At the moment, the only way I can tolerate listening to fucking human tumor Steve K. Bannon’s podcast is if I drink a huge amount of rye. And, yet, I find something about it interesting. And there’s something missing: me.
He and I are in some ways so similar that I think it would be amusing to have us play off each other. Having someone who, like, uh, disagrees with him, is the element that’s missing to his hate-filled, rage-filled podcast. He and Peter Navarro get way too overheated with their self-generated bullshit that it would be quite entertaining to have me in the mix.
People would download the podcast specifically to hear me get “owned.”
I think what I see with his podcast is has a lot of potential from a surreal, over-the-top entertainment level, more than any kind of serious podcast. It pretty much like listening to Howard Beale rant on a podcast.
Adding me to the mix would be very interesting and entertaining. I know I like to rant a lot on this blog, but I can also be quite measured in my conversations when need be.
Here are some reasons why we could have a civil war, which apparently a lot of people who show up at this blog want. I’ll do another post as to why we’re going to slip peacefully into autocracy.
Republicans have come to glorify political violence Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
Republicans no longer believe in democracy It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely distablizing things that help push the country to the brink.
Trump 2024 Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
Steve K Bannon. Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that we use to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
Extreme negative polarization We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
A lack of shared values As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.
I’ve decided to listen to Steve K Bannon’s shitty War Room podcast to get a sense of what we’re up against. The latest episode I’ve listened to on Spotify was interesting for a number of reasons, one of them being how completely fucking bonkers Peter Navarro is. That guy is nuts! Or, at Hope Hicks would say — a hot date.
Peter Navarro believes the Chinese government owes the United States ELVENTIY TRILLIAN DOLLARS. He also, apparently, wants to have a celebrity death match with Dr. Fauci. That, or he wants to hate-fuck him. I can’t quite figure out which one.
Steve K. Bannon
But the thing that shocked me the most was my personal nutty idea of “digital telepathy” made an appearance on the podcast in the third act. To hear someone ELSE say such a bonkers thing in the wild was both unnerving and somewhat validating. Too bad it came out of the mouth of a neo-Luddite.
Speaking of which, I also felt validated by how Bannon is toying with neo-Luddism as a potential political talking point. I have repeatedly written that if Trump was smart — which he isn’t –that he would make common cause with the Far, Far Left and embrace neo-Luddism. But for all his being dumb as a stump, Bannon is kind of his “brain” so I guess it’s possible that at some point Bannon will embrace neo-Luddism.
Overall, Bannon is a very, very bad podcast host because he lies to his guests about having them on again in such a breezy casual manner. And, yet, I guess if you think NewsMax and OANN are liberal shills, then you’ll probably love Bannon’s piece of shit podcast.
I got a lot wrong about the COVID19 pandemic when COVID was first reported in Wuhan. The biggest thing I got wrong was how deadly it would be. Given the first reports of how much of a freakout the Chinese government was going through, I assumed we were in for The Stand levels of death ahead of us. I remember going to the grocery story and imagining what it would be like to rummage for food there in some sort of post-apocalyptic, COVID ravaged world.
Things turned out to be bad, but not that bad.
The worst we had was a run on toilet paper, of all things.
I went to the grocery store today and it wasn’t COVID I was worried about, it was a Second American Civil War.
I looked at the bountiful shelves of food and products and wondered if one day — probably at some point after January 2025 — I would walk into the same grocery story and there….just wouldn’t be anything there because the country had imploded into civil war.
This particular dark vision isn’t months away, but years away. And it’s only one of several potential options ahead of us. But for Trump running again, it’s easy to imagine my fears of political violence around January 2025 being way, way overblown.
All things being equal, if Trump isn’t the Republican nominee in 2024, it’s very easy to see us simply slipping peacefully into autocracy. The trains will continue to run on time, if you will.
But Trump definitely seems like he’s going to run again and, as such, the likelihood that he, through sheer idiotic incompetence will push the United States into civil war grows to at least 50 /50, if not more. And, what’s worse, the case could be made that it won’t even be the 2024 presidential cycle that does it, but the 2022 mid-term cycle.
I say this because Steve Bannon et al are aggressively working to corrupt the institutions associated with what we take for granted in the United States — the administration of free and fair elections. It’s at least possible that if it’s widely believed that the 2022 midterms were corrupt that a civil war could break out then, not as part of the 2024-2025 post-election day shenanigans that I fear.
Steve Bannon
And all of this is largely being planned in broad daylight. Bannon is organizing the staffing of election boards across the nation with insane, bonkers Big Lie advocates who might get a little bit too big for their britches in 2022 and push us into a civil war two years earlier than I currently expect.
Because, make no mistake, Bannon and his toadies are recalibrating from the failure of the January 6th Insurrection. It’s possible that they might concluded that if there’s no sexxy TV footage of people going nuts and storming the Capitol, that the talking heads of MSM will lulz things.
This seems dubious to me, but it’s that type of miscalculation that starts wars — civil or otherwise.
But there are too many known unknowns right now. Things could go a lot of different ways. I would suggest you start to think about 2022, and not 2024-2025 being the Fourth Turning, however.
Steve Bannon is full of shit. But, so am I at times. It’s eerie to me how similar Bannon and I are when it comes to our fascination with wargaming. At the moment, Bannon is on the march. The nebulous group of agitators he leads are destroying the institution we use to elect people in our previously free-and-fair elections.
Steve Bannon, doula of autocracy
And because we’re letting him do this in broad daylight, he has a huge advantage. No one is going to stop him. By the time 2024 rolls around, all the conditions will be there for us to slip peacefully into autocracy. But, of course, for one thing — if Donald Trump runs again, then, we’re probably going to have a civil war.
So, if anyone would listen to me — which they won’t — here’s what I would do in response. Lean into the passion, leadership and vision of the people associated with The Lincoln Project. (I’m not unaware of their lingering scandals, etc, but I’m working with what I got.) Then you get the usual Deep State Radio podcast folks and the Crooked Media folks to form a United Front with them
Then you plot.
Once you establish that because of Bannon’s tyrannical machinations that we’re at the very beginning of a severe political crisis, we need to stop dicking around. If we can get some concrete nation-wide plans organized for what we’re going to do when the entire election system fails us in 2024, we’ll at least be a lot better off than we would be if we just wait for Bannon’s evil little baby of Trumplandia to be born.
They key thing is — stop relying upon hope. Trump has proven time and again that if you rely upon “hope” to fix him as a problem, you’re suffering from a mixture of denial and delusion.
The first order of business for this proposed United Front would be what to do at the critical juncture in the 2024-2025 timeframe when we face autocracy or civil war. And if it looks like the country is — gulp — going to actually descend into civil war (ugh) what will Blue State war aims be?
I only stress this because Bannon has specific war aims for any civil war. It’s all they fucking talk about these days! They want to establish a white, autocratic Christian ethno state of “blood and soil” where scary brown people controlled and women know their “place.”
Instead of waiting for the civil war to start, the United Front needs to game out the ideology of the Blue States, now. What would the Fight To Save The Union be about? What would be for? Who would be good political leaders in such a crisis for Blue States to rely upon on an existential level?
For no other reason than it gives me some sense of empowerment, I’m probably going to spend way too much mental energy thinking up what all those goals should be in the coming days.
Using my abstract strategic thinking abilities to wargame against the wargamer Steve K. Bannon (don’t forget that K!), makes me feel empowered. So, here goes.
Steven K. Bannon
Bannon’s wargame is this — he and his MAGA New Right acolytates are working largely in broad daylight (podcasts, etc) because they can. Yes, I’m sure they’re plotting in the dark somewhere, but, in general, they’re making it very clear what they’re up to and, fuck you, lib.
How do we strike back?
First, I would say take what human tumor Bannon is up to seriously. If he wants to play Lenin, then I will play Trotsky. I’m well aware how bad a historical analogy that is — Trotsky became so close to Lenin that he was named his successor in his will before Stalin did a number on that — but I’ve always felt an affinity to Trotsky.
Or, put another way, if I was force Quantum Leap style to jump into the body of a Russian Revolutionary, it would be Trotsky. I have an affinity for how, as I understand it, Trotsky had a number of opportunities to beat Stalin but kept choking at critical historical moments. Which sounds like something I would do.
Anyway, how do we take Steve “Lenin” Bannon seriously? Well, I would say, first we listen to him. We study him. We listen to his very badly hosted podcast and take him both seriously and literally. One thing I share with Bannon is I often get worked up about about abstract speculation that never turns out to be true.
With Bannon, it’s from a combination of wishful thinking and hitching his horse to malignant Chauncey Gardner, Donald Trump. With me, I create a narrative for this or that thing that just, ultimately, doesn’t exist. So, in a sense, that’s a shared known known weakness of the two of us.
Once we pay attention to Bannon and his fellow reactionary radical revolutionaries, we start to think existential. There will be no voting reform. It’s unlikely the filibuster will be eliminated or reformed, either. Looking forward, because Bannon is a sly and evil, we have to do triage. Trump is above the law. Even if we did somehow manage to neutralize him as an autocratic force, there are a dozen other would-be autocrats in the wings, waiting to do exactly what Bannon is trying to do with Trump — turn the United States into an autocratic white Christian ethno state of “blood and soil.”
Bannon’s goal is to pull this off peacefully. If he can just corrupt the election process institution itself enough, then everything the MAGA New Right will be seen as what happened in 2000 only, a quantum leap beyond. In other words, the very “media narrative” that earnest goomba talk about on Joe Rogan’s podcast will be used to their advantage.
The entire election process will be so corrupt that your CNN and MSNBC talking heads will just shrug and tell everyone to calm down — the “system worked” and things aren’t so bad, now are they? That will be their “media narrative,” of course, until the media itself is purged and, lulz, sucks to be you lib.
Another thing I would do, on an individual basis, is think existential. What are you good at? If there was a prolonged crisis — be it autocracy or civil war — what organic talents do you have that you could use to help support the cause of liberty? But for you to do that, there’s something else you would have to do first — decide what’s important to you in the real world.
What makes Bannon so dangerous is the so-called “Resistance” is so busy having a circle jerk on Twitter with its “booms” and “devastating” retorts that he’s busying effecting change in the real world, where it actually matters. He’s thinking existential in the real world, while at the moment, everyone who might oppose him there is too busy drinking wine while watching Maddow and growing their essential oils business.
Ugh.
The only way to fight back against Bannon at this point on an individual basis is to pull back and wait. Think existential and study him closely — listen to his podcast — and take him both seriously and literally. When he’s not ranting about how people like me are a joke, he and others like him and suggesting that I’m “forcing” him to radicalize and embrace political violence. Talk about snowflakes.
I know that sounds rather abstract. What you want is a VOX practical explainer that is simply, cogent and explains small things you can do between now and January 2025 that will ensure you and your loved ones are safe.
Sorry. I have no idea what to tell you in concrete terms. There still too many unknown unknowns for me to be able to do that. All I know is don’t rely upon “hope” at this point to fix anything.
The era of hope is over. The era of preparation has begun.
Let me indulge myself in some of my usual “hysterical doom shit.” Tonight, a lot of the usual Twitter liberal suspects are all excited that the January 6th Commission has subpoena a clutch of Trump associated who were involved in the January 6th Insurrection.
To me, this is no boom. It’s a lulz.
Steve Bannon, among those who are going to ignore Congress.
History has shown that all the people that Congress has subpoenaed will either ignore it or fight it in the courts. There is only one way they will show up — and even then they will invoke the 5th — and that’s if House Democrats used Congress’ “inherent contempt” powers.
The only way we would get to the “I plead the 5th point” would be if they got fined and stuck in the tiny Capitol brig for a few weeks until they broke. We’re not exactly dealing with people who give a shit about allowing the public find out the truth about their nefarious January 6th plans.
The reason why House Democrats won’t do what they should do, is they know the moment they break the modern seal on the use of inherent contempt, that’s the moment that House Republicans will use it when they inevitable begin to impeach Biden and Harris in January 2023.
Republicans are so radicalized on an institutional level, that they’re just biding their time until they have power again. Once they do — and they inevitable will get power again — that’s it. The end of the Republic. That’s hysterical doom shit, but the only reason why that might not be the case is at first things won’t seem to change much.
Because traditional “personal responsibility” Republicans don’t notice anything has changed, it could be years before they sit up and taken notice that, “Hey, this kind of sucks.”
But by that point, it will be too late — or we’ll have had a civil war, bombed ourselves into the stone age and there will be some sort of massive political “reset” where we get back to the usual non-existential ebb-and-flow of a traditional liberal democracy.
Anyway, the point is — we’re fucked. Get your affairs in the real world. Decide what’s important to you and how much you’re willing to suffer for what you believe in. Bannon isn’t going anywhere and in the end, either we peacefully slip into some form of a “Very American Autocracy” or we have a fucking civil war.
But good luck on getting anyone around Trump to talk unless you’re willing to use inherent contempt.
I listened to Steve Bannon’s recent interview with the would-be architect of Trump’s overthrow of the results of the 2020 election and found it very interesting for a number of reasons.
Steve Bannon
One reason was I got the sense Eastman was sweating things a little bit. Since he would never allow himself to be interviewed by someone who was an actual journalist, he turned to his (literal) partner in crime Steve Bannon. Eastman did what anyone with his background would do given the situation: he took a very lawyerly take on what was being said about him.
And he knew there would be absolutely no pushback to whatever bullshit he pulled out of his lawyerly butt, so he pushed the conflation of events as far as he could. He said that it was all a big misunderstanding and he felt if only the full memo he wrote was in the spotlight like the scary six point memo he wrote, then, lulz, we can all smoke a cigar, bang a hot chick and get back to making sure American peacefully transitions into a white Christian ethno state. (Those may not be his exact words, wink.)
But the fact remains that he did, in fact, plot with Bannon and others to overthrow the free and fair 2020 election. Eastman contended that there was all this proof that illegal votes were cast and, as such, what he proposed was all above board.
This, my gentle reader, is bullshit.
Eastman, for all his bona fides was “yadda yadda yadda-ing” what was really going on, which is much like how the actual six point memo itself reads.
So, while the interview was interesting, it was not exactly newsbreaking. We’re still careening towards the existential choice of autocracy or civil war in January 2025 and there still isn’t going to be any accountability for anything Bannon — or anyone else — has done in the service of Donald Fucking Trump.
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