Steve Bannon
In a revealing 2013 interview with The Daily Beast, US President Donald Trump’s Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor, Steve Bannon, gives insight into his long-term goals:
He never called himself a “populist” or an “American nationalist,” as so many think of him today. “I’m a Leninist,” Bannon proudly proclaimed. Shocked, I asked him what he meant.
“Lenin,” he answered, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Bannon was employing Lenin’s strategy for Tea Party populist goals. He included in that group the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as the traditional conservative press…
His goal was to bring down the entire establishment including the leaders of the Republican Party in Congress.
The relationship between Donald Trump and Steve Bannon is an unholy alliance, in which the shared goal is the destruction of institutions, and the undermining of the authority of traditional agents of governance and administration in the US. Their actions thus far have led to the country to the brink of a constitutional crisis, provoked by the refusal of the executive to honour the rule of law when Customs and Border Protection agents refused lawyers access to illegally detained travellers from Trump’s List of Seven countries, in spite of a federal judge determining that they must be permitted to enter the US.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement undertaking to both obey the President’s Executive Orders, and judicial orders, which led to reminders that employees of the agency swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, not to support the President of the day.
After less than a week, Bannon and Trump have thrown the country into chaos, using executive orders that have bypassed all consultation with relevant departments.
Trump has now granted Bannon regular access to meetings of the National Security Council, where matters of security are discussed at the highest level. Trump has ousted generals from their regular seats on the Council.
Bannon could not be in a better position to “bring everything crashing down” and not only in the US. The global repercussions of Trump’s Muslim travel ban have included causing Emirates to entirely reschedule its staffing to avoid employees from Trump’s List of Seven arriving as flight crew on US-bound aircraft, and being forbidden to enter the country for their regular stop overs.
Far more serious are the hundreds of stories emerging of the distress and confusion faced by those arriving in the US and being detained, and those being refused carriage to the US, separating them from homes, families and work. Dual citizens in many western countries have been affected by the bans. Bannon is causing chaos far beyond the shores of the US, and it’s taken less than a week.
Today in Australia Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, and former Immigration Minister Scott Morrison all supported Trump’s actions against Muslims, with Turnbull suggesting that Trump is emulating Australian policies on border protection, and Morrison claiming Trump is following Australia’s lead in these matters. Australia’s politicians, along with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, stand out in their support of Trump in an otherwise global condemnation of the President’s actions.
The desire to “bring everything crashing down” is an apocalyptic fantasy that in psychoanalytic terms is an expression of narcissistic rage. It resembles the tantrums of young children when they are thwarted and hurt. It continues into adulthood in those who have been unable to mature beyond the desire to destroy anything or anyone perceived to be a threat or an obstacle. The perceived damage to self-worth and self-esteem results in cataclysmic acting out, the objective being revenge and empowerment, achieved through the destruction and mastery of others.
Both Bannon and Trump appear to display more than their fair share of these tendencies. One is the leader of the western world. The other is his most influential advisor. Between them, they have the power to bring not only the US system of governance crashing down, but, in the worst case scenario, as they have the nuclear codes, the world.
Our government has given them its wholehearted support, in so doing making this country a prime terrorist target, as one of the few allies of the US in this matter.
I can only imagine what it must be like to be Muslim in Australia today. Living in a country in which your own government has allied itself with Trump, and believes Trump’s “Muslim ban” is merely a copycat version of what it has itself already achieved.
No Place For Sheep 
It is truly apocalyptic.
Of course what will happen soon enough is that the new brooms will be seduced by the power available, corrupted by the very nature of the system and turned into eastern potentates, if they aren’t already. Grabbing by the pussy is just the thin edge of the wedge, so to speak.
The system has ground up better men than Trump and his henchmen.
More worrying to us is the me-tooism of our idiotic government. They are already in thrall to the right wing nut jobs, who think that is their due as they fondly think Trump has more than a snowflakes chance in hell of being a good President.
Ah, and so it goes . . .
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Agree, DQ. Trump’s victory has gone to their heads. He’s doing everything they secretly desire.
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It is very frightening, witnessing, this current government, toadying up to this mind set – men in power with beliefs and attitudes like this, curdles one’s blood – I hope resistance is strong in those who want to fight it – it is Neo-Liberalism on steroids – chaos and civil liberties being ripped to shreds
I hope the breaking of constitutional laws, breaks them –
As, for, our government, I am beyond speechlessness, but, not, surprised, but, thoroughly disgusted – they do not speak for me, and, I am ashamed they are our government
My mind is hearing the
Queen song with these words
Just this snatch of words
“Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality”
…..
“I see a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouch, scaramouch will you do the fandango
Thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening me
Gallileo, Gallileo,”
Thank you for keeping us informed – even if, this is awful
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Yes, thank you Jennifer, for keeping us informed.
I want to reblog this post!
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You’re welcome to reblog, auntyuta.
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Kristapet, I keep hearing Queen and David Bowie with *Under Pressure*
Turnbull is trying to keep his right wing nut jobs from going feral, I think his silence is more to do with intra party politics than anything else.
Which makes it even more disgusting really.
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Reblogged this on auntyuta and commented:
I ask myself, why, why, is all this happening? Are we too afraid, to stand up for our beliefs? Do most people not try to find out what is really happening? Are a lot people deliberately being told things that are not true?
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Maybe some of us became too complacent, auntyuta. It’s a bad situation.
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The irony of all this change that Trump and Bannon are plotting is that reform and reconstruction of government agencies and units can be of great benefit. For example, we could do with a reformation in Australia’s social services. Shaking up the way we run Manus Island and Nauru could be a worthwhile objective. Perks and side benefits for politicians could be reorganised. The distribution of money to wealthy private schools could be part of a wholesale review of government aid to education. What a pity that Trump and Bannon want unnecessary destruction instead of advocating reform. Come to think of it, Lenin’s philosophy didn’t do Russia much good either.
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No, it didn’t did it, Barry. Trump & Bannon have no interest in reform. They want what they want. Sand nobody is quite sure what that is yet.
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People are still at the stage of thinking that Trump is an accident.
Trump is not an accident.
He is the “face” of a long term, deliberately considered move by the Koch bros type Hard Right right in the USA.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/big-data-cambridge-analytica-brexit-trump
and this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mercer_(businessman)
and this last, http://forward.com/opinion/335661/meet-the-evangelical-christians-behind-ted-cruz-theyre-super-jewy/ , perhaps a bit conspiracy theory-ish.
You know, what frustrates someone is that when people read about Bannon, their tiny minds fasten exclusively onto the “Lenin” bit to the exclusion of all else. He quotes Lenin, but would not have had any thing to do with him since college…exactly the opposite, an ultimate neo con.
The original mother board story and my additions come from an FB post at the Greens supporters page there, esp Dr Rebecca Zeuss, boosted by Dr John Passant.
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Actually, PW the man is an opportunist. He’ll be anything he needs to be to get him where he wants to be. When he first went to Hollywood as a doco producer, he had Michael Moore as his hero. He’s racist as hell, but his closest assistant at Breitbart was an African American woman. There is no category into which he fits. He’s a shapeshifter.
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An utterly dissolute one, judging by the pics.
I take it “shapeshifter” is a euphemism for “asshole”?
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Back to the issue.
I know he is an opportunist, but what I’m saying and also Frank, despite himself, is that there is an underlying pol economic formation, very “high” on (anxious, over-) compensating masculinity (or in some cases femininity, as to the few women involved).
And that the control freaks although filthy rich are the people lubricating the breakdown of what we think of as the US, in pursuit of illusory, gratificationary fantasy of power and control. Frank blames the Liberal neo lib Imperialist wing a bit more, I fear the hard right maverick faction more because they have gained power and its interesting to trace back how this happened also. Btw, I watched/listened to an Afro American woman with Trumps campaign last week and thought, the sharpest blade comes from behind, as to betrayal of one’s own…another scavenger picking at the spoils of character-deficit.defeat.
Frank thinks they are “brave”, but it is far easier and less clever for a bully to kick in a sand castle in than a person who builds one.
So easy to think society and community are “dead”and feed like vultures off the alleged corpse- great alibi for self seeking. So much harder to build some thing based on a do unto others vision that would have people treated decently. As Socrates is said to have said, far harder to do wrong than right, actually..must be easier to live with yourself if you are Bernie Sanders than Donald “Überman”Trump?
None the less, I don’t disagree with much of what Frank says.
Political orthodoxy/ correctness CAN be a boor at its unimaginative worst. Also you can’t blame people who have figured out the system from trying to avoid the consequences of its apparent failure… so so tempting for someone who thinks they are a step ahead or a cut above to take shortcuts and let the masses drown in their own stupidity…heavens above, I’ll pick up a $20 note lying on the footpath anytime meself.
But hurting people for no rational reason beyond a sort of sick sadistic kick as is happening with the Centrelink debacle or Nauru; of the Klan hard right in the US with coloured people;
that is a sick Hitlerite perversion of Nietzsche’s strong man, who is actually strong enough, has enough “give” to show mercy to lesser beings, if you read Nietzsche properly.
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Steve Bannon and Donald Trump. Both are insurgents and both worthy role models for real men like me who don’t like cucks like Paul Ryan or Bill Shorten or sleazy manipulative scumbags like George Soros or all the conga line of dopey dills like Madonna that Hollywood can muster.
There’s a great article I read ages ago before Donald was anointed leader of the free world, about the philosophies of the antichrist Steve Bannon but I can’t find it, so fuck it. I won’t mention it. But Bannon was the first to say that the media and not the Democrats are the official opposition party to Trump and The Great Donald seems to have accepted this as Gospel.
Which is true.
The mainstream media and the Democrats and the elite in the Republican Party are the true scumbags that are the Establishment that ironically the Left are forced to support and embrace. No mention of draining the swamp from them. The Left are part of that corrupt architecture. And they remain silent. Like rats eating their own feces. Like stooges they also support Muslim extremists and march with the pussy walkers to the tune of Soros. God, what a farce. But I digress.
I had an original thought today.
Let me share it.
I love the way Donald is the new road runner cartoon. The media, are his wily coyote. Always eager to snooker the Donald but, frantically chase him around here and there, anxiously hopeful but doomed to constantly freeze in mid-air, feet still peddling, always coming unstuck as they fall silently back down into the canyon abyss with a thud.
Poof. In a ball of smoke. Just as the media lay out their last snare, talking points in hand, partisan witnesses in makeup, the cameras about to roll and they got him now, a gotcha moment, with stories about his whores pissing on him in a bed in Moscow, when – Donald has shifted the landscape – sacked his attorney-general and changed the political dynamic. One step ahead of the Klutzes. Next week he’ll tear up the Climate change agreement in Paris. Another cartoon episode coming. What a winner. Love him. A role model like I said.
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I couldn’t agree more Frank. The opposition(s) are jumping at shadows under the strange misapprehension and completely naïve ambition of thinking they can end this Administration within weeks of his inauguration.
They should be a little more thoughtful than that. Given that Trump has telegraphed his policy and intent for over 12 months, you would think that the opposition should be out in front with a plan, instead of this reaction politics that only goes to highlight their impotency.
Trump isn’t wedging anyone, he is the wedge itself. Can’t go round him, can’t go under him, can’t go round him. Therefore it only leaves one option, to go through him.
I personally would let his Government get into its stride, a canter, a gallop even, let his own ego and the ego of the administration devour its own.
He may be the catalyst that ignites Le Pen and Wilders but that doesn’t necessarily mean harmony and co-operation among like minded people, in fact if it should happen I foresee a who can be crazier than the other, look at Hanson’s candidates.
Whatever happens next, nobody is going back to what was before, that is why Turnbull suddenly looks very old and very in-nimble.
The Vampire Squid is anchored firmly inside of Trumps cabinet, no change there, the hypocrisy is breathtaking.
I give him kudos for ditching the TPP, something that was never going to see the light of day anyway, taking on big Pharma if he wins. But the small handed one who pretends to be a “builder” but in fact is a financier, has only to lose or fail to make a deal and the mystique is gone.
His tax records haunt him, and personally I would recommend someone calling him a low down yellow bellied draft dodging sonofabitch for not having the guts to release the records.
But in doing that I fear and I think it will come to pass, the use of tactical nuclear weapons will be used sometime very soon.
I would love to hear that Donald actually did spend a night with 5 whores in a wild orgy, but I think the real truth is the small handed small dicked opportunity groper is about as close to a man stud as our own Geoffrey Edelstein,
You must see those types all the time Frank the sagging nutted wrinkled skin bags of the rich and powerful up there on the Noosa beaches.
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How long before Trump is impeached?
I give him six months.
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According to Frank, it will be because of mini-skirts.
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If Rolf Harris is in gaol as a serial groper, can Trump be far behind?
The groped ones have to woman-up and get the bastard charged. There must be one upright DA in America.
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They sacked the acting AG there last week. No, it is all very nineteen thirties and very disheartening .
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Of course – she clearly had the view that Trump’s executive order was unconstitutional and indefensible. And she was right.
Being an Obama appointee made three strikes.
If Trump thinks that any decent lawyer he appoints to the Supreme Court will come to a different conclusion he is sadly mistaken.
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Trump and thinks ought not to be in the same sentence DQ
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He’s just been served two restraining orders. Temporary, but they’re on the right track.
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I’m hoping that these are the death throes of an old America, one that sanctified inequality, plutocracy, and racism. Drumpf’s demographic skews older. Funerals favor progress.
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I fear it is the diametric opposite..bad to much worse, fallen off the wagon to land with a thump on the hard ground of mindless authoritarianism.
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Yes, the long view might be more hopeful Meta-bug. As in all such situations, people who shouldn’t suffer the most.
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i live in fla but will be absconding for nice, france in sept. i wouldn’t count on the hooded figure with the scythe doing much damage. based on my observations locally, they have no intention of leaving this mortal coil anytime soon. i think of them as klingons, they will cling on as long as they can: they are old, yes, they are white, yes, but after all they have medicare (which of course they never think of as “socialized medecine”), and they count on being around for a VERY LONG TIME, perhaps another 10 or 20 years, if not longer. just think what this place will be like in 4, let alone 8 years of bannon and company. no thanks.
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I wish you good luck on your travels. I hope Le Pen does not win.
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Much like Trump, as has been remarked elsewhere, Trump (and Marine, to a far lesser extent) represents the triumph of Baudrillard’s Simularcum concept (with respect to the importance accorded to facts); although the gauche vulgarity of the Orange Clown and his vile entourage seems to accurately reflect a US polis, as now constituted, & manipulated by Putin and his American oligarch counterparts, with the help of the Electoral College system. Marine will likely not triumph in the 2nd round; or if she does, will probably face a Parliament that will reject her attempts to re-Nazify France, with Arabs/Moslems and 2nd generation biladis (not to mention black Africans) playing the role of Jews. But France still remembers WWII in a way that the US does not. What America chooses to remember is the self serving version of WWII, with America as hero, and a now deeply ungrateful and free-riding Europe; what France agonizes over, still, is the outrageous shame of ordinary French citizens looking the other way, as French Jews, citizens all, were rouned up and herded on to the gas chamber trains. Malle’s Au revoir les Enfants packs a gut punch absent in Private Ryan, the latter trading on sentimentalism and America’s trite notion of exceptionalism, the former on devasting factual autobiography.
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Bannon is the scariest thing I’ve seen in a long while. He’s everywhere. He was sitting across from Trump when he talked to Turnbull. He seems to have weaseled himself into a handy postion of power, without any responsibility or accountability, because he’s just there, not elected, not employed, not anything official.
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Part of the deliberate configuration. Bannon is a diversion, people will pity Trump as Bannon-manipulated victim. These folk are good at psycho drama. The endgame is the coup is complete and the agenda set in stone before any one figures it, then it is too late.
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Are they really stupid enough to pity their President because Bannon manipulates him? Jeez, they’ve started to set a very low bar over there.
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That’s hs MO, Heidi. To be the power behind the throne, that way the throne gets annihilated & he stays safe.
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you may wish to check out this
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/as-steve-bannon-rose-to-power-his-ex-wife-struggled-with-drugs-and-violence-in-miami-9096063
to get the full white trash flavor of steve bannon’s personal life. the idea that someone of his ilk has a place in the white house is beyond grotesque.
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Steve Bannon is certainly an esoteric figure within the Trump Administration. On top of his Judeo Christian beliefs, he’s had a former employee perform a native American purification ritual and endorsed the ancient Roman generational theory of saeculum. Does he actually believe all these things? What is his actual ideology?
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Anything that furthers his ambition, is my guess
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Deranged, like a certain cartoonist. What’s the bet Bannon ends up sharing the same self will run riot sort of fate?
Isn’t this a totally reactive mode of living? Where is the “consciousness” when life is all about “what Paddy shot at”; a subjective hitting out at imagined fears?
All it is about is the panicky taking of hostages to avoid facing up to life on life’s terms.
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