One of many liberal failures this past year is giving Steven Bannon and his Breitbart lie factory a pass.
Through my climate science blogging/debating I’ve been familiar with the liar and his Breitbart monstrosity of focused agenda driven hatred and divisiveness based on emotionalized lies - without the slightest concern for what is true and what is not - for years.
It’s the negative impact and confusion factor of their stories that are their only concern.
Bannon more than anyone (well after the Mercers*) is the key to Trump’s success and to appreciating the baseness of Trump himself.
Finally we can learn more about this creature, his method and madness thanks to a book written by Joshua Green, Devil’s Bargain.
He gives a fascinating, if very painful recounting of Bannon’s road to success, and his ingenious harnessing of pissed-off disaffected White Boys and filling their heads with dreams of Burn Baby Burn. Now here we are.
Inside The 'Shakespearean Irony' Of Trump And Bannon's RelationshipJournalist Joshua Green of Bloomberg Businessweek
Terry Gross Fresh Air Interview, WHYY, NPR
July 18, 2017 Listen· 36:54
On Aug. 17, in an effort to change course, the Trump team appointed Steve Bannon, the former executive chairman of the conservative Breitbart News, to lead the campaign. Journalist Joshua Green of Bloomberg Businessweek says the switch would prove to be a turning point.
"[Trump] was headed toward a pretty serious loss, and Bannon brought his wealth of anti-Clinton knowledge into the campaign and managed to keep Trump focused on a target," Green says.
Green argues that Bannon's experiences with Breitbart gave him a framework for mobilizing disaffected young white male voters who were attracted to Trump. Without such guidance, Green says, "I don't think that Donald Trump would have been elected president."
Despite Bannon's success in the campaign, Green says that the adviser's nationalist vision remains largely unfulfilled. "The kind of tragic, Shakespearean irony of the Donald Trump-Steve Bannon relationship is that Bannon finally did find the vessel for his ideas who could get elected president ... [but who] now doesn't have the focus, the wherewithal, the self-control to even do the basic things that a president needs to do."
Green's new book, Devil's Bargain, profiles Bannon and explains his role in Trump's election.
Devil's Bargain
Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency
by Joshua Green
Hardcover, 272 pages
* THE RECLUSIVE HEDGE-FUND TYCOON BEHIND THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY
By Jane Mayer MARCH 27, 2017
How Robert Mercer exploited America’s populist insurgency.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presidency
* Inside The Wealthy Family That Has Been Funding Steve Bannon's Plan For Years
Heard on WHYY, Fresh Air - NPR
March 22, 2017
Jane Mayer writes in the New Yorker about Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, who have poured millions of dollars into Breitbart News, and who pushed to have Bannon run Trump's campaign.
From Fox News to ‘Breitbart’: Liars, Harassers, and Far-Right Bottom-Feeders
I’ve argued for years that treating Fox as legitimate was a terrible mistake.
The rise of Breitbart shows I should have been even more cynical.
By Eric Alterman - APRIL 28, 2017
https://www.thenation.com/article/from-fox-news-to-breitbart-liars-harassers-and-far-right-bottom-feeders/
Just like Clinton who couldn't take his presidency serious enough to keep his pecker in his pants, Democrats in general are too complacent.
What other excuse is there for allowing all this to develop under our noises?
One of many liberal failures this past year is giving Steven Bannon and his Breitbart lie factory a pass.
How, pray tell, is that a "liberal failure". Nothing that Bannon or his toadies stand for could possibly be called liberal except by a Trump toady. He is a perfect Trump jackass, as are all Trump supporters.
Through my climate science blogging/debating I've been familiar with the liar and his Breitbart monstrosity of focused agenda driven hatred and divisiveness based on emotionalized lies - without the slightest concern for what is true and what is not - for years.
It's the negative impact and confusion factor of their stories that are their only concern.
Bannon more than anyone (well after the Mercers*) is the key to Trump's success and to appreciating the baseness of Trump himself.
Finally we can learn more about this creature, his method and madness thanks to a book written by Joshua Green, Devil's Bargain.
He gives a fascinating, if very painful recounting of Bannon's road to success, and his ingenious harnessing of pissed-off disaffected White Boys and filling their heads with dreams of Burn Baby Burn. Now here we are.
Inside The 'Shakespearean Irony' Of Trump And Bannon's RelationshipJournalist Joshua Green of Bloomberg Businessweek
Terry Gross Fresh Air Interview, WHYY, NPR
July 18, 2017 Listen· 36:54
On Aug. 17, in an effort to change course, the Trump team appointed Steve Bannon, the former executive chairman of the conservative Breitbart News, to lead the campaign. Journalist Joshua Green of Bloomberg Businessweek says the switch would prove to be a turning point.
"[Trump] was headed toward a pretty serious loss, and Bannon brought his wealth of anti-Clinton knowledge into the campaign and managed to keep Trump focused on a target," Green says.
Green argues that Bannon's experiences with Breitbart gave him a framework for mobilizing disaffected young white male voters who were attracted to Trump. Without such guidance, Green says, "I don't think that Donald Trump would have been elected president."
Despite Bannon's success in the campaign, Green says that the adviser's nationalist vision remains largely unfulfilled. "The kind of tragic, Shakespearean irony of the Donald Trump-Steve Bannon relationship is that Bannon finally did find the vessel for his ideas who could get elected president ... [but who] now doesn't have the focus, the wherewithal, the self-control to even do the basic things that a president needs to do."
Green's new book, Devil's Bargain, profiles Bannon and explains his role in Trump's election.
Devil's Bargain
Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency
by Joshua Green
Hardcover, 272 pages
* THE RECLUSIVE HEDGE-FUND TYCOON BEHIND THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY
By Jane Mayer MARCH 27, 2017
How Robert Mercer exploited America’s populist insurgency.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presidency
* Inside The Wealthy Family That Has Been Funding Steve Bannon's Plan For Years
Heard on WHYY, Fresh Air - NPR
March 22, 2017
Jane Mayer writes in the New Yorker about Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, who have poured millions of dollars into Breitbart News, and who pushed to have Bannon run Trump's campaign.
One of many liberal failures this past year is giving Steven Bannon and his Breitbart lie factory a pass.
How, pray tell, is that a "liberal failure". Nothing that Bannon or his toadies stand for could possibly be called liberal except by a Trump toady. He is a perfect Trump jackass, as are all Trump supporters.
Ignoring him and not meeting his/their lies head on.
Allowing their brand of hate-baiting and lying about facts to become mainstreamed without opposition.
Stephen Bannon Out at the White House After Turbulent Run
By MAGGIE HABERMAN and MICHAEL D. SHEAR - AUG. 18, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/us/politics/steve-bannon-trump-white-house.html?mcubz=1&_r=0
Stephen K. Bannon, the embattled chief strategist who helped President Trump win the 2016 election by embracing their shared nationalist impulses, departed the White House on Friday after a turbulent tenure in which he shaped the fiery populism of the president’s first seven months in office.
Mr. Bannon’s exit, the latest in a string of high-profile West Wing shake-ups, came as Mr. Trump is under fire for saying that “both sides" were to blame for the deadly violence at a Virginia rally last week. Critics of Mr. Bannon accused the president of channeling his chief strategist when he equated white supremacists and neo-Nazis with the left-wing protesters who opposed them.
“White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day," Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. “We are grateful for his service and wish him the best."
I'll bet they are grateful for his services, he's the mad genius who with the help of the Mercers put Trump in the White House - based on a campaign of lies and maliciously misrepresenting opponents - oh, and being allowed to do so with barely a discouraging word heard for the smug dozing Democratic Party members.
Sadly we haven't seen the last of him.
Politics
Bannon’s next move: A return to Breitbart News, with more reach than ever
By Matea Gold and Paul Farhi August 18 at 6:40 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bannons-next-move-a-return-to-breitbart-news-with-more-reach-than-ever/2017/08/18/3502d18c-843e-11e7-b359-15a3617c767b_story.html?utm_term=.265f20572993
The end of Stephen K. Bannon’s stormy White House tenure frees the investment banker turned populist messenger to expand his reach as a potent force in the media landscape, giving him an elevated platform for the nationalist movement he has long championed.
Bannon will do so in conjunction with the wealthy Mercer family, conservative mega-donors who served as his patrons in an array of enterprises before he joined the Trump campaign.
The former chief strategist for President Trump is returning as executive chairman of Mercer-backed Breitbart News, the pugilistic conservative website he helped guide before joining Trump’s campaign last August, Breitbart announced.
Yes in the past week there seems to be a little bit of waking up happening.
Hopefully, lefties are finally realizing how determined and utterer ruthless the Alt-Right supremacist/anarchist extremists are - and that if they want to save progressive, enlightened values they are going to have to stand up and speak up.
A healthy democracy DEMANDS an enlighten, informed and engaged public.
One of many liberal failures this past year is giving Steven Bannon and his Breitbart lie factory a pass.
How, pray tell, is that a "liberal failure". Nothing that Bannon or his toadies stand for could possibly be called liberal except by a Trump toady. He is a perfect Trump jackass, as are all Trump supporters.
Ignoring him and not meeting his/their lies head on.
Allowing their brand of hate-baiting and lying about facts to become mainstreamed without opposition.
----------------------
But who has done that? Nobody on the left that I know voted for him. There was tremendous opposition and, in fact, Clinton won the popular vote. Don't tell me about a lack of opposition. What we have is a really corrupt election system. . The electoral college is the worst of it.
Good point Lois - everyone, Dems included, keep looking for the big WHY Dems lost. We keep getting all these excuses…didn’t offer a plan, didn’t listen to the little guy, etc. Bull. Hillary won by 3 million votes. She did something right. It’s the system that’s jacked up, the electoral college, not the Dems message (though that doesn’t mean it can’t stand a little improvement along the lines of Bernie-fying it). And so we’ll go another four years with the DNC trying this or that messaging when what it should focus on is getting rid of the electoral college, either whole hog or by side stepping it but getting states to change their law so that electors must wait til votes have been cast and then they have to vote for whoever got the popular vote…all the electors en masse.
Good point Lois - everyone, Dems included, keep looking for the big WHY Dems lost. We keep getting all these excuses...didn't offer a plan, didn't listen to the little guy, etc. Bull. Hillary won by 3 million votes. She did something right. It's the system that's jacked up, the electoral college, not the Dems message (though that doesn't mean it can't stand a little improvement along the lines of Bernie-fying it). And so we'll go another four years with the DNC trying this or that messaging when what it should focus on is getting rid of the electoral college, either whole hog or by side stepping it but getting states to change their law so that electors must wait til votes have been cast and then they have to vote for whoever got the popular vote...all the electors en masse.
Looks it’s time for Bannon to get into the batters box.
So perhaps a little news and a little background.
July 2022
Former Trump White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham reacts to audio of Steve Bannon discussing Trump’s plan to declare victory in the 2020 election regardless of the outcome, three days before election day
The conservative site and its founder’s name have been permanently smeared by Bannon’s tenure.
. . . Andrew Breitbart famously said that politics is downstream of culture: That was why, when he started expanding Breitbart.com beyond publishing news wire stories, his focus wasn’t politics, but liberals’ stranglehold on Hollywood, journalism, academia and government. Andrew understood that changing the progressive bent of those mechanisms for influencing public opinion would be more effective means for achievinglong-term conservative victories than supporting particular politicians or candidates. The ultimate success of the conservative movement was always less dependent on electing individuals to office than on exposing and eliminating liberal bias in society at large that made those political battles so difficult to fight, and that’s exactly what Andrew set out to do.
… Bannon, clearly, had other ideas and, after Andrew’s untimely death in 2012, stumbled into the means of achieving them by taking over the editorial management of Breitbart’s namesake website. The site went in a radically different direction under the direction of Bannon, Larry Solov and Joel Pollak, and most of the editorial team and Breitbart’s inner circle departed the site; several people even publicly distanced themselves from what they felt the site had warped into after Andrew’s death.
