Declaring War
Today, the Department of Justice began its court proceedings against Steve Bannon for his role as one of the leaders of the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol Building. Bannon, the ultimate devotee of the notion that any publicity is good publicity went on the record saying that he and his like were using this indictment as a red flag to signal that they are now going on offense against the Biden Administration and specifically Biden, Pelosi and Garland. He actually took the highly reactionary move to invoke the Proud Boys, the far-right neo-fascist organization that places political violence at the center of its organizational tactics array. This is fundamentally a white supremacy group that believes that white males are specifically under attack and need to be defended. In Canada the organization has been branded a terrorist organization and the multiple indictments of conspiracy in the insurrection on January 6th imply that they are as much if not more of that in the United States even though there has been no formal public designation of that sort. By invoking Trump’s famous words from his debate questioning, to “stand-by”, Bannon has done as much as yelled a war cry to his team and the more rabid Trump supporters. There is no other way to take it than to say that Steve Bannon has declared war on the United States of America and effectively on all Americans.
There was a time when people like Steve Bannon were not taken so seriously. Then after the election, his influence on Trump and his policies changed that until he did what he is likely to always do, which is to overstep any boundaries that are put on him. He crossed a line with Trump and must have thought that his base would continue to support him. When he lost his sugar daddies and many of his supporters for his perceived disloyalty to Trump, he suddenly was reminded of the power of the Frankenstein monster that he helped create. He very quickly did what McCarthy and others have done and came back to kiss the ring. There appears to be few things that Trump likes more than taking back disloyal acolytes who he feels have learned their lesson and will do anything to prove themselves loyal to him. Loyalty is so important to Trump that this form of Uber-loyalist may be his favorite followers. Bannon found the antidisestablishmentarianism of the Big Lie and January 6th insurrection right up his antisocial alley, so I imagine he had no trouble throwing his full weight behind its planning and execution at the Willard Hotel and elsewhere.
In many ways, there is nothing that Bannon likes more than going against the flow, which is where he finds himself in the issue of refusing to give testimony to Congress about January 6th. I’m almost surprised he surrendered himself to the FBI. I half thought he might enjoy the “on the lam” identity of the renegade that couldn’t be caught. However, I’m sure he realized he would not be able to evade detection and capture, so I’m guessing that more than any sense of doing the right thing drove him to surrender himself. The fact that he took the opportunity before and after his hearing to get bold soundbites, designed to shock mainstream people like us and to keep his name in the headlines as the leader of the Trump brigade.
It is a testament to the outrageousness of the past five years of living with Trump on the national stage that someone as unlikeable as Bannon (and I suspect unlikeable by as many pro-Trump people as liberals or moderates) feels he gives his image a boost by declaring war on America. There are simply too many people in this country who want to destroy the system, presumably because they think it doesn’t work well for them and that they are better off in a world of chaos than the status quo. That is illogical to the point of idiocy, even for rich people who want more tax cuts for themselves and less regulation to hamstring them. The infrastructure bill is so necessary and good for our country and for virtually every state and Congressional District that it is hard to understand why anyone would suggest otherwise except as a political ploy. I believe that in no time it will become like the Affordable Care Act in that it will get ignored by Republicans since so many of their base will like their new jobs or their fixed bridges or faster internet. It will likely not turn people at the extremes in favor of the Democratic agenda, but it should push enough independents and moderates towards the Biden program to help his polls and perhaps (hopefully) help with the midterm elections.
So what do we do about this Bannon declaration of war? While I despise the fact that Trump and Bannon have unleashed the groups like the Proud Boys to be able to come out of the shadows and into the light, there is a part of that which is healthy. I do not believe that in an age of intensive multi-pronged media (unlike in 1930’s Germany or Japan), most people do NOT agree with the idea of people like the Proud Boys running roughshod across the country. Ultimately, no one feels safe when roughnecks and bully’s are in charge or allowed to run rampant. I trust that reaction and I feel that ultimately good sense will prevail over the willingness to hate and turn to the dark side. I understand that such a mistake has been made before, but I think few people think the world will ever revert to the white supremacy standards espoused by the likes of the Proud Boys. They can read the demographic charts and know that the scale of the pushback to that way of thinking is far greater than the hatred that wants to turn the clock back to 1860. That boat has sailed and they know that cleansing of the sort they might like is simply not possible.
My prediction remains that of optimism that there is enough time and enough pressure from many quadrants that will put Trump out of the picture in 2022 either due to his actions on January 6th, his commercial dealings with the Trump Organization in New York or perhaps his selection tampering in Atlanta…or maybe all three. I have always believed and still believe that the pack of dogs will eventually turn on Trump when it becomes clear that he can no longer wield his power. That almost happened after January 6th, but the base wasn’t ready yet. It will be ready at some point and everybody from all but his most fervent Congressional sycophants (Greene, Gaetz, Gosar, Cruz, Hawley and the like) to the Supreme Court will be relieved to see him go. God knows the number of dogs waiting to jump into his place grow every day.
Sometimes declaring war and getting the hostilities out into the clear light of day serves the purpose of the less bellicose. While there re always hawks looking for a fight, I believe more people are economic warriors who know that they suffer with a gently reduced pie if we go to war with ourselves.