in helping to install and legitimize the ham-handed, divisive GOP agenda. It is a useful reminder of what stands to happen if they regain the governor's office in November and/or are reelected with a supermajority in the legislature that can override a Democratic governor's veto. Scott Walker 2.0 is on the horizon, and it is hungry for revenge against anyone and anything that stood or stands in its way.
Sadly, the lack of coverage seems to reflect the general perspective of the citizens, who don't appear to give a damn who is in charge, and what they do, as long as our gas prices go down, our investment portfolio bounces back up, and tax cuts are on the agenda. Divide-and-conquer policies, Act 10, hyperpartisan redistricting, Foxconn, now the taxpayer-funded Gableman sham of an investigation ... the list goes on and on of willful and toxic GOP malfeasance since 2010 that stands to have no consequences for the individuals directly involved. Rinse and repeat elsewhere.
We learn from the past only if people choose to pay attention to it. How ironic it may be that a full GOP takeover will happen less because of a positive, productive agenda on their part -- owning the Libs and making them suffer is not to be confused with actual public policy -- and more because of voter indifference to the one source of power they actually have -- the ballot box -- in what looks to be a low turnout year on the left. Is the GOP really seizing power? Or are we letting them take it because not enough of us are interested enough to get involved and make our voice heard against their self-serving grievance agenda? One is bad. The other is worse. In the end we get what we settle for, as choices beget consequences. As someone once said: "Don't boo. Vote." Vote as if your life depends on it. For some that may well be the case.
1.) I too am sorry to hear about Pete's passing. Losing a person as meaningful to you as your best friend is one of the hardest things anybody can experience; whether they be two-legged or four.
2.) Love you and this newsletter, but please STOP saying that people like Bannon have "no coherent agenda beyond destruction". I constantly hear people say that Bannon and others in the GOP apparatus (Tucker, Hawley, and Cruz, etc.) "believe in nothing" or are all simple nihilists. That is very, VERY much untrue. Yes, they do not believe in "the rules of the road" such as honesty, dignity, and fair play. It is true that they do not believe in the fundamental goals and values of our liberal, democratic republic. Yes, they deploy nihilistic means for power and influence. But they absolutely have goals and values which they hold dear to their core.
They believe with everything in them that their christianity, straightness, and/or whiteness make them superior to other people. They believe that these qualities entitle them and their brothers and sisters-in-arms to a near monopoly on the powers of state and cultural mores. They believe that their values must be upheld above those of others and therefore critical rules, ethics, and norms for which democracy requires in its citizenry - especially its leaders - are optional at best and menaces at worst. It would be far less dangerous if all they cared about was power or fame or wealth in a more generalized form. If that were the case MSNBC could just offer Bannon twice his current salary and he'd be willing to put on a pussy hat and say "birthing people". But he would not do that; none of them would do that, not for all the money in the world.
Why? Because they are true believers with agendas that could not be built on anything less than absolute faith. They may not yet have figured out all the nuances and mechanics of what this new version of government and society look like, but they know that it must be carried out by white men with crosses on their lapels. And above all, it must not contain a single hosting of Drag Queen Story Hour anywhere in this land.
Very sorry about the loss of Pete. It sounded like he had a great dog life, which I hope brings you some comfort. Appreciate your working through the loss because I look forward to the Bulwark's content every day.
Hi Charlie. GREAT interview with Jennifer Senior. TWO points from a non-American. First, understandably, all of the excellent conversations of the Bulwark team - and your listeners - treat the threat to democracy as an American problem. It is NOT. What is happening in America threatens the world, most especially Canada. A thriving, democratic Canada in the face of a Donald Trump Jr. as President is not conceivable. Too and related, almost all democracies are fractured as you are, though perhaps yet not to the same degree, as our Trucker Convoy showed. The second point is that, as with the very, very dangerous Bannon, there is a running current in your programming of a purposeful, planned effort on the part of the right to essentially seize governance from those they see as the 'other'. I agree, there is, except that it is systemic and global. So what are we doing about it? I appreciate that your warnings are to your listeners - voters - and influencers/legislators, who of course need to take heed and take action. But is that all that we can do - continue to rely on the people and institutions that got use here? The threat to democracy is global and systemic. It needs to be addressed that way. Whoever prevails will decide how we deal with all of the other pressing issues of the day, from climate change and racial inequity to the economy. I argue it's time for a Plan B for humanity. Would love your - or anybody's - thoughts.
Re: Pete. So sorry for the loss of your best friend. I was really touched listening to your description of your morning routine with Pete, meeting him at the top of the stairs, cuddling, and then guiding him down. We develop these rituals with our pets without even realizing that that's what they are. When our pets leave us, as they must, the absence of those routines leaves a painful, blank space in our lives. It sounds like he had a great life with you.
Bannon is the guy yelling "fire" in the movie theater but nothing happens to him. Now he's telling Barr "we're coming for you, bro!" This tub of rancid lard is going to get someone killed. Just evil.
Could someone give me an explanation or lead me where I could find an explanation for the millions of people who see these dangerous clowns and say, "I'm with you". Not the politicians who have their own motivations that are all about power. But the millions who literally cannot see what is staring them in the face. What brings them to this delusional state? What is the common denominator among them? Is it something in the way they were brought up? To submit/admire authoritarians? Have they all experienced trauma, see themselves as victims, and look for a "savior"? How come so many people truly believe and act on the messages from people like Bannon, Guiliani, and Trump? I struggle to understand. Are we living in another age of the Authoritarian Personality? I would think that understanding the motives would help Democrats couch their message in a way that would resonate with these folks, if that is even possible.
I actually recommend folks take a gander at that Coulter piece. I didn't realize how thoroughly she had reversed herself on Trump, although her rationale for doing so largely seems to be that he wasn't as cruel in his presidency as he promised to be during his campaign. She really takes Trump to task, though, for fleecing the "deplorables."
There are also 29 comments, as of now, on that article. Those are also worth taking a look at. The commenters are very siloed, and seem to continue to throw out talking points that have been debunked since even before the election, like "when I went to bed, Trump was up, then when I woke up, he wasn't. How is that possible, unless they stole it?" These are people who have learned nothing in 2 years.
Sane, decent people KNOW how evil people like Bannon are. We know the Republicans have devolved into a cult and we would like to ensure Trump and his toxic ilk have no access to power ever again. However, the loudest Dem voices prefer to criticize Biden and argue over words like Latinx rather than focus on the existential threats facing us.
The January 6 committee is doing good work but from where I live in flyover country, the Dems have so bungled the messaging on everything, that Trump's obvious guilt doesn't matter. I am beyond despair at this point.
The problem with Bannon is he's not the cause of the sickness on the right, he's a symptom of it. We keep saying Bannon or Miller or Trump triggered this sickness, but they didn't, they merely latched onto what was already there. We're kidding ourselves if we think anything different
Yes, Jennifer Senior's piece on Bannon is stellar work, but at times it lapses into a misguided bemusement at the man. He would be a joke, except for the violence. Chris Wylie, the former programmer at Cambridge Analytica recalls in his book, Mindfuck, a meeting in which Bannon was gleeful about the ability for microprofiling and targeted messaging - in part using the Facebook data on Amercians, if I recall correctly - to engage and enrage young, mainly white, men. This was not long before Charlottesville.
I'm not sure if the best thing or worst thing about Bannon is that there's no agenda; the violence is the point. This from a failed media and finance guy who's otherwise unemployable and on his final, hail Mary career in endless fundraising and incitement. As Clark Gable put it, talking about corraling wild mustangs no one wanted anymore in The Misfits, it beats wages. Hitler wasn't going anywhere as an architect, either.
Bannon is a clear danger to himself and others. That he hasn't been detained and institutionalized by now speaks to the limitations of democracy.
The Bannons of the world, whether on Radio or Podcasts have learned from Religion: tell a story over and over. Tell the same basic story to reassure the faithful when they waver. The story may be evil, but the process and results are very similar.
On Bannon and what could perhaps be called "Bannonism":
I got to thinking & researching a bit the other day about what takes people into a Leninist "burn it all down" way of thinking, and the best I can come up with is this:
Vertical inequality--which is to say that those with merit attain heightened status--can eventually translate to *horizontal* inequality--but not by race, by *economic class*. If the folks who make it to the top are then able to effectively pull the economic ladder up from under them by corrupting the "meritocracy" into ensuring that even if their kids are mediocre at best, they still inherit the best schools, the best universities, the best jobs, the most financially-successful marriages, and then wash, rinse, and repeat on the next generation with their grandkids, then the system starts to look pretty rigged for anyone not upper middle class or better by marriage (there are often two post-college incomes under a single upper-middle class household or higher today). If the economy is rigged, and the school system is rigged, and the universities are rigged, and the job market is rigged, then OF COURSE people excluded from that system-rigging are going to then say that the election is rigged when their candidate loses. Everything else in the country is rigged, so why *wouldn't* the elections be rigged?
Bannon is a man who has seen the system rigged from the inside (Goldman, Navy officer corps, Hollywood, government), and has mostly benefitted from his position in that system, but he is empathetic to the (mostly non-college men) who are excluded from that rigged system and that is who he is speaking to. He sees the immorality in the economy and across national institutes, he sees the post-college liberal class being at the heart of that institutional corruption, and he sees them not doing anything to change the economic situation--in fact, they'll bitch about billionaires concentrating wealth while they're doing the same damned thing in the upper middle class tier of the economy--and as a result, he has encouraged his audience to burn down the system since those who are benefiting from it the most seem to be decadently indifferent to the people they are locking out economically. If there is no economic fairness in society, it becomes a system of exploitation, and on a long enough timeline, the people on the exploited end are going to find that all their peaceful options for changing those corrupted institutes are coming up short, and that's when they move to the more violent ones.
I'm reminded of two quotes here, one by JFK and the other by Teddy Roosevelt:
"When you make peaceful change impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable."
"Wars are often better than certain kinds of peace."
The Gableman incident has not gotten nearly as much coverage here in Wisconsin as is warranted, considering what a profound impact on the state he had as a Supreme Court justice in helping to install and legitimize the ham-handed, divisive GOP agenda. It is a useful reminder of what stands to happen if they regain the governor's office in November and/or are reelected with a supermajority in the legislature that can override a Democratic governor's veto. Scott Walker 2.0 is on the horizon, and it is hungry for revenge against anyone and anything that stood or stands in its way.
Sadly, the lack of coverage seems to reflect the general perspective of the citizens, who don't appear to give a damn who is in charge, and what they do, as long as our gas prices go down, our investment portfolio bounces back up, and tax cuts are on the agenda. Divide-and-conquer policies, Act 10, hyperpartisan redistricting, Foxconn, now the taxpayer-funded Gableman sham of an investigation ... the list goes on and on of willful and toxic GOP malfeasance since 2010 that stands to have no consequences for the individuals directly involved. Rinse and repeat elsewhere.
We learn from the past only if people choose to pay attention to it. How ironic it may be that a full GOP takeover will happen less because of a positive, productive agenda on their part -- owning the Libs and making them suffer is not to be confused with actual public policy -- and more because of voter indifference to the one source of power they actually have -- the ballot box -- in what looks to be a low turnout year on the left. Is the GOP really seizing power? Or are we letting them take it because not enough of us are interested enough to get involved and make our voice heard against their self-serving grievance agenda? One is bad. The other is worse. In the end we get what we settle for, as choices beget consequences. As someone once said: "Don't boo. Vote." Vote as if your life depends on it. For some that may well be the case.
Charlie, a couple of things:
1.) I too am sorry to hear about Pete's passing. Losing a person as meaningful to you as your best friend is one of the hardest things anybody can experience; whether they be two-legged or four.
2.) Love you and this newsletter, but please STOP saying that people like Bannon have "no coherent agenda beyond destruction". I constantly hear people say that Bannon and others in the GOP apparatus (Tucker, Hawley, and Cruz, etc.) "believe in nothing" or are all simple nihilists. That is very, VERY much untrue. Yes, they do not believe in "the rules of the road" such as honesty, dignity, and fair play. It is true that they do not believe in the fundamental goals and values of our liberal, democratic republic. Yes, they deploy nihilistic means for power and influence. But they absolutely have goals and values which they hold dear to their core.
They believe with everything in them that their christianity, straightness, and/or whiteness make them superior to other people. They believe that these qualities entitle them and their brothers and sisters-in-arms to a near monopoly on the powers of state and cultural mores. They believe that their values must be upheld above those of others and therefore critical rules, ethics, and norms for which democracy requires in its citizenry - especially its leaders - are optional at best and menaces at worst. It would be far less dangerous if all they cared about was power or fame or wealth in a more generalized form. If that were the case MSNBC could just offer Bannon twice his current salary and he'd be willing to put on a pussy hat and say "birthing people". But he would not do that; none of them would do that, not for all the money in the world.
Why? Because they are true believers with agendas that could not be built on anything less than absolute faith. They may not yet have figured out all the nuances and mechanics of what this new version of government and society look like, but they know that it must be carried out by white men with crosses on their lapels. And above all, it must not contain a single hosting of Drag Queen Story Hour anywhere in this land.
Bannon is an Underpants Gnome. Step 1: burn it all down. Step 2: ??? Step 3: the new perfect society, with him in charge.
I wonder what the parallel universe is like where Republicans took Trump up on his last, greatest opportunity to get off his train on January 6.
When Ann Coulter says the truth…
Very sorry about the loss of Pete. It sounded like he had a great dog life, which I hope brings you some comfort. Appreciate your working through the loss because I look forward to the Bulwark's content every day.
Hi Charlie. GREAT interview with Jennifer Senior. TWO points from a non-American. First, understandably, all of the excellent conversations of the Bulwark team - and your listeners - treat the threat to democracy as an American problem. It is NOT. What is happening in America threatens the world, most especially Canada. A thriving, democratic Canada in the face of a Donald Trump Jr. as President is not conceivable. Too and related, almost all democracies are fractured as you are, though perhaps yet not to the same degree, as our Trucker Convoy showed. The second point is that, as with the very, very dangerous Bannon, there is a running current in your programming of a purposeful, planned effort on the part of the right to essentially seize governance from those they see as the 'other'. I agree, there is, except that it is systemic and global. So what are we doing about it? I appreciate that your warnings are to your listeners - voters - and influencers/legislators, who of course need to take heed and take action. But is that all that we can do - continue to rely on the people and institutions that got use here? The threat to democracy is global and systemic. It needs to be addressed that way. Whoever prevails will decide how we deal with all of the other pressing issues of the day, from climate change and racial inequity to the economy. I argue it's time for a Plan B for humanity. Would love your - or anybody's - thoughts.
https://bobwestrope.substack.com/p/do-you-think-the-world-needs-a-plan