The poor, the erstwhile middle class whose living standards have been declining, have no spokesperson, certainly not Bannon.
The world is complicated. And the poor go to the ER, stand in line behind a line of foreigners speaking Spanish, and draw conclusions that are not totally wrong, but miss part of the picture.
Plato did not think highly of democracy. He thought that the government should be run by philosophers. And what comes closest to that in American society is the universities and their mandarins.
But although the sciences are rock solid, the social sciences are not. One subject in particular stand out---economics.
Now economics itself is a very respectable subject. But it is bowdlerized by pundit-economists who sell simplified versions of macroeconomics.
The problems with macroeconomics are huge, but the most glaring one is that it leaves out the most important variable, the growth of population.
Both political parties believe that growth can continue forever, and are fed by academic economists who offer Keynesian theory as proof.
But resources are finite. The fundamental problem of politics is the finiteness of resources.
And that implies that illegal immigration does indeed translate into fewer resources per individual.
This is not a new message. A book, "the Limits of Growth" appeared in 1972. Its lesson was taken to heart by China with its one child policy.
Bannon AT LEAST recognizes the big lie that growth will cure the problems of the poor.
19
Another week another mass shooting...we're well on our way to become one of the most violent civilized country, and nothing absolutely nothing will be done.
GOP moral rot continues unabated, just one more proof they can't be trusted with governing...
Rapidly descending into darkness.
17
By his own admission Bannon is an anarchist - he wants to blow things up. I don't put any stock in his words - at all.
21
The way i understand Bannon is that he is a Goldman Sachs elitist who loves wealth and power and is desperately looking for a new scapegoat to distract the American Sheeple from the monstrous inequalities his friends have foisted upon our society.
Bannon is a clever dissembling puppet of Wall Street plain and simple.
35
"I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many people"
Perhaps Trump is Satan and not Bannon - who else could seduce Republican leadership, evangelical Christians and the other Trump enablers to embrace the embodiment of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride?
29
"Honey badgers don’t care."
If you understand the reference, I think it is more appropriate to make Bannon the snake that honey badgers get bit by, but later eat after recovering. I hope that our democracy is the honey badger.
If you do not get the reference, find a video on YouTube.
4
Bannon is not the problem.
Trump is not the problem.
Their million voters are the problem.
Slow coup. Civil war ?
21
So it's intellectually fashionable now to make and watch a documentary about the tactician of a scam artist with no compunction about lying, laundering dirty foreign money, sexually assaulting women, and getting to the White House with help from a hostile foreign power. What's original about Bannon's appeal to resentful and xenophobic voters who feel a charge of excitement when Trump attacks their favorite targets? Russia seems to have played the same card of stirring right-wing, anti-minority, anti-immigrant voters here and in Europe.
16
Bannon has been deemed completely irrelevant by both sides of the political spectrum.
Why on earth give this self proclaimed devil a new platform to spew his venom?
19
I read the New York Magazine
article on Bannon.
He seems to be right about how
Wall Street cares for no one but itself.
8
This article is truly scary. In particular, the next to last paragraph where he calls tRUMP an empty vessel with no ideas of his own and Bannon supplying them. We laughed at the SNL depiction of Bannon being the "real" president. Maybe there is more than a grain of truth that truly scary thought!
7
"To be or.............not to be!" Am I genius, or what?
I wish people would stop talking about how intelligent Bannon is just because he's read The Art of War, or can recite the most famous line from Paradise Lost. The guy is clearly a lightweight who is familiar some very famous, frequently read classics. He also seems to be familiar with some rarely read works by cranks (Julius Evola, 4th turning, or whatever it's called). The only evidence of intelligence I can see is that he's still able to make himself a subject for well-known film makers, and finagle his way into reputable newspapers. The guy is not in the white house anymore, and was only on the Trump campaign for the very end. He did not invent Trump. He did not invent any of the racist European political parties he's currently trying to cozy up to.
16
What about the role of Robert Mercer & family in the current horror we're living through. Bannon, like Trump, is a huckster bankrolled by the billionaire Mercers, whose goal is the destruction of the "administrative state." They view the poor and vulnerable in our society as wretched refuse and the rest of us as dispensible. The Mercers are the real Lucifers yet they continue to operate with scant attention from the media. As one or two commenters have pointed out, Morris would do better to train his lens on them. The NYT should do an unflinching expose. Voting is essential but exposing these rats to sunlight is too.
44
Bannon and Trump and the forces behind them are masters of distraction and diversion.
The represent a class of people who are intent on hoarding all the wealth of the country in to the smallest number of hands.
The smaller the number, the happier they are.
And the people so susceptible to this nonsensical nonstop diversion and chicanery eat it up.
12
To say that Steve Bannon’s ‘philosophy’ is incoherent might be a bit generous. ‘Narcissistic’ or ‘megalomaniacal’ seems more apropos. He doesn’t appear to have as firm a grasp of history as his hysterics would suggest, either.
“The Time’s Up movement is coming to the heart of the structure of global society because all global society is built on the patriarchy: Confucian society, the societies in Africa, the societies in the subcontinent of India, and the Judeo-Christian West, that’s just a fact, OK, and that is why this thing is like the French Revolution. I’m not opining whether it’s right or wrong.”
https://spectator.us/2018/03/im-fascinated-by-mussolini-steve-bannon-on-...
2
I suspect that in the long-term historical view, this period will not be seen as significant as WWII and its aftermath, nor Reconstruction, nor even the building of the railroads and the interstate highway system. All of us have to some extent succumbed to the narcissism encouraged by Facebook and that is a part of each generation's view of itself as special but is particularly enhanced currently by technological advancement and a lack of understanding of history. Bannon & Trump will not be remembered for more than 50 years unless Trumps starts WWIII - except potentially in their role for delaying our much-needed response to climate change by a decade. However, even this last bit depends on who comes next and whether they are able to reverse Trump's bad decisions quickly.
4
What an outstanding column. Excellent writing, excellent interview. Thank you, Mr. Bruni. I am now an official fan, and look forward to your next piece!
5
" I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people."
Perhaps those "many, many, many people" did not have "American values" to abandon. Or their "American Values" were very different from Morris's or Bruni's.
6
The wholesale abandonment of American values is due to the increasing income inequality. People are angry and feel something is wrong but cannot identify the problem and thus have no idea of a solution. Like the story of Morris' mother, today, she would have been evicted with no health insurance, housing, or money. Until we find a candidate who can clearly identify the problem and force through solutions, nothing will change. What I have always found surprising is the enormous greed of the wealthy. Nothing is too much. What they don't seem to realize is their failure to fix the system will ultimately result in their own destruction, along with the rest of us. We will all go down with the ship.
24
Regarding Errol Morris' thought: "I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people." Observing from outside the USA, I can't help wonder how many citizens ever really bought into the "American Myth" (a.k.a. values). I like and appreciate Americans and enjoy visiting your country, but over decades I have come to believe that your values and beliefs are shouted incoherently to all like a mantra, though with no real understanding, either right or left, about their impact outside a very local sphere. "Think globally act locally" has become, "Think locally, act locally" (all for me and mine). However, maybe this is what our global society has also become, writ large. The human pressures on this planet are profound and the way forward is uncertain. Bannon caters to and reflects those fears. Trump caters to Trump. Time to circle the wagons...
12
Brannon’s film “Generation Zero” is a brilliant insight into the Wall Street meltdown.
1
"Bannon, talking about the Clinton campaign’s neglect of American workers — I think he’s right. He makes a big speech about jobs versus identity politics. I think he’s right. "
How many Democrat politicians have the courage to admit this? We can just hope they will get it before it's too late. Bannon is only exploiting the vacuum.
6
This is incredibly important! I've said since day one that to understand every move Trump makes one must constantly be looking at Steve Bannon and Breitbart which is where his acolytes hang out.
Trump is a cipher. For all his bluster and blubbering. Bannon is what is between Trump's ears. And that is for one, cynical, horrifying reason only -- he believes that if he stays on course with Bannon's playbook that got him elected the first time, he can do it again but without Bannon.
Understand Trump knows he's not gaining any voters. He's got to hold fast to that base that put him there and every single day, without fail, he dog-whistles to them and they lap it up like dogs over at Breitbart.
Donald Trump is the most cynical human being on earth. Bannon is a lunatic so he's not even held responsible in my book. Which doesn't make him incredibly dangerous. To know Trump, know Bannon. Believe that.
11
Perhaps beyond this piece, but it's instructive to explore why Hillary was/is "hated" (a strong word used by Morris) by so many Americans. To sum it up in one word: entitlement. Hillary and her supporters believed she deserved to be President and therefore did not put in the required work to demonstrate why she should be President.
Her message: I deserve it because I'm a woman; I deserve it because I traveled all over the world as Sec State; I deserve it because it's my turn. None of those are compelling enough reasons.
Trump defined her, had a better sense of the mood in the rustbelt, spent significant time in the States that mattered. And, with help from many people, including but certainly not limited to Bannon, articulated it all effectively.
Messrs. Morris and Bruno put too much stock in Comey, Weiner to explain the defeat. I promise you, the granting of immunity to 5 of Hillary's key staffers, her laziness on the campaign trail disappearing for weeks at a time, not bothering to campaign in Wisconsin and only weakly in Michigan and PA and worst of all, insulting a large proportion of the voting population as "deplorables" doomed her.
Trump voters may be attracted to the populist messages, but they are far more attuned to the entitlement and double standard applied to Beltway denizens as compared to the rest of the country. And they resent it.
10
@LibertyNJ
She 'deserved it' because she was the best person for the job. And certainly, certainly, the better person for the job. One of two people was going to win the 2016 election, and it wasn't going to be Jill Stein or "I just want to make pot legal" Gary Johnson. And Trump voters thought--against all evidence--that he would be the better person. Unbelievable.
27
@LibertyNJ In spite of all you say, Hillary still won the popular vote by a handy 3Million.
24
When an important columnist writes about Bannon, but not about Bob Mercer, he does us a disservice.
19
Great article with lot of insights. Hope the entire democratic party tent pay attention to the essence of the article. Stop focusing on identity politics- it is the job, fresh air and clean water, stupid. The Republican party can be a minority Party in many places if the leftists and centrists become pragmatic and focus on the critical issues we are faced with.
Think of the impact of the 200 plus federal judge appointment for life on the basic foundation of our nation. Yes, we can stop some of the appointments with a win in midterm and 2020 election. The country is at great danger from the endless corruption scams by Trump and his cronies. He wants to gut our judiciary system so that the crooks can get away with criminal activities for ever.
Democrats need to listen concerns of people and learn from past mistakes which led Democratic party to minority status in most of the States. The same mistakes became a fodder for Republican win by using “divide and conquer” strategy. Trump the great con man of the century does the same and successful in doing so. Don’t let him use the gender or identity politics as red meat to divide the voters.
7
One thing about the Clinton loss is this. Despite Trump's insistence that the Obama administration was trying to game the election and ensure her win, I believe that they did not do enough to help. And the reason is simple. They were doing their jobs.
I recently watched the HBO documentary the Final Year, about the Obama Administration's last year in office. What stood out was the clip from the night of the election. His cabinet members were virtually clueless about the battle she was in and blow away by the outcome. They couldn't imagine that the the American public would vote to essentially undo all the things they worked so hard to achieve: Climate Change, Cuba, the Iran deal, fighting Boko Haram in Africa, and much more. The administration always believed that they were on the right side of the march of progress, but they underestimated how hard their opponents would fight to reverse their achievements.
To those who believe it is hopeless, here is a ray of hope: Despite all their efforts, and those efforts are extensive: think tanks, ALEC, Citizens United, gerrymandering, packing the courts, they have barely moved the needle when it comes to public support for their policies. They know what Obama knew: the march to progress will continue and they know their days are numbered unless they can continue to stoke divisive issues, and distract us from what their doing to issues most voters don't agree with.
Forget what they say, and watch what they do.
18
the abandonment of values by many, many Americans? it is not an inexplicable change; it is a revelation of what has been stewing just beneath the surface for decades. that's one reason the too-infrequently called out Trump paean to shunning "political correctness" carried such power. he bestows permission to reveal the despicable attitudes you previously had the good sense to at least keep concealed. now you can let all your personal ugliness hang out and be proud of your dirty laundry, as is President Trump.
4
Errol Morris is now invited to my home for dinner and drinks, in perpetuity. I will inform the wife.
5
I don’t know what Earl Morris means by American values. This country was built on genocide, slavery, wars that never end and workers without rights. My experience, as the child of a despised immigrant group, led me to believe that American values encouraged ridicule and exclusion. When my group were deemed to be at least nominally white they meted out the same ridicule to the next lowest group on the immigrant ladder. Divide and conquer. My deceased husband, a black man, didn’t live to experience Bannon and Trump but what he said was that this was a society designed to reduce non rich white people to the level of poor blacks. (His language was more colorful.) Bannon and Trump seem to me to have dragged real American values into the daylight. The mystery is that so many are willing to destroy themselves in order to punish others.
9
So, I ask myself in reference to "paradise Lost," what about Option 3: reining in heaven and using that power to create a living hell of it? History offers plenty of examples of this theme realized. I don't think I need to be specific about this.
The rest of us must be bored by the benefits offered the greatest number of people by the social democracy that America has become for now at least, like it or not. I can think of no other explanation for the voluntary pact we have collectively made with Bannon's "interesting" Lucifer from Milton's work.
Benito Mussolini was "interesting," too, for a while, until Italians realized the substance and comsequence of his vicious, virulent, violent, megalomaniac snake oil. Learn more by reading "Beneath a Scarlet Sky,"a biographical novel by Mark Sullivan.
2
yes- rather than Bannon's 4th Turning cycles of history delusion
(neo-fascist nativist gobbledegook)- our fate seems to pivot on the most vulgar shallow and petty figures.
Linda Tripp single-handedly altered the course of history in the 2000 election by disrupting rational governance and installing the Imbecile Prince who deferred to Cheney who smashed up the Middle East causing the metastasis of terror.
Weiner seems to have played a similar role in tipping the fragile scales toward The Donald.
Now Stormy or Pecker may play a similar crucial role in history.
Like fragments of cartilage that cause immense joint pain- these puny figures swing world events.
9
A "friend" just sent me something from Breitbart...:-(...this article helped me to...:-)
Thank you Frank. You are one reason I read the NYT.
3
I too "find it horrifying and depressing," especially when I think about what comes next.
Still, the line about the Great Wall of China was a really good one.
9
Fascinating and enlightening interview.
Bannon can spout his annihilative and dangerous drivel, but all he really is is another outrageous narcissist who craves the limelight and a weird kind of power.
If he actually recognizes income inequality's devastation, think about his being a multimillionaire while he marches on his Luciferian path of twisted glory.....
5
Except for the War years of the 1940's and the regeneration years of the 1950's, life in these United States has never really been "alright" for many people. Even in the 40's and 50's, blacks, women, gays and others were either ignored or much worse.
There has always been a segment of the population bent on denying civil and constitutional rights to "others'. Some of this thinking dates to the Civil War. Some can be ascribed to fear or jealousy, and, of course, tribalism plays a large part as well.
Trump and Bannon are tricking these people with words and gimmicks that validate points of view; using them as pawns for their own separate ends. Trump to satisfy his narcissistic need for adulation and approval; Bannon to wreak havoc on the "administrative state" which translated means fostering a second civil war.
Trump's dream is rapidly unwinding with the help of Cohen, Weisselberg and, soon to be announced, Paul Manafort. Bannon's star will explode simultaneously. As Trump is fond of saying "nobody wants to be associated with a loser."
4
When I read the headline, I thought to myself, "Bannon probably revels in being demonized," and sure enough, he does when Morris ties him to Milton's Lucifer. The shambolic, seemingly substance-affected Bannon is symbolic of something quite awry in American "culture." A deep sadness and disaffection. Adolescent alienation. A rage that turns toward abusive power to rectify the ills felt but mis-identified, mis-characterized.
5
It sounds like Bannon is the most interviewable character, not really the most interesting. Morris, now he’s interesting!
3
"...I find it horrifying and depressing." We all do.
4
"What I can’t really understand is what happened to America after 2016 and the election. I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people." -- Bruni
Regrettably, I believe I've found at least a partial answer. In virtually all societies there is a portion of the population that is vulnerable to demagoguery and propaganda. Hitlerian Germany is a neoclassical example. In the US we've witnessed McCarthyism and George Wallace-touted segregation achieve ardent followings. Rough current analogues are Trump, the demagogue; such as Fox, the propaganda outlet; and the susceptible (see Trump rallies).
Unfortunately, these things work, at least for a time. The challenge is to minimize their effectiveness.
9
Very interesting article. However, it is still slightly re-assuring that Hillary did handily win the popular vote, so we are still in the majority - being controlled by the minority, however. Even with all of the "unintended consequences" that Morris describes as Human Abedin, James Comey and Anthony Weiner, Hillary still would now be President if it weren't for the totally unfair and outdated Electoral College.
Of course, if Hillary had won, wouldn't we now be deeply enmeshed in all of the special investigative committees the Republicans in Congress would have ordered to continue their hatred of Hillary? She would have had a rough time of it the same as Obama did. What a mess we are in!
8
the abandonment of the va,ues by many, many people?th
One of the comments asked about the rumpled clothing.
Certainly those clothes are the stage costume for a consummate actor.
If someone convinced him to wear a well cut suit, he'd lose his audience. Dressed like any normal public speaker, people would expect rational discourse.
Given the costume, a magician's misdirection stunt, no one expects anything other than a inchoate rant which could be heard from any down and out mentally ill drunkard on any public park bench.
8
Follow the Breitbart and Cambridge analytical money far enough and you will find Putin. Bannon is a mercenary tool.
15
During the George W. Bush presidency, I always thought Dick Cheney was the evil genius in the room.
Bannon makes Cheney look like a choirboy.
6
For many of us who grew up believing in the goodness of those establishments that purportedly resonated with values reaching to an Other: our church, our government, our God, these are hard times indeed. Shaky ground everywhere: my church-Catholic-is beset with an indigenous clericalism that has run wild since 325 A. D. when Constantine (probably at Lucifer's urging) gave it carte blanche privileges resulting in existential hell on earth for some; my country-America-has pivoted on fundamental issues of decency and rights for all (Lucifer here?) to a disgusting self-service entitled MAGA. I have only God left.
3
I’d like to see what Errol Morris makes of this documentany because I respect his work. But I don’t know if I’ll ever watch it because I find Bannon a total bore.
2
Gross. Brannon, Trump and all the blind fools who support the worst period in American history since institutional Jim Crow. Just gross. We can only vote to see that this too shall pass. Quickly.
7
The number of accounts, books, etc; read on the rise and fall of civilizations, cultures, empires, it never occurred that todays Western civilization could be destroyed by the simple picture of a mans penis on the internet. That certainly makes analysis of the problems a bit simpler.
1
I guess John Boehner was wrong: It's not Ted Cruz who is Lucifer
in the flesh, it's Steve Bannon!
2
How honest is Bannon if he thinks Trump is honest? Brannon has a screw loose. His joy in life is kicking over apple carts again and again for the high it gives him. He's an arrested adolescent who never grew up.
IMO, He's dangerous and today, we seem not to have too many grownups in power to check him.
I'm a 74 year-old fuddydyddy liberal who doesn't think all adults are adult; however, where are the mature men and women with valuable life experiences leading the uninformed, uneducated? Trump is our President, and gave Bannon legitimacy, for heaven's saske, something is horribly wrong.
4
I enjoyed Frank Bruni's interview of Errol Morris. It's simple and clear. Oftentimes intellectual journalism spends too much energy showing off it's embrace of complicated thought instead of drilling down to primary colors. Bannon understands his basics.
Trumpsters voted the man into office on raw flash points.......fear and revenge.
They struck a match and manipulated those voters with lies peddled as truth. Lies bear no accountability when they are in pursuit of power. Cynical opportunists. There's your devil!
Meanwhile, the Clinton crowd was being distracted by a mirror (polls) that offered no reflection. The mirror kept saying a win was inevitable. So much for that Disney tale.
Sounds like Morris is willing to acknowledge the mistake,
offering the badger 'honey', and bringing a dangerous man and his lies to light....
allowing us to see the ambition, arrogance and vanity.
The question remains....have we disappeared into silos of self congratulation?
The devil is standing in front of us. Are we just too busy looking the other way? If the 2018/2020 millennial and women's vote doesn't come out, Bannon's devil might just be reigning in Hell!
2
I agree with Mr. Bruni.
Somewhat to my surprise, I've increasingly found Bannon to be the most interesting of Trumpsters. Unlike Trump, he has studied issues and formulated opinions thereof. At the same time I've been baffled by his conclusions that I'd describe roughly as disruption punctated by racial/cultural/economic nationalism. This combination of notions appear to ignore the history of last couple of centuries, especially in Europe but elsewhere as well, and, I think, portends a repeat of well-known failures, including incessant war. It's a toxic combination that chiefly reflects a return to bad old days.
Accordingly, the demise of Bannonism would be a very good thing.
2
I’ll be honest and say I doubt I’ll watch the film as I utterly detest Bannon and all he represents, and I wish he could just be ignored into obscurity.
However Mr Morris’ analysis and remarks in this interview are spot on. A very erudite, learned fellow indeed.
4
"Is Steve Bannon an earnest ideologue or is he a cynical and grandiose opportunist?"
Bannon is both. He completely believes in everything he says and presents it in such a way that it is appealing to many. He is looking to make this a world wide accepted ideology that will allow this followers to "reign" rather than "serve." Frightening.
2
"Let's get our sovereignty back". Sovereignty is the right of kings and this is just what people like Bannon (Wall Street Bannon and all his bothers and sisters), Trump, McConnell, Ryan, Pence, etc are looking to do. First they destroy the middle class and competition by buying up successful businesses the employ the middle class and are pillars of their communities. Then they load them up with debt, take the money and bankrupt that business and take production overseas making an inferior product that they sell at Walmart.
These evil people have been able to convince a significant number of people that it is unfair government regulation and international trade deals that have caused this. They then promise the disposed that they are populists and are going to get it all back for them.
The mechanism to exorcise these evil parasites from our society is available to us. It is the vote.
Vote these evil royalty out of office in November. Take a friend to the polls and vote against the evil GOP.
3
Bannon got on board with Trump in hopes of becoming the American version of Russia's oligarchs. Once you get that, everything he does makes sense.
5
There seems to be a penchant in conservative politics for obedience to leaders. We see it presently in the Republican congress joining itself at the hip with the absolute worst president in American history. "Keep quiet and follow" or risk everything in speaking out.
Bannon's popularity, if it exists at all, is fed by the willingness of people NOT to ask questions. His professed intellectualism is really of the "Classics Illustrated" variety. Spout a few good quotes; mention some important titles, and voila—the doctrinal source of Republicanism as we see it today in a self-aggrandizing president devoid of a political underpinning. Trump is Bannon's creation indeed.
Listening to or watching him pontificate is like watching a billiard ball caroming from bank to bank to bank. "There is no there there" is what comes to mind when listening to Stave Bannon.
Steve Bannon's thinking is as he dresses: odoriferous, sloppy, unkempt, disjunct, disrespectful. Hopefully anyone willing to buy a ticket to see Morris's film will see that Bannon is at heart a Cheshire cat, taking pleasure in his constant misdirection.
I won't be among them.
8
A lot of words here, but no mention that Bannon and his activities are funded by the Mercers, who are multi billionaires whose goal is to pay much lower taxes, even destroy the IRS if possible. The rest of Bannon’s “thoughts” is just window dressing to get working class folks on board with that. Don’t get distracted. If Bannon meant what he says, he’d be allying with Sanders and Warren.
10
Just what we need another platform for a man that has multiple chances to promote his views. From what I understand this documentary is just a long interview with Bannon with no critique or counter argument. Why?
2
So Trump was an empty vessel into which Bannon poured his ideas. I don't buy it. Yes, Trump was an empty spittoon, or more likely a pisspot. But his racism against black and brown people was inbred courtesy of Fred Trump. His racial prejudice was, and still is, shared by the overwhelming majority of Trump's supporters. In short, racism is the core of Trumpism. Without it, none of Bannon's ideas would have gotten beyond the kooky stage.
Mr. Morris is a thoughtful and wise man. But I must disagree with his otherwise insightful take-away from the 2016 election. He finds "the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many people... horrifying and depressing." However, I fear it was not a "wholesale abandonment" by those folks, but a wholesale affirmation by too many Americans of the racism that has infected our nation long before its founders declared that all men are created equal and entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
7
How much alcohol does Bannon drink? If a little then it probably has little to no effect on his personality. If a lot then that is at least one key to understanding a man whose mind jumps around, who dresses slovenly, who has no boundaries or morality, who seems to be as self-centered and narcissistic as Trump.
Prohibition did not arise out of some pearl clutching white ladies worries. Alcohol abuse was destroying people in terrible numbers. Bannon easily fits some of the symptoms of alcohol abuse.
There is no single event that turned Bannon into a ugly human being. It was a process. Perhaps the process arose out of other issues. But my guess is that, if he does drink a great deal, then what causes him to be scattered in his thinking, incoherent in his thoughts, look like a person living off the streets, is that he is consuming his own undoing. Unfortunately as he tears himself down his charisma, innate intelligence, ability to ingratiate himself with rich and powerful, tears many others down.
2
@Dave. Your insight into possible alcoholism is acute. If you check his marital history you find at least his last two were brief. Something is wrong.
Can’t sign onto your possible endorsement of a new prohibition though.
2
To me there is nothing new to be found in Mr. Bannon, nor in the support for Donald Trump.
Sadly it has always been easier to combine ego boosting, with hate for the 'other' into a witches brew of blinding light shadowing the actual goals of its purveyors.
Mr. Bannons genius (or perhaps low cunning) has been to ferret out ways to combine the worst aspects of Evangelicalism and 'Christian Conservatism', with latent (or not so latent) racism, anti-intellectualism, blind greed, and the self aggrandizement of too many of the monied class.
At bottom all the tools fascists have used for time immemorial to pervert civilizations for no other real purpose than to 'get even ' by 'showing them'.
How perfect then the parallel with Satan.
2
Apt metaphor by Bannon for Trump’s election: “this blunt instrument,” “this armor-piercing shell”. A mindless and destructive assault on reason and values in government.
4
It is remarkable the quality of stereotyped thought exemplified by some of the Times' picks...but that is more testament to
the different echo chambers inhabited by disjoint strata of
the society that still has energy and time to pay attention to
such dialogues of the deaf. So much oversimplified venom from
the alt right types with so much self assurance that what is
articulated is the sole truth so help me g-d...where did such people learn about critical evidence based thinking?
Clearly not from any of Errol Morris' profound masterpieces. Have they even seen any of them?
I was also curious whether Morris was able to engage the
Lucifer wannabee in front of his camera about how he
envisions his society would actually work in the everyday
world. Ignore the silly grab bag rhetoric that bannon seems
to think he needs to throw around to sound thoughtful, and
get down to very small nitty gritty details of implementation.
How would his "administratively deconstructed" society actually function. What powers would judges have? What
powers would CEOs have both in the marketplace and inside
their companies? What powers would journalists
have to report their investigations? What rights would
citizens, defined by what civil procedure, enjoy and what
would be their options if they felt an abridgement of those
rights?
It would be fascinating to learn if lucifer bis has thought
in detail about such fundamental subjects, and if so,
how his "ideal" daily world operated.
1
"I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people. That I can’t understand. And that I find horrifying and depressing."
Yes, this is the horror of the Trump presidency. I have come to believe, however, that most of these people have no concept of what's happening. Yes, the hard core that shows up at Trump rallies wallows in racism and xenophobia. But the uniquely American quality here is willful ignorance; many have no interest in "politics" and, to the degree they pay attention at all, welcome Fox propaganda that tells them what to think. All they know is that Trump outrages the elite. Nothing else will get through to them for the duration of his presidency.
3
Steve Bannon is a disgrace.
I hate to think of him in Europe appearing to be a "representative" of the U.S.
Hopefully, most Europeans see him as the blowhard and egotist that they see in Trump, pandering to any crowd that will cheer him.
1
The problem started when more and more people convinced themselves that a government is nothing but a problem. "I am from the government, and I am here to help" and "do-nothing Congress" became standard joke lines, parrotted by every idiot with a mic. It will get worse before it gets better.
1
Bannon would be just another nasty crackpot at the local bar if not for other people's money.
He's a political prostitute, doing the bidding of the Mercer family and their ilk, playing attack dog for the smarmy billionaire candidate and then slinking around the White House until a few semi-rational staffers had enough.
When the money dries up, and it will, he will be that nasty crackpot in the local bar, regaling the other drunks with his grandiose stories of "when I was . . ."
4
Bannon is an uneducated person's idea of an educated man.
Bannon is an unintelligent person's idea of a real intellectual.
What he is, is a clever fascist, pushing for racist, fascist White-dominated nations, both here in the US and abroad.
He uses the Newt Gingrich tact of citing really obscure sources and works. Who ever heard Saul Alinsky, supposedly a patron saint of the Left, before Gingrich dug him up? Nobody I knew on the left ever heard of him!
And Bannon dug up "Count" Julius Evola as some kind of great thinker, who was nothing but an apologist for Mussolini's fascism.
Bannon's misogyny and anti-Semitism are well-documented as well as his possibly criminal false declaration of residency.
In fact, he's a miserable human being, topped only by Trump and Manafort.
18
I think Brannon is a poser who would be a you tube star if he was of that age. He craves attention, can’t seem to string any thoughts together in a logical flow. I wonder why you are giving this guy so much attention. He would be Logan Paul nowadays.
2
I wouldn't pay two cents to see this film. Steve Bannon, as the publisher of Breitbart, is responsible for its divisive and disgusting racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, and homophobic viewpoints. It's also reprehensible that he promoted an amoral individual named Donald Trump as a candidate for president. As for the 35-40% of this country whose loyalty to this GOP reality TV show host-turned faux politician is unwavering, I believe in this adage: When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
3
Mrt. Bannon has been described, I think by Peter King (R.-N.Y.), as a disheveled Irish drunk.
As Mr. King and I (and Mr. Bannon) are all of Irish extraction,
I view this comment as in insult... to disheveled Irish drunks.
10
This self-anointed smart guy (and stupid man's idea of a smart guy) came out in support of Alabama's crazy pedophile.
Play the kaleidoscopic array of incoherent (cherry picked from books) gibberish that this guy spouts through his black-box 'inference engine' brain, and out comes strong support for Moore. Do I need say more? The man is nuts. I'm not interested in his worldview.
5
Lest anyone think our President and his apologist media outlet, Fox News, are not racist, try this exercise this morning.
Go to the Fox News website.
Click on an article entitled, "Anti-Trump ESPN commentator leaving network after huge pay deal: report" about the departure from ESPN of African-American commentator, Jemele Hill.
First, the only reason Fox News has an article about the departure of someone from ESPN is that (1) she is black and (2) she has been outspoken on issues related to the African-American community. Fox News ran no similar articles about the ESPN contract buyouts of Bill Simmons or Keith Obermann.
Second, read the comments to the article on the Fox News website, including the following:
"Here we go . . . Maxine Waters Junior"
"Some folks worlds simply came to crashing halt as soon as they learned that their messiah couldn't run for a third term."
"That's one of the problems with quota hiring...….it cost so darn much to get rid of the losers."
"Trump will be impeached the same day Jemele Hill earns her PhD in AstroPhysics."
"Obama was as useless as women sports reporters trying to talk about football intelligently."
"Jemele Hill... black support President Trump doubles to 36%... you lose."
"Rumor has it she also likes to kneel..... If you know what I mean."
This is the America of Trump, Bannon, and Fox News.
13
Superb, Frank!
3
With Bannon there is no there there. Irrelevancy, redundancy, yes. Give me The Grapes of Wrath, not Twelve O'Clock High.
5
It seems Bannon's political activism was sparked when his father lost all his savings during the 2008 financial meltdown. However, looking closer at this event, Bannon's father made a rash decision to sell his AT&T stock without consulting Bannon or any person with a finance background. Bannon exploited his father's mistake to justify all his draconian political beliefs that followed with the sole purpose of destroying our democracy.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-problem-with-steve-bann...
Rumpled Bannon stumping for Roy Moore in Alabama...that image is seared in my mind as a DNA sample of one Steve Bannon. It tells me everything about the man I need to know; he is a simple opportunist. The intellectual gibberish is just cigarette smoke, an affectation to ward off the anxiety.
5
It's impossible to understand why Bannon espouses policies and supports a president that run entirely contrary to Bannon's professed goals of helping the working class. But that contradiction, that incoherence, is all that is needed to reject this man entirely - whether because you think he's a charlatan, has a half-baked intellect, is an egomaniac, or is mentally ill.
2
I guess his comment about Weiner was funny
enough,but I think that Hilary Clinton deserves
all the blame for losing the easiest election in
goodness knows how long. to call it a slam dunk
is to insult slam dunkers.she and her campaign
were complacent and arrogant in the extreme.
she almost single handedly changed the course
of American history and then made money off
writing books about it.what a shame and a sham.
2
Sounds a bit like the power of Savanorola and thatbdid not end very well for anyone. If you stoke fires of hate you have to accept that you will eventually have a personal fire on your hands
The irony is that Bannon characterizes Harvard as the bastion of liberal thought. Yet, this far right wing-nut attended Harvard. His populist, man on his own, values grew there. Many of Trump's most ideologue driven advisors come from Harvard, Yale and Georgetown. The SC judges he has picked are Yale grads if I am not mistaken.
If the surface is scratched in these hallowed halls, many graduates turn out to have old school Republican parents with a socially liberal bent. They call themselves Democrats because they have some sense of their mighty privilege and it makes them feel they are helping the poorer classes.
However, add some religious orthodoxy to their backgrounds and an oppositional streak and you get a volatile mix of hate, greed and ego. Bannon just wants to wipe, what he perceives to be, the smug self satisfied smiles off the faces of his old classmates. He should wipe it off his face first.
5
Bannon is a self-important, cynical, deeply narcississtic man. There is something profoundly broken in him. He, along with Stephen Miller have the idea that they are fulfilling some kind of destiny (like the 100 year reich). They seem to have no love for anyone or anything. They seem to have no emotions at all. d
3
I wonder what the heck Bannon got from one of my favorite films, "The Bridge on the River Kwai"?
While Bannon may be the most interesting character out there, I think the filmmaker should next turn his attention to Fox News. A study of Fox News would answer his question of "the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many people."
Fox put Trump in the White House even more than Bannon did.
6
There are some people I hope I never hear about again until they appear on the "Irish Sports Page". Bannon is way up there on that list.
3
Like Trump, Bannon has an affinity for autocrats. Hence his travels to Budapest.
Where next? Manila? Damascus?
Perfect! Thanks!
Antone who desires unabashed clarity about Bannon and Trumpistan and humanity in general just needs to absorb the wisdom of Errol Morris expressed here
Too many stupid people in thrall to alpha male shallow mesmerizers and dragged under - like drowning sheep -by the visissitudes of fate and their own eternal cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.
Some contend Steve Bannon is Trump's Brain, similar to the role Karl Rove had with GW Bush:
Media manipulator, influential, able to hoodwink and persuade the masses.
Author Ron Suskind identified Rove as the man who claimed 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality, —judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'
1
Trump didn't need Bannon to call Mexicans rapists. He came up with that all by himself. And since Bannon left the the White House Trump didn't need Bannon to inspire vile reactionary hatred around the globe. He has done very well on his own.
But Morris does need us to believe Bannon as Lucifer in order to sell his movie.
1
Bannon will tangle you up every time you every time because he is many things and student of conflicting ideas,thoughts and enterprises.People call him a populist but he did very well while at Goldman Sachs.People think he is anti-Semitic because he was executive editor at Breitbart which itself is a confusing organization,started by two Jewish men while they were in Israel.When you think of Bannon, prepare for complexity, bewilderment and trouble.He is expert in saying most anything providing it won't have him imprisoned. No doubt our president learned that from him so felt free to talk about Barack Obama, birtherism ,Ted Cruz's wife and father and all the ugly things he said during his presidential campaign.Trump learned,probably from Bannon,you can say what you want unless you might be sued for it.Trump now runs the U.S. presidency with Bannon's rules of the road to the white house. "Say what you want but don't let it cost you any Money", This is only my heartfelt opinion. Others can decide for themselves,the good ole American way.
69
Reading this, there's one thing I don't understand. All this emphasis on November and getting voters out -- which is urgent of course -- but what about countering Russian efforts? Why are people not openly and frequently discussing how to do this, in the same way that they discuss getting voters out? Are there campaigns to push paper ballots? Political awareness to avoid phishing and scams? All the voters in the world will be hindered in their efforts if Russia has their way with it. We need more discussion on this.
1
Yeah, I find the dismissal of American ideals by so many people horrifying. But that's been the case for time out of mind. America is a set of ideas about the protection of human dignity, freedom and justice, and the security of the community. These are ideals many Americans do not endorse. For example, polls all my life have shown large numbers of Americans, when presented with them, neither recognize nor approve the Bill of Rights. Throughout our history, cynical con men like Trump have made a living playing to that crowd. It takes more than being born here to be a citizen of America.
2
Bannon in front the US flag. A contrast! The flag stands for the good in the US, Bannon stands for something else. Raw ambition? Jealousy? The urge to tear down the "establishment" without a plan to construct something better? Reminds me of Robespierre. Or another agitator on the make in Europe in the 1920s.
2
''I feel like if we had a nanny cam on his past, we would see a moment when there was some sort of humiliation or rejection by that liberal elite that would help us understand better his fury. Do you feel that way?''
This is my favourite question asked by Mr. Bruni.
If only the perceived Hollywood cool guys had embraced him.
That wasn't about to happen.
Mr. Bannon makes lousy movies. Fellini he is not.
1
Steve Bannon is what he appears to be, a mess. He would have fit right in riding off with the Crusaders. He would have basked in witnessing the torture of the Inquisition. His bulldog demeanor suggests a murky brand of Christianity that bears no resemblance to Christ. When Trump cut him off, Bannon had to take his show on the road. I hope he wears himself out in Europe as American voters side with equality and the rule of law. We have enough messes to clean up without him.
7
Poor Steve Bannon. He gave Trump all the sloganeering ideas that won the election. Then, Bannon was quoted saying some not-so-nice (though true) things about Trump and got thrown under the bus. Treated like Judas instead of Jesus.
2
"I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people."
I can. The inability to admit being wrong is baked into the GOP DNA, and has been for generations. Trump voters have to contend daily--sometimes hourly!--with evidence that they were terribly, tragically wrong about him. He can't stop proving he really is as awful as the liberal elite say he is. The inescapable conclusion is that anyone who votes for an awful man must be awful, too. No one likes to admit that they might be awful. So they default to defiant denial: "Truth isn't truth!" and/or whataboutisms: "Hillary/Obama was even worse!" The more they resort to these defaults the denser they appear, and they know it. They lash out because at this point, politics really are personal.
If you follow Trump on Twitter, you'll see glimmers of self-awareness here and there. Amid the blatant, Soviet-looking propaganda--portraits of Trump looking heroic, overlaid with gigantic eagles and sometimes Jesus, bouquets of unfurled flags in every corner--you find a handful of plaintive appeals to Trump: "Please stop tweeting. Please stop expressing racism, misogyny, xenophobia. Please, please be presidential. YOU'RE MAKING US ALL LOOK BAD!"
There is a yearning out there for a return to civility in civic affairs. We just need to find a way for people to come back that preserves a modicum of their pride.
1
I find it tragic that Senator John McCain, who fought for this country his entire life, lived long enough to see the abomination of characters that have taken over the country and party he was a part of.
Imagine the awful history that will be written of McCain if Americans leave these scoundrels in office to write the history of our time - a la Bannon.
2
It struck me reading this, on the gut level - American politics is suffering from an adolescence crisis. At best, adolescence... some of it is a severe infantile narcissism crisis. Petulance, infantile frustration and puerile anger abound.
At the risk of hypocrisy, I see immaturity as the common thread among all the people named in this article (excepting the author and the cinemamaker Morris - I don't know much about them). Bannon? A clear case of arrested development. Given his background, that's no surprise - Catholicism is one of the most effective stunting mechanisms extant. Trump? His infantilism is well documented. Huma, Weiner, Comey, Clinton, Clinton's adolescent "husband," Manafort, Cohen, Ronald Reagan (a young boy if there ever was one), Palin.
And the government is riddled with petulant, self-absorbed, petty, irresponsible immaturities. A few that come immediately to mind: Ryan, Zinke, Kelly, Carson, DeVos, Pence, Hatch, Gillebrand, Harris... (and that's setting aside the questionable psyches of Cruz, Cotton, Gohmert, Mulvaney, Jordan, and a whole host of others in Congress and the Administration, though Pence I think qualifies as questionable, which is why I don't want Trump convicted if he's impeached. Better the devil we know...).
Our politics hasn't graduated middle school. Other sectors of our "culture" haven't, either: entertainment, religion, business, finance...
And the Democrats entertain Oprah, Eric Holder, Howard Schultz...
Where are the adults?!
5
"What I can’t really understand is what happened to America after 2016 and the election."
Simple answer: The Republican Congress is a group of spineless, hold-the-nose opportunists.
5
Bannon was completely shattered by his father's selling of his portfolio when the market was down. He can't get over the fact that his father was wrong, and that if he held on he would have come back and made more money. He's mad about that and he can't get over it. Hence his bizarre populist theorems.
1
Once again the media, in this case cinema, gives a platform to ignominy and and arrogant ignorance. Liberal intellectual fascination with corruption only helps normalize it.
1
“Devils Bargain” by Joshua Green must be about three years old now and even if it was read, it is probably considered ancient history now.
However, anyone with an interest in Bannon should take a close look at the book — especially in the brief chapter that describes his epiphany concerning the millions of angry men in the world who he is able to organize, interact with and influence via on-line gaming platforms.
In that one chapter, many questions about Bannon and his ideology become self explanatory and believe me, it’s shocking.
3
It's pretty simple, really. A distressingly large minority of those who voted in the last election gave us a monster for President. That needs to be fixed, and soon. However, we are on the verge of a huge environmental problem that we are determined to ignore for as long as possible. That would be, not much longer. So, Bannon (and Trump) have quite possibly ended us. As in, finis...no more humans. That's the worst case, and could be reality. You heard it here, first. Get ready, you'll wish you had done more. Bannon knows what he's doing, and it's not good. Lucifer, indeed....
1
>
"My dear brethren, do not ever forget, when you hear the progress of lights praised, that the loveliest trick of the Devil is to persuade you that he does not exist!"
Charles Baudelaire
Steve Bannon is just another sign of the decay of America.
As, has been noted elsewhere, Trump is a predicatable outcome of our failure to sustain a country in which an average person can be prosperous, and to slide back into our chimpanzee-like social/economic structures in which there are dominance hierarchies among the "alpha" males, and their obsrquious worshipers. During the quiet rot, bombastic ego-maniacs hold a fascination for '"normal" people, because they promise peace and a chicken in every pot, and a rationale that leaves "normal" people with no responsiblility for the decay that "normal" people have enabled, made possible, and effected. The
contradictory promise of economic well-being for all, sustained by an incoherent, violent, Satanic political system, should be self-obvious. Enough said.
1
Not sure why Steve Bannon deserves all this attention. Bannon was instrument in Trump winning the election in 2016 but now he's discarded. I think Bannon needs to find another demagogue and help him get elected. Bannon fully understood the psychosis of poor, white America. He helped Trump exploit it. Prejudice and racism exists all around us. However, confining the racism only to white people seems short-sighted and inaccurate. Everybody is susceptible to being a racist. It's sad that racism by the whites the what is mostly recognized. It may be Bannon that may aid in making sure that Trump isn't re-elected in 2020.
1
"Bannon, talking about the Clinton campaign's neglect of American workers. I think he's right. He makes a big speech about jobs versus identity politics. I think he's right."
Liberals have called this issue A Tempest in a Teapot. They have erred & erred greatly. When you have all the potential resentment, anger, "racism" & populist fury bottled up & productive from an economic & patriotic national standpoint & you let it unravel & disintegrate, you create, voila, a Trump.
We so-called "populist" progressives agree with Errol Morris's take & urge all rallying around the Democratic Party as the last best hope to get real & dump the globalism hogwash being foisted upon us by the international & domestic elites & of course, the majority are Republicans, regardless of what Bannon or Trump say.
2
Bannon is right about inequality econmically speaking. His idea of tearing everything down is appealing if you can see government run buy a vase majority of voters. Even Republicans are scared of him. The idea is to give the working person a shot at the middle class. That primarily where he’s coming from. This is a hard nut to crack since neoliberal polices have made the corporations extremely strong and there unwillingness to share their rewards with their employees under the theory of shareholders first and with deceiving all of us that free markets are the only game in town. So how do we off set and democratize weath. Limit buy back stocks,asset taxes on the wealthy, no hidden money,produce or pay on sitting assets,fair pay,good trading policies,free college tuition on education that producers doctors,scientists,technologists and vocatioanal trades.Sorry about Lberal education,maybe later. Teach a sustainable living course through high school. Stop consumerism through education. Let the rich consume what they want. Understand we can not have everything. Keep people healthy through education and rewards for staying healthy. Support the sick.Build a nuclear capability that says if you start it we will end it in such a forcefull way that it would be suicidal to start it. That’s because we and they have already and it’s not going away. ....
1
The fact that Bannon does not get laughed out of the room when he starts spouting his theories and ideas makes me despair for the future of our nation.
10
Steve Bannon interesting? Really? Not to me, he isn't. For me he is a rumpled suit with pockets of sticky notes upon which are scribbled history's worst ideas.
3
Bannon is a meddler. An extremely adept and consequential one, at that. He's absolutely in love with himself, and gets off by seeing just how much damage one man can do. The best place to do that was/is the ideological fracture within the GOP. The Tea Party movement and now the White Power movement- Bannon played a big part in both. He wants to latch on to Le Pen for the same reason, her message has potential for radical change. I'm not sure he even has a goal, other than to see just how much chaos one man can breed.
3
Maureen Dowd's deep attachment to Donald Trump before she cynically abandoned him because of the disapproval of too many of her other friends, Frank Bruni's being ever stimulated by Laura Ingraham thinking when he says children in cages she won't respond "not cages, summer camp", Errol Morris thinking that Bannon is as eloquent as Lucifer because he wants to intensify global misery. I am somewhat hooked on them also. Tragically, as smart as Frank, Maureen and Errol think they are, and as smart and perceptive as they actually are, the objects of their fascination almost always get the last laugh.
2
He and Trump suffer the same character disorder. Bannon is merely the more intelligent narcissist. His chaotic and incomprehensible world view is a symptom of his inability to see and feel what is real, outside of his own mind. Something that characteristic of pathological narcissism. He wants attention and power. Anyone who suffers from this level of derangement finds their own twisted path to those ends.
8
Bannon's an opportunist bringing any number of anti-diversity ideologies to the forefront. He's broadcast these through Breitbart News, movies and media manipulations.
More importantly, many believe he was key to Donald Trump intentionally talking white men into demanding back their country---by means of far too many scare tactics + conspiracy notions to mention here.
Bannon recently admitted Hillary Clinton was “spot on” about a “vast right wing conspiracy” against her and her husband. How does he know that? He aided and abetted it for years.
Bannon himself is an elite establishment guy--- a Goldman Sachs man by trade--- dressing in a disheveled manner, fooling people into believing he and a Manhattan television performer are true-blue populists. It's the big lie--still in progress for 2020.
@One More Realist in the Age of Trump
Bannon on pretending to be a populist is just like trump pretending to care for or be like right wing blue collar workers and evangelicals. He resembles them only in bile and stupidity.
'...I asked [Bannon]; “No Bannon. No Trump?” And, of course...he agreed. That’s the story...how Stephen K. Bannon put Trump in the White House...' That Trump was this — the terms that he uses, “this blunt instrument,” “this armor-piercing shell.”...
'Terms for Trump, who had no ideas, really, but ideas that Bannon poured into this vessel...'
What this observer doesn't get is why it's taken so long for someone such as Mr Morris to identify and underscore in public consciousness, the Bannon "contribution."
Seems as though it ought to have not only been identified but also trumpeted 24/7 from very early on in PT's administration.
Yes, opponents may never have had the votes, with the exception of ACA, but greater awareness from the earliest time might have enabled opponents to have gotten them.
Ditto in the cases apart from some immigration matters, where Bannon inputs were implemented by executive and administrative action.
But better never late and thanks to Mr Bruni for this pre-opening heads up as to Mr Morris' work.
3
I love Errol Morris. What an incredible man and filmmaker. What I am curious about is whether or not Frank Bruni and the rest of the opinion columnists at the NYTimes as well as its editorial board take any responsibility for the terrible, frightening situation we are in now with their nakedly pushing for Hilary Clinton to be the Democratic candidate. Errol Morris says that Bannon talks about Clinton's neglect of American workers (actually that would be the Democratic Establishments neglect including Obama's) in favor of identity politics. Trying to pretend that pushing liberal social policies is any substitute for pushing for economic fairness and equality. Still wondering if the Democrats have yet figured this out.
3
Bannon strikes me as a seedy mealy-mouthed creep who thinks he knows more than everyone else. Huge ego, huge ambition and no soul. Why anyone would find him interesting or fascinating is beyond me. How can he be intelligent and have an incoherent philosophy? Isn't that an oxymoron? Who, with intelligence, looks like him or likes being compared to Lucifer?
The many people who seem to have abandoned "American Values" probably think the anti-Trump voters are the ones who have done that. They think they are the ones holding the real values and we just want to give the country to the chickens. If you live in a win/lose, us/them world (and most do) you follow the sales pitch that says you will win and they won't.
Unless you read broadly and comprehend what you read, unless you travel to different cultures and societies, unless you know people who are not like you that you come to understand and like, you have no clue. Poor education is a terrible evil (DeVos makes me shudder) as it leads to a very uninformed electorate who are ripe for manipulation.
If you get all your news from FOX and the local paper, and that's enough, how would you know anything? If you need a recipe to scramble eggs or instructions to make toast and you vote, who do you vote for? If you are told that red is wonderful and blue is terrible, do you argue?
I won't see this movie. No need to waste my free time. What would I learn that isn't right here in Bruni's column?
7
Without Bannon, Trump loses in ‘16.
Thank you, Mr. Bannon.
2
Errol Morris says:
<< his [Bannon's] ability to get attention for himself (and, admittedly, I’m part of it) >>
And so are you, Mr. Bruni, a part of it by giving him the attention in your column that he so craves. They've had their time on the stage. It's time to ignore them now. There's too much work to do rebuilding our republic to waste time and ink on people like him.
1
There appears to be a misplaced comma in: All of those movies are movies that he wanted to talk, about and I obliged.
... talk about, and I obliged
1
Trump and Bannon are easy to understand, especially when viewed through an adolescent mindset. It's exhilarating to burn things down, tedious to build.
5
The "many, many, many, many people who abandoned American values" listen to a hypocrite like Bannon because they no longer look at the way a person lives his life and check that against the words he says. They give rotters like Bannon and Trump complete free rent in their heads.
Bannon, making a smarmy Riefenstahl knock-off about conservative women and glorifying the family left his own kids behind. He gives a bunch of "workers unite" pap to Trump who cheats every worker he can get a hold of.
Until people decide not to give up believing liars we are going to have globe-trotter Steve Bannon's "Gullible's Travels" selling the snake oil.
1
For Bannon to associate himself in any way with the marvelous and humane “Chimes At Midnight” confirms his spiritual depravity: Shakespeare would have mocked Bannon, and Welles would have loathed him.
1
Doesn’t the Falstaff character that mentors the wastrel Prince Hal and then gets cast aside shortly after Hal becomes Henry V remind you of anyone? It could be a self-parody.
1
I really like Frank Bruni. Our ideas run parallel on so many levels. And I just love the fact that Frank was not only the Rome correspondent, but the Rome restaurant critic. Now that is a difficult, difficult job. It's not every journalism student who gets a gig like that. Congrats Frank, on a lifetime of honest reporting. A rara-avis in this aviary....
Overriding all this blather about movies, the Harvard Business School, books read... is a description of a man whose values are in the gutter.
Bannon is a self-serving egotist whose need for attention drives him to say anything that will garner him attention and dollars. Apparently bad publicity is better than no publicity. He and other PR sewer rats will have their moment of fame or infamy, but will leave a legacy of shame and ridicule for his family.
1
A scary thing that Bannon has shown up in Europe with his racist and xenophobic ideas. What may save us is his shabby uncouth appearance and his link to the incoherent and mentally unstable Trump. But mostly because we have no equivalent (at least here in France) to an extreme right ((or left, for that matter) propaganda machine like Fox News. Hopefully reason will prevail and this will all be just a bad moment in time.
1
Steve Brannon resembles Trump’s Johnny Cocharan. Trump is like OJ. No matter what he does his base will ignore it. Like African Americans ignored the facts of the OJ case.
While I am at analogies it wasn’t Whitewater that got Clinton it was sex. It might not be the Russian investigation that gets Trump but sex.
I am so tired of everyone lionizing Bannon, or at least giving him more influence than he's due. He may be more intelligent than Trump but he's not nearly as intelligent as he thinks he is and, like Trump, is nothing more than a grifter. Anyone who thinks Sarah Palin deserved to be immortalized in a Bannon movie needs their head examined. Like her, most of the politicians Bannon supported here and in Europe have been consigned to the dustbin of history. Having lost his Trump and Mercer cash cows, Bannon goes around in his leather jacket posing as the rumpled intellectual of the alt-right but he's nothing more than a leech seeking a new source of sustenance.
13
@Christy
Thank you. Far better written than any of the filmmaker's comments.
1
Stumping for Roy Moore in Louisiana, Steve Bannon looked like something the cat dragged in. "What kind of a man is this!" (h/t Trump referring to Sessions) -- Trump's Chief Strategist -- till he was fired and went out to claim sovereignty for white supremacist-leaning nations (cf Orban's, Le Pen's, Corbyn's, Conte's), now that he's done the dirty here. Good for Errol Morris, calling Bannon honey-badger. And reminding us that the terrifying Trump show, engineered by Steve Bannon, started with Anthony Weiner's strange proclivity to display his tighty-whities on social media. Moore's documentary -- "American Dharma" -- Bannon's kind of moral order of the universe in Trump's America, illustrates that Trump's approval ratings by the great unwashed Americans who idolize him are sky-high and not likely to fall till he does. Under the unintended consequences of Donald Trump's presidency, America's moral values are dying. No question that our democracy is crumbling and will fall in the coming years. We are horrified. And very afraid.
2
@Gustav
Forty percent of our country is brainwashed and not dealing with reality or facts. Fox News has been the root cause of that. Don't forget Rush Limbaugh.
Propaganda works. propaganda, Supporting a psychopath, is a recipe for disaster.
Thought I was talking about Trump...
2
Look, I have no love for Bannon, but this is an unhinged, unserious project. The world is ending? Democracy is dying? Lucifer? Please. Bannon is right that the great Satan is the most complex and developed character in Paradise Lost, a fact seemingly lost on Mr. Morris. The snark here is overwhelming and too thick to see through. You have less context than Bannon, Mr. Morris.
To sum it all up at this 6:00am point in time, as well as in the current political sense of the word time:
There is "a cancer on the presidency" and the malignancy is rightly named Steve Bannon.
"...I did not have an understanding of the degree to which Hillary Clinton was hated..."
And there you have, in one succinct statement, the explanation for the destruction of western civilisation.
If a man as astute and discerning as Mr Morris was too cloistered to see what was apparent to any one paying attention to not merely the white working class of the heartland, but the suburban middle and upper-middle classes of the coasts, what chance did we stand in the hands of the feckless, focus-group fueled, echo-chamber residing apparatchiks of the Democratic Party?
Some of us tried to sound a warning, or at very least have a discussion only to be derided as misogynists and "Bernie Bros".
Hard as it may be to believe, perhaps --if we survive-- it will turn out for the best. A Clinton presidency would obviously not have been the disaster that is Trump, but it would have been 4-8 years of civil war with gains being made at the social margins, but none at the economic margins. Maybe instead the Democratic party will reclaim the mantle of Roosevelt and while continuing to embrace justice for all, not be so stupid as to lead with our chin all the time.
199
@Len Safhay Pointing to the gullibility of the American public. Both Dems and Repubs considered Hillary the most competent candidate after 2012, and the Right did everything possible to denigrate her abilities and accomplishments. Unfortunately all of those on the Right and many in the center and Left bought into it as well. To our continued detriment.
2
@Len Safhay The Clintons are hated because they are con artists. People especially don't like being betrayed by hucksters who talk a lot of talk, but then walk for the money and the power control, which in general is what Bill Clinton did during his presidency and Hillary sometimes did in her public life and was suspected of more and mistrusted even more, partly because of her smug arrogance. Yes, some of the disdain for her was rooted in misogyny, but at heart people don't trust her ethics, and with good reason.
The Clintons' glib, naked ambition - Rockefeller Republicanism dressed up as Democrats - overshone any good they did and would have done. The Democratic Party take heed: people, democrats particularly, aren't falling for the bogus centrism anymore, Republican-mole centrism that just worsens inequality. They're remembering what had been forgotten: follow the money.
@Len Safhay
Yes, well, this is why Dems should dump Pelosi as fast as possible.
Like Hillary, she is a perfect target for the Republicans------Whatever in the world that party and its people are these days.
If you are trying to win a court case, you don't use crummy arguments because it endangers your case.
Dump Pelosi post haste.
Errol Morris said: "I find it hardest to believe that he thinks that Donald Trump is an honest man. I find it hard to believe that he thinks that Donald Trump is enabling populist programs. How is this tax cut or the attempt to roll back capital gains taxes — how does that benefit the people? Is allowing all kinds of industrial pollution populism? I could go on and on."
Yes, you could, and with all that you'd fail to see -- because you do not wish to see -- what is really happening in *our movement*.
The marvellous thing about Trump is that he has more or less totally up-ended the classic American liberal apple cart. At every turn, using the crudest tools possible, he triggers the American progressive-left, causing apoplectic fits. The Left REVEALS itself.
And by turning against left-leaning 'political correctness' -- by suggesting that this is necessary and also good -- he shows the degree that the world of ideas has perimeters established and patrolled by the Left. To think *against the left* is to think politically incorrectly. The Left tells you what it is appropriate and allowed to think, and its main tool is not structured idea but ... shame.
Thank Heavens there is a movement now afoot which is challenging the Left's hegemony in the world of ideas. Frank Bruni (and Errol Morris) would like to believe that *we* are without ideas, or confused. This is not so. Do research. Find out.
Our ideas are not given a platform. But this is changing. Week by week.
21
@Alizia Tyler
But Alizia...how, in any measure, has Trump acted on behalf of the populace, which he claimed he would protect from a rigged political and economic system?
Tax cuts which benefit only the wealthy? Stripping affordable health care from the middle and working class? Those tax cuts, by the way, have NOT been reinvested to increase production or used to increase worker pay; they've been used for stock buy-backs for wealthy stockholders.
Exactly what is Trump's populist "movement" actually done for the populace?
2
You are suggesting the left is shallow. I argue that any political position that is not nuanced and fails to consider points of view is shallow. The left argues for the benefit of the individual by caring about the whole. The right argues for the benefit of the individual regardless of the whole. You are right that being PC without backing it up with nuance is not a philosophy. But to value the individual benefit without consideration of the longer term consequences is the road to disaster.
@Alizia Tyler Inevitable Republican projection. Trumpies are having "apoplectic fits", so that's what they accuse the other side of doing.
1
The malignant Steve Bannon under the astute microscope of Errol Morris is like a research scientist studying and exposing the workings of a cancer cell - I just hope that in some way his documentary contributes to finding a cure for the disease.
8
Bannon would still be a whacko at Breitbart if Robert Mercer hadn't stepped in with his piles of cash. Mercer, billionaire recluse, gun fanatic, and lover of cats is exhibit A for why Citizens United and the erosion of other voting process protections was the beginning of the end. Scalia et al sealed our fate as a functioning democracy. The undue influence of a few hundred excessively wealthy individuals has undermined our country seemingly just so they could continue to plunder our resources and gather more money. Simple Greed on a scale grand enough to send us back to feudal times. Are we going to have to go through yet ANOTHER revolution?
1
Steve Bannon with his evangelical zeal reminds me of another infamous American with that same zeal who led a movement that gave him fame, gave him huge influence and briefly put him in the limelight. That would be Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin who led the charge in the movement to rid the country of Communists. He became enamored with this cause and pursued it to the depths.His ideas appealed to some but his methods were over the top.He did not care about the damage he did- he only cared that his voice was heard.I see direct parallels with Bannon.
2
Bannon is no populist and neither is the Trump Administration.
And I cannot fathom how any voter could have thought that. All they really needed to do is scratch the veneer of both men and know that they could care less about ordinary citizens. They are the "elite" that they falsely rage against.
Bannon is the greatest manipulator of our times. A few years back, Cheney and Rumsfeld held this title. And Trump comes in a close second.
And to add to the worst of this, we have the Republican Congress allowing it to happen because they are benefitting from it.
Timing is everything and they had timing on their side. Bannon's persistence in trying to bring not just the US to its knees and now the rest of the world. goes beyond disgusting.
He might want to have a meeting with Pope Francis. Maybe Francis can get him to remember his Catholic background. The one where you beieved that everyone of God's creatures deserved to be treated with respect and dignity, charity and love.
But then he does prefer Lucifer to Jesus. Lucifer in the person of Trump, LePen and himself.
1
Bannon is a caricature of what he’d like to be: someone who attracts attention to himself by constantly trying to say something meaningful about himself.
I like movies, he proclaims. Well so do I and lists of other people. Bannon thinks his opinions on movies should dominate and persuade. But they don’t because no one cares. Why should they?
This is what keeps him going. Trying to find someone, somewhere, who thinks they should pay attention to him. So far, he’s not made much headway in that regard.
What a mash up.
Steve Bannon, who fancies himself an intellectual but can’t seem to put the pieces together. Donald Trump, a vain but empty “vessel” who wants the power and adoration of being king. And the Mercers, who elevated both with immense amounts of money and the social data manipulation expertise of Cambridge Analytica. The entire lot of them wanting to be players on the world stage and not one of them with any discernible vision for what to do when they got there.
Will they make their marks on American history? Very likely, but only as major players in destruction—of the Republican party, of America’s leadership role in the western democratic alliance, of honor and integrity as essential to republican government, of “united” in United States.
We watch, fascinated, like gawkers passing a fatal pile-up of huge trucks and small cars, grateful we dodged the bullet, shadowed with fear of becoming casualties ouselves. And we watch and wait for a savior to fill the void but who has yet to appear.
"Th wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people . . . " The reasons were, and still are, anger and hate. They hated President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren. The list of those who made them angry and those they hate - for no reason other than their gullibility, in my humble opinion - goes on and on. Thus they did not vote for Trump. They voted against people and things they hate, and some will continue to do so. Growing up in a very blue collar community, there was no shortage of anger and hate here, and it has been perpetuated by some of the descendants. The tacit understanding - it would be a philosophy here if they were educated enough to consciously formulate such things - is, "If I can't have it, I'll wreck it." So it is on the national and international stage. Bannon and hardcore Trump loyalists will have it their way or they will continue to wreck our democracy.
1
What a mash up.
Steve Bannon, who fancies himself an intellectual but can’t seem to put the pieces together. Donald Trump, a vain but empty “vessel” who wants the power and adoration of being king. And the Mercers, who elevated both with immense amounts of money and the social data manipulation expertise of Cambridge Analytica. The entire lot of them all wanting to be players on the world stage and not one of them with any discernible vision for what to do when they got there.
Will they make their marks on American history? Very likely, but only as major players in destruction—of the Republican party, of America’s leadership role in the western democratic alliance, of honor and integrity as essential to republican government, of “united” in United States.
We watch, fascinated, like gawkers passing a fatal pile-up of huge trucks and small cars, shadowed with fear of becoming casualties overselves. And we wait for a savior to fill the void, someone with the leadership, unselfishness and vision to reunite and reconstruct, and who has yet to appear.
3
That Bannon could quote Milton might be explained by how well read he is. More likely he remembers the Star Trek episode in which that line is quoted.
3
Frank, when I was in his care, Bruno Bettelheim asked me to read The Diary of a Young Girl. I had just learned that my dad was Jewish, that my mom was Episcopal. I was baptized. The Holocaust was being discussed. Aghast, I asked Dr. B if Anne Frank’s story was true.
He answered: Sandy, at least half the people you will meet in life would do as the Germans and other Europeans did, given similar circumstances. Dr. B meant slaughter minorities that are different.
We discussed prejudice, Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Gov. Faubus and George Wallace, many southern politicians, the KKK and lynchings.
Trump is dangerous.
I am very afraid. McConnell showed us, by refusing to give Obama’s SCOTUS nominee so much as a hearing, that our Constitution is an 18th Century Gentlemen’s Agreement in an age when we are fresh out of gentlemen. That no decent Republicans have really stood up to forcefully denounce Trump, Bannon and their ilk scares me no end. Bannon, by design, and Trump, in a fit of pique, could burn it all down.
10
Steve Bannon must have learned not to worry about what people say about him. Say anything i want as long as it is legal to say and i won't lose money because of it.. No doubt, he shared this thought with Mr. Trump who bought it hook, line and sinker. So Trump first tried it out on president Obama with the birther fantasy..He gained some dumb followers from that baloney so next came is"opinions" of his fellow candidates for the presidency and some of their relatives.. He found that ANYTHING will work on about 1/3 of the people (his uninformed base)
Steve Bannon is a smart guy. He made money at Goldman Sachs.He made money on old Jerry Seinfeld television shows.
He made money at Breitbart and gained many ultra right voters with their prejudices. He next put some ideas in Donald Trumps mind because Bannon knows that Trump isn't all that bright so he'll say most anything if he feels it won't cost him any MONEY !. And that is how Donald J. Trump became the president of the U.S,A. It was something that Steve Bannon whispered in his ear. "Say it, Do it ! but don't get sued."
Bannon is a footnote.
He looms large now, but he is already turning to dust.
Errol Morris, there is a new and much darker subject on the horizon.
It is time to focus on Pence, the Quiet Man, biding his time, threatening a far greater evil in our nation.
3
@UTBG
I don’t fear Pence, he of low brain power and infantile cravings. I do fear the people behind him, however. They’re just biding their time.
The headline describes Mr Morris's remarks as "candid" as though this was an indicator of courage. But what does he have to lose by being forthright, even inflammatory, about a figure such as Bannon who has long been a target for general contempt?
We can certainly appreciate Morris's documentary, but there is nothing particularly virtuous about it.
I'm reading Olen Steinhauer's chilling, cautionary new novel "The Middleman" at the moment, in which the country loses itself because, whatever they once were, "American values" no longer unite us. Steinhauer posits: the response to that societal vacuum is anarchy. And this very much seems to be the path we are headed down. Down being the operative word. Bannon is an anarchist and nihilist, as his own words and actions reveal so clearly. And he is far more frightening and dangerous a threat than any author can invent. Because he is real.
1
The terms "American Dharma" and "sovereignty" in connection to Steve Bannon interest me. During the 2016 election, I tuned out all things right wing because much of it was and still is us versus them Euro-centric white-ism. Still, I have bristled at use of the term "white privilege" to label poor whites, many of whom are no less multi-generationally poor and disadvantaged than their non-white neighbors. Rigged systems exist within systems. Because I before the age of 11, was robbed of family, dignity, physical integrity and health by Bannon's gender biased religion, I believe America's dharma should include restoring sovereignty to too long sexually commodified girls and women. I have always optimistically believed that America's purpose or dharma was the promotion of individual sovereignty dignity over class, caste or tribe. Americans would become a sovereign tribe that would include everyone and we would follow the better angels of our natures. It has not happened and today, it's unfortunate that some Americans look to some successful socialist European systems as good examples while forgetting that decades ago Europe's poor were shipped over here and elsewhere. We're all here now. We better adhere to some principles because there is no other big island to "settle." Perhaps America's dharma is to be sovereign. E Pluribus Unum.
1
I have a family member--highly educated, well off and very religious. She has bought into the whole Trump circus, and we suspect has joined the "Q" movement online.
Why? She has had every opportunity available to make her life what she wants, so it isn't about others taking from her. But she hammers away on Hillary (still!) Clinton and believes Trump is the new Savior.
It is scary that bannon and his ilk can influence so many people with their ugly and inhumane rhetoric. No amount of logic can undermine them at this point. I am waiting for the midterms and hoping that we can look back on this place in history as an aberration and not the new normal.
4
Frank, this is a great presentation, and good reading for the weekend.
By being out there, in France, Italy, Hungary, and elsewhere, does Steve Bannon think that he is truly promoting our American values? While Bannon is no longer at the White House, he is conducting himself as a lone 'Ambassador'. Whether he is doing any good for our great country, only Bannon would know that.
What I can't fathom is that Donald Trump is no populist but yet somehow he was sold to the American electorate as one and Bannon is a big part of that lie. But nothing could be further from the truth. The tax cut (and another one the rich want) proves that. And yet so many of the 'little people' in America who have no power think he's all for them. What a tremendous lie. It makes me very angry - both at the liars and those who believe them.
And I agree that Anthony Weiner with his ironic name and through his wife connected to Hillary may be the downfall of America. Bannon, Putin, Comey and Weiner aided and abetted that downfall. All with their own agenda, each with their Big Egos, put America on a death walk.
And what worries me more is the rise - and Bannon's part in it - of right-wing autocrats around the world. I'm 67. I hope I'm gone before the next world war.
Gregory Peck would not be pleased with Bannon. Maybe somebody should tell him that.
1
Morris's final comment is silly. We've seen this repeatedly in history: whole populations embracing what others see as mistaken or evil. As others have observed, if people think they have no other options for survival, they'll do anything and embrace anything. The problem isn't the avatar they choose to follow, it's why they became so desperate in the first place.
That obviously has happened in America over the last few decades, and apparently responsible political leaders still haven't figured out how to solve the basic issues driving the behavior we're seeing today. What I hope people realize is that irresponsible political leaders haven't either. All they can do is offer bread and circuses to distract us from our genuine issues. That clearly works for a while. The question is for how long.
Cognitive dissonance is running rampant around here as well I would guess in the GOP. Surely the American people won't buy that Trump is doing a great job. Surely they don't believe he is so smart. So where do we go from here? To say Trump's presidency is successful is like saying the earth would still be flat if it wasn't for Columbus. Republicans where are you.
1
Morris's last line reads like some footnote to all historical catastrophes: "...what I don't understand is the abandonment of American values by so many many many people...". A crazy reminder of how truly gullible and weak many many many people are.
1
Bannon reminds me of the extremist Weathermen in the late 1960 and early 1970s, who came out of the far left. Like Bannon they were products of family wealth and attended some of the finest colleges and universities.
Also like Bannon, they were outrageous narcissistic grandstanders, who were full of themselves, considered themselves to be so much smarter than anyone else, but were hopelessly delusional and lost their identities to some half-based patched together revolutionary ideology that championed burn it down ("burn baby, burn") and political destruction.
They too loved and celebrated the meager attention they managed to draw,, until they finalized realized no one was following them, there wasn't going to be any revolution, and they were tired of living underground.
The difference is if you are fomenting a delusional right-wing revolution and the destruction of Enlightenment values and Western society, the American media will be fascinated by you and you won't have to live incognito underground. Why is that?
It is called political extremism, and it is interesting how much the far left and the far right have in common about being highly rejecting of Enlightenment values, Western democracies, and political moderation and compromise, in favor of their brand of authoritarianism, some rigid unworkable ideology, and an obsession with the self and gaining the spotlight.
Bannon isn't the Devil; he just play one for the far right-wing Mercers and the American media.
Bannon is one of the embodiments of the nihilism of our time. Even our evangelical brothers and sisters are soaked in it. Yes, it is the world under Satan, and perhaps not only figuratively. The nihilists have abandoned standards for power. Lincoln spoke of our having to "disenthrall" ourselves in order to save our nation. It is hard to be optimistic about that.
“American Dharma” better be a satirical title because it’s hard to believe that Trumpism or the Bannon ethos or whatever Mr. Morris has made his film about is anywhere close to the dharma we Hindus practice. More importantly, it’s an “American Dharma” that a majority of Americans find repugnant.
1
This past week has been a game changer: Trump’s close “advisers ” are flipping and won’t have good endings; in time, neither will Bannon The last two decades have been dominated by charlatans and ethically challenged individuals: from those who eliminated Glass-Stengel and caused the Great Recession to Fox News oracles who turned refugee immigrants into the cause of all societal ills: opioid addiction and loss of manufacturing Quite frankly, the charlatans are the ones who should be behind very tall reinforced walls
2
So Errol Morris thinks Bannon is resposible for this mess, and yet he's devoting a film to him 'because Lucifer is the most interesting character'.
Well, guess what? Trump was the most interesting character in the 2016 election, and look where that got us. The media - all media- should shake off its obsession with what and how is 'interesting' and look behind them to see who is supporting them. A documentary on the Kochs and Mercers would have been far more useful.
2
If Bannon really cared about anyone other than himself, he would have found better ways to help the "average person." Foisting Trumpism on the U.S. was no rescue for anyone, and may well destroy the country. Running around Europe preaching to other autocrats presumes that he knows what is best for everyone, everywhere. Were he not wealthy, were he espousing something worthwhile, maybe I could understand him. I see him as a hero only in his own mind, and devoutly hope to see his philosophy of destruction rejected. And I certainly thought of Satan when I saw photos of him hissing in Trump's ear.
4
It's beyond ironic that Trump and Hillary share one important weakness: depending more on friends, people who [they think] are loyal, people who are similar to them, than on the best people for the given job.
Trump has been more partial to sycophants, and Hillary to women, but for the most part their incompetent hiring policies were (and still are in the case of Trump) important elements of their failures.
What the Left fails to appreciate about Steven Bannon is that he represents the intellectual turning point of the 21st century; he Is the transition from 20th century political thought to 21st century political action in which traditionalism and nationalism triumph mightily and the administrative state is fully dismantled. Whereas Marx is the intellectual godhead of the Left, Bannon is the intellectual godhead of the Right. May he triumph triumphantly. Thank you.
12
@Southern Boy This is a guy who still believes that the Civil War was about states rights. The sad fact is that all Bannon has done is identify what this dolt can blame for his miserable lot in life. He also believes in trickle down economics. Even if it is urine trickling down.
2
@Southern Boy
Poppycock and balderdash. By the way, there is no CSA and there never was. Thank you.
3
@Southern Boy
Bannon sounds one helluva lot like Marx, who is no godhead to me.
1
Great interview, great article. I'll be looking for the film.
2
Not to be redundant, this piece clearly demonstrates how each of us is always a victim of our own tight bubble.
Even intellectuals like Errol Morris have problems absorbing completely different human realities. He admits to his inability to grasp why so many people abandon American values.
I think there's no american values, there's human values.
But then again, human values are so fragmented, it ties up to so many criteria like the geography, ancestry, race, culture, economic standing, our own environment that creates who we're in this world. Is it fair to request urban dwellers, who might not live in a lap of luxury to imagine rural economic deserts that been there for decades, at least in the city you might be lucky to get some boring 9 to 5 gig, but there you can't find anything.
Life without dignity of purpose and meaning breaks people down. They get irrational and angry, desperate to find easy scapegoats and lock them up or slash their heads with the guillotine.
The absolute disparity of human lives, who don't have the ability to relate or traversed each other on any level is modern world unsurmountable problem.
50
@faivel1
Trump is alleviating these disparities? Please share his concrete accomplishments to this end.
@faivel1: So what is your solution to economic disparity? Bannon is just exploiting it, Morris still doesn't get it, but what is your solution?
Bannon was a U.S. naval officer for 6 years. I did 23 years so have known many, many Sailors over the years. It's hard to make sense of what his true motivations are. He must know he's shredding the Constitution he swore to protect and defend while spreading his ridiculous message outside our borders. Or maybe Bannon can't see the real harm he's doing and is simply educated way beyond his innate intelligence. The man might be educated and well-read by some standards, but he's a small man with a small mind in my estimation.
319
@Onus J. Tweed There is such a thing as a well educated idiot. A person with no understanding of what things mean. If wisdom is the understanding of consequences, then Bannon is a fool.
3
Die hard Trump supporters represent about 30% of this country's voters. They've always been there, and will be there as long as Fox News, InfoWars and talk radio are there to encourage. They were there when Obama was elected and the world declared that the USA had finally come to its senses, but nothing has really changed. Mainstream Republicans are still around too and they do make up part of Trump's 80% approval among Republicans, but they're uninspired, just as Democrats were uninspired in 2000, weary of the Clinton scandals.
Trump will not be impeached or removed from office as a result of the Mueller probe and Democrats will be running against him in 2020. Whoever Democrats nominate will be debating Trump on television and it needs to be someone tough and inspirational who can flip Trump's insults upside down. If I had to choose right now I'd suggest Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker. She should wear that Pocohontas label as a badge of honor because after all, Pocohontas was an American hero.
The bumper sticker would say: Pocohontas for President.
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@Johnny Edwards
Michael Avenotti has proven that, beyond any doubt, he can and will continue to eat Trump's lunch.
Thank you for the fascinating piece. I find Bannon horrifying. We deserve better.
As for the idea that HRC ignored workers, though, or that workers' issues are somehow different from "identity politics," that's really nonsense.
"Workers" are black people. Workers are women. Workers are immigrants, religious minorities - all of whom suffer to some degree or another both in the workplace and in terms of opportunity, pay, and general treatment by society.
I find it astonishing that people don't understand this. The power in this country is held by white males, especially white Christian males - we've never had a Muslim or Jewish president, or a Unitarian or a Buddhist president, or a woman, or a gay person.
So these "workers" that Hillary supposedly disrespected come disproportionately from a particular group of American voters - white Christian males - and they hit us back with everything they had because they feel threatened. Obama, supposedly foreign, a "communist," an "anti-colonialist," a "Muslim," a "Kenyan" who yet achieved the highest office in the land -
And now a woman wants to lead the nation?
Tell me this was all about "economic insecurity." I don't believe it for an instant.
Otherwise the wall wouldn't have resonated, Mexicans as rapists, the birtherism - please -
Don't underestimate the identify politics of the Right. Bannon is playing that violin very loudly, in Europe now too - white nationalism.
322
@Sophia: Thank you. Just an amplification of your final sentence--"white 'male' nationalism" seems to me to be the song he is trying to play & in a kind of sad duet (suggested by Morris' mention) with Weiner's pathetic contribution to the tune.
@Sophia
You over think and over analyse the problem -
what you need to do is get our Chicago and go
see all of America. [ By the way why is that the Democrats cannot reduce the violence in Chicago after the party had run the city - Lock/Stock and Barrel for the longest time. ]
The Middle and Lower classes have been left
behind since 2008 thanks to Clinton, Bush and
Obama giving the Banks/Wall Street Hyenas a a Trillion dollars of our money -
here let me write it out:
$ 1,000,000,000,000.00
to make up for their losses in the Stock/Housing Market.
Hillary invited those same Hyenas to visit her in
the Hamptons and refused to release transcripts of
the speeches she gave to these Hyenas.
The Left has continues to be under the illusion that
if you are a "Minority" you must
automatically support their views - yet most Asian
immigrants care not a whit about African Americans and feel no guilt about slavery. Second and Third generation "Hispanics" - why the language someone's Grandparent spoke entails that you are
a minority is beyond me - are not inherently liberal and many of them want less Immigration not more,
they also feel no "guilt" over slavery.
Hillary is one of the Elites, she disdains the Middle Class and Lower Classes who are not proper "Minorities" just as you do, yet the largest percentage of people who live in poverty in America are what you call "Whites" not people of Colour, and these people know they have never had
"White Privilege " on their side.
2
@Sophia . Respectfully disagree. the corporatism that has coopted the Clintons, Obama, Schumer, and the majority of the left is just as big a threat as any you may name. The disparity in wealth and power grows monthly.
It is the downward spiral of their fortunes that entices people to cling to racism and nationalism. This is shown over and over in history.
While I don't suggest we back off one inch fighting for civil and human rights, if we fail to address the growing income disparity on this planet, it will all be for nought. What you call nonsense you'd best rethink the importance of.
I suppose this is a lament about American "culture," especially its anti-intellectualism, as much as it is about Steve Bannon and his ideas.
This piece seems to have captured the man, implied the destructiveness and appeal of his ideas, without really fleshing them out: on capitalism, free trade, the working class, culture vs political economy.
That doesn't happen anywhere in the mainstream.
We went decades since the ascent of that amiable ideologue Ronald Reagan, when a serious left critique of the evolving "free market Utopianism" was nowhere to be found except in print in mostly academic books.
Is not Bannon, and Trump as well, the fairly logical evolution of Republican Right thought since, 1975-1980? Von Mises, Von Hayek, Goldwater, all had the progressive New Deal state in their sights, and Nixon (and Wallace and Perot) all worked at inflaming the little guy against the smart coastal elites. Trump's electoral strategy was the same as Wallace, Nixon, and yes fellow citizens, Ronald Reagan. Smile now. Aw shucks.
I was a Sanders supporter, with reservations, because of his missing depth. Ben Jealous in Maryland is now finding out that you can't blow past the contradictions of "Venture Capitalist- Sanders Socialist" in moderate Maryland so easily.
Bernie is actually a Social Democrat. American have been taught by the Right to conflate communist, socialist, social democrat and yes liberal. The missing distinctions will help destroy our future.
6
Indeed, Mr. Morris, the problem is out there, and won't go away when Trump finally leaves.
1
Hungary is well on its way to fascism. They don't need Bannon to tell them how to do it.
6
@ibivi
I'm sure he has some helpful hints on how to expedite it.
Thank you Frank Bruni. As always, I am better informed about our world because of you.
5
Bannon is like the most interesting character in Paradise Lost because he has Energy. Well, so do Bernie Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and Sen. Warren. Perhaps Morris can have a sit-down with them and chat about movies too!
3
I persist in the hope that trump is an aberration that will eventually be taught in schools as a cautionary tale, and bannon and his not-a-philosophy will be an obscure footnote to this episode in our history, much like the Know Nothing party that hardly anyone has heard of. This is a convulsive time that is exposing the worst in us at the same time it is calling forth the best in us. Trump, bannon, sessions, devos, &co will be looked back on in scorn and people will marvel that such outrageously incompetent, corrupt scofflaws could be elected in modern times. I feel that we will have a greater understanding of current events when we uncover all that Russia has done to warp our society for the purpose of discrediting democracy itself and, specifically, American influence in the world. for now, all we can do is vote for democrats. The Republican Party is lost, and the hypocritical sham they always were is forever exposed.
12
First and foremost, he's an anarchist. So is Trump. Destroy all institutions that put any limits on what I say or do. They also crave money. Anarchy creates tremendous distrust and chaos, which is followed by a dictatorship. This happens all the time, just not here.
13
One comment that Morris makes struck me as especially inspired and certainly true: "the human capacity for credulity is unlimited, unfettered. But the human capacity for self-deception — the ultimate self-credulity — is also unfettered, unlimited." This idea perfectly describes the relationship between Trump and his followers, which could not exist without utter and complete self-deception on both sides.
Also, I laughed out loud at Morris' joke about the wall keeping "those crazy American killers and rapists" out of Mexico. What a great line.
15
There's obviously no contradiction between being an ideologue and being a snake-oil salesman. Often, they're exactly the same. The easiest person to fool is always yourself, and once you believe in yourself it's a piece of cake to fool others.
Unlike Trump, Bannon has an ideology apart from his own self-promotion. Most countries would probably be more susceptible to Bannon than to Trump. But a big part of America seems to believe that being a successful con-artist is more valid as being a successful public servant. As if they're intimidated by their own political power, so they hand it over to entertainers who tell them what they want to hear, tell them to hate whom we want to hate and blame whom they want to blame. If Trump were more like Bannon, he'd be calling on us to take over the world, to lead a new crusade, to ethnically cleanse. But his followers don't really want to do anything but watch the show and gloat. That's about the only source of optimism I can find.
3
Excellent interview, Mr. Bruni.
1
As much as we hate anyone adding the fuel of more attention to the fire of Donald Trump’s megalomania, Errol Morris, by interviewing Trump’s teacher, Steve Bannon, and making a documentary about Bannon, has performed a public service.
Frank Bruni has also done us a favor by presenting his interview with Morris so well.
How all of this is going to end is not known right now. It is a process.
Errol Morris has confirmed for us that the genesis for
Donald Trump’s election and administration was the result of a well-informed, unprincipled narcissist with a messy brain instructing an uninformed, unprincipled narcissist with a messy brain.
We still don’t know how long American people from all walks of life and an entire political party will accept the lies, incompetence and recklessness of Bannon’s pupil.
11
The "wholesale abandonment of American values" and "a threat to Western Civilization" talk cuts both ways. The same sentiment Mr. Morris expresses is spoken, in reverse, in alt-right circles as well.
There's an entire blind spot as to what the left is doing that offends moderates in swing states and in the less mulitcultural areas of Europe that either draws people to right wing demagogues like Trump or at least allows them to hold their nose and vote for them as the lesser of two evils.
There's a great patriotic love and pride in America that modern liberals utterly lack. There's a spirit that 'I would give my life or even my only son's, in defense of American liberty.' So there exists this sense community that folks buying into the American experiment is fading. And along with it, a sense of loss of values and ideals as being undermined by liberals in modern schools.
Boys are being turned into beta wimps while girls into angry hags. The constant drip of white-guilting and white-shaming. Conservatives find outrage in kneeling for the flag, attacks on the police who protect us all from criminals, bakers getting bullied and sued and transgendered girls winning athletic competitions against real girls.
There's also this notion, in Europe especially, about how countless migrants who don't easily assimilate are being forced onto the local population by unelected officials in the EU.
Thus, you see the alt-right counter-version of Mr. Morris' threat to Western civilization.
1
Terrific piece. Thank you Mr Bruni and Mr Morris.
Bannon: all he needs is a club foot and a wife named Magda.
5
Strangely, I have to agree with Errol Morris. I knew Steve Bannon before he went to Hollywood and turned into someone unrecognizable (in most ways) from the person I had known. The old Steve Bannon was charming, extremely intelligent and well educated and well read. He even laughed at jokes I made at the expense of some Republicans. A conversation with Steve was something to look forward to because of his breadth of knowledge, philosophy, his curiosity about ideas, and his openness about ideas. And never forget to add his charming manners.
I don't know what happened to change that.
He is clearly still charming, intelligent and (no matter how much anyone wants to call him stupid because they don't like his currently professed ideas) incredibly steeped in the history and philosophy of ideas. Even I haven't plowed through "Paradise Lost".
Obviously something changed to push him so far from the even-handed, moderate and thoughtful person I knew.
Yet, like Errol Morris, disagreeing as strenuously as I do with the political and philosophical platform that Steve now professes, I still remember Steve with fondness, a sort of disbelief that this ideological transformation has occurred, and sometimes a flitting wish that I could sit down over coffee with Steve and ask him: Is all of this really true? Is this really you? Can't we reason this out?
But Errol Morris has done that, and I guess we know what the answers are.
If not, Steve, I'd be happy to hear you out anytime.
96
@Katalan One possible answer to your question: alcohol. He exhibits many of the symptoms of a high functioning alcoholic. I've seen this happen. Smart bright people who drink so much and so consistently that the actual brains start to change.
Alcohol dissolved boundaries. We know that from the idea of its use as a "social lubricant." But it also dissolved personal boundaries, it depresses what otherwise would be moral and ethical boundaries that we don't cross.
His affiliation with Trump itself could be in part two alcohol affected people bonded by the alcoholic elements of their minds. Trump is reputed to not drink at all. We know that his brother died of alcohol poisoning (it takes a lot of booze to die that way). People affected by alcoholism attract each other like bees to flowers. It's behavioral, partly habitual, but can change with self-knowledge. Something that I don't see in Bannon or Trump.
Ultimatley on Bannon can answer the question of whether he drinks too much. But one thing th
@Katalan Every sociopath is charming.
@Katalan I think I can tell you what happened to Bannon. He turned into a frumpy, middle-aged man that no one noticed anymore, so he found a platform and persona that would get him attention. The photo of him with this article shows him as overweight, so I suspect he eats for pleasure in private to find some aspect of pleasure.
Bannon is enamored of a particular view of history in books like the "Fourth Turning", which sees world events in cycles of about 80 years, consisting of growth, maturation, entropy and decline. His objective apparently is to push the world from entropy into decline, perhaps hoping to bring about the next era of growth out of the disorder.
But this is too narrow a view. Believing in the decline and rebirth of Europe and North America ignores the rise of Asia, a blank page in Bannon's worldview. History has shown that declines can last many centuries rather than 80 years, especially when the decline of one civilization is exploited by and strengthens another.
The fall of the Roman Empire led to a long period of decline called the Dark Ages in which the sum of western knowledge was saved only by an ascendant Muslim empire. Some 500 years ago, China and India had the two largest economies in the world. Their decline led to five centuries of subjugation and colonization by the West. Before that, China at a point of civic flowering was terrorized and torn apart by the Mongols.
International economic integration, rather than the economic disintegration apparently sought by Bannon and Trump, can bring about relatively peaceful transformations through times of change, especially if the pain of disruption can be minimized on those most harmed.
Let's hope we can get back to that project, which Obama was dedicated to, before Trump and Bannon succeed in their project.
225
@Look Ahead
Perhaps you should check your rear view mirror
more often.
a) The "Dark Ages" were not Dark,
that is an old Protestant Lie,
give me a Gothic Cathedral, the greatest
artistic expression of humankind.
b) The Byzantines did more to preserve the
"Sum of Western Knowledge" than any Muslms
who inherited it from a Greeks who lived in
the Mid-East, Islam destroyed much of what
remained of that knowledge in the 11th Century
when Fundamentalists took over Islam.
c) The Mongols did more to destroy China/India
and Islam than anyone else, they were the first
true Globalists and China L.T.D. is the second.
d) The "Pain of disruption can be minimised"
Are you daft ?
China does not care about America save it can
buy food from us and we buy their shoddy
products.
e) Globalisation is war upon the non-Elite.
f) International Economics is just war by another
name.
2
@Look Ahead. Excellent long-term historical perspective. You should expand it into a long-form article. Thanks!
1
Bannon is correct that our economic inequality is the problem.
And it comes from 35 years of Trickle-down Reaganomics.
And Bannon and Trump just helped the Republican Party to double down on that.
And it is the Democratic Party that is most working to help the people that Trump and Bannon are exploiting.
And Bannon knows this.
My conclusion is that Bannon is as vain as Trump and is just in this for the ego and attention.
All at the expense of our country and real people's lives.
489
@Independent
Nailed it.... Bannon is as least as vain as Trump and definitely far more secure.
I'm frankly gobsmacked - both by the interview, and the really great comments below. One of the most interesting, as well as worrying pieces I've read for some time. Thank you for that, and to (most) commentators. I shall keep my seat belt buckled.
3
But Errol Morris, this country fought a civil war about slavery, a war with about 750,00 deaths and countless wounded. In proportion with today, it would mean millions of deaths. The country was never a heaven, and it does not need to be, but it needs to aim at getting better. There is no "abandonment" of American values. There is a constant re-enactment of old conflicts between the many American values, some of which many of us find horrifying. But they were always there, and it is a tidal wave that over time inches towards the good. But sometimes recedes violently.
I confess that I am surprised that the republican party retains so fresh and ready the authoritarian reflexes of the past confederacy, including that deep hypocrisy.
But it is not time for whining. It is time to recognize where we are and fight back with the instruments of democracy, as hard as we can.
394
"He’s well read. He is obviously smart. But when you examine the philosophy, it’s just — calling it incoherent or inchoate is too kind. It’s just a mess: a mess of stuff from here, from there, a little bit of the Crusades, a little bit of Thucydides there, some crazy, Catholic, right-wing theology. Add a dash of movies."
I disagree. "Well read" means knowledgable and informed as a result of extensive reading. Bannon reminds me of the guys I knew in college who would bore you to tears telling you about the many books they read, but who were unable to discuss them in any depth or with insight. If "incoherent or inchoate is too kind" as a way of describing his philosophy, he's not the intellectual heavyweight others make him out to be.
Frank Bruni asks what in Bannon's past would help us understand his "fury." In 2017, Bannon claimed that in 2008 his 95-year-old father sold his shares of depleted AT&T stock, his life savings, after seeing Jim Cramer on the "Today" show say it was time to sell. The elder Bannon lost some $100,000 by selling at precisely the wrong time. Bannon said, “Everything since then has come from there. All of it.”
Never mind that Bannon was on the right-wing fringe before 2008. Think about the fact that Bannon blamed "elites" for an extremely poor decision made by his father.
As Errol Morris said, "incoherent or inchoate," thy name is Bannon.
329
@NA
I agree 100% and resent all the attention paid to this lightweight, pseudo intellectual. Just like the mainstream media and NYTimes gave trump so much free publicity.
And the filmmaker actually likes Bannon and criticizes Clinton. The former perpetuates evil under the guise of feigning populism, and the latter is criticized as being the uncaring one. Up is down and down is up. This whole editorial left me feeling demoralized and hopeless.
1
@NA I've also read that story about Bannon's father. I concluded that the financial whiz-boy son was humiliated by his inability to keep his own father from blowing up his investment portfolio. And so, unable to face that shame, sonny-boy's quest for scapegoats began. Everything since then has come from there. All of it.
1
@NA
Bannon sounds like the kind of college student who didn't actually read the books, but the cliff notes and believes they are the same thing.
3
"Who would have thought that one man’s irrepressible desire to photograph his penis and to share that with women on the internet could destroy Western civilization?'
This has got to be the best line since the election.
I'm not sure I want to see the Morris documentary. I tried to watch the Bannon interview on MSNBC a week ago Friday, but couldn't stick with it because I find the man a bore.
Like the Frankenstein he helped elect, Bannon can't converse in consecutive sentences which makes him hard to watch. As Morris observed, he offers a melange of ideas, without ever presenting a well-reasoned argument.
He was probably really good at the game of Botticelli (if he played it) since his storehouse of cultural trivia is impressive, but again, what good has it done him?
One thing Morris failed to ask: what's with the Fidel Castro outfits? For a former Navy officer and Harvard grad, it's pretty pretentious to act like a revolutionary.
Finally I share the filmmaker's depression over America's post-election abandonment of values, as well as how weird and sad the election was.
If I hope anything for this documentary it's to point out how easy it is to hijack a country with a fancy phrase or two.
778
@ChristineMcM
The Fidel Castro Outfits: I've thought the same thing. He's a mercenary for the ultra-rich. He's dressing down for the role; acting & speaking like the people's leader. Unfortunately, it's a sham that many Fox "News" and hate radio & website consumers are too brainwashd to recognize.
2
@ChristineMcM
I agree...I find it very difficult to listen to him speak about anything; he does not speak in full sentences and is thoughts are disjointed. I have seen enough of this guy speak to last me a lifetime. I keep wondering what he has in mind once the destruction of our country is complete...what then?
His dismissal of the "elite" is always surprising as he is clearly one of them...how else could he support his globe-trotting support of all that is evil? Someone has to be supporting him and paying his bills...
2
@ChristineMcM. He wears revolutionary duds as camouflage for what he really believes in. But it’s a double whammy because the ideas he is trying to implement are in rebellion with the Constitution as we know it.
2
A Constitutional Amendment that takes money out of politics and government is the only answer, making public financing of al elections permanent.
But will Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer attempt it? The abandonment of American values says they won't. Meaning all - health care, taxes on the rich, wage reform, etc - is lost. As are we.
7
>> I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people. That I can’t understand. And that I find horrifying and depressing. <<<
The man is incoherent and babbling.
And I'm very, very surprised Bruni didn't ask him what, specifically, he meant by that.
Because to the majority of the nation, it looks like he's the guy who's wholesale abandoned American values, along with his candidate Hillary: That's why she wasn't elected.
Very, very strange choice to end the column with that complete lack of clarity and specificity.
For some historical perspective on the consequences of Bannon’s “burn it all down” mentality, please read Anne Applebaum’s article in the Nov. 6, 2017 Washington Post: “100 years later, Bolshevism is back. And we should be worried.” She’s talking about Bannon.
1
@Sarah L.
I agree. Bannon's model is Bolshevism.
America will never recuperate from Trumpism nor the likes of Bannon. It is now a source of shame and embarassment to declare oneself of American nationality in foreign lands, so far has fallen the American brand.
4
The title of the movie 'American Dharma' is an insult to Buddhism. There is nothing Buddhist about a confused person like Steve Bannon. 'American Bigot' would have been a more accurate title.
11
It's the long term combo of lawless GOP operatives, behind the scenes, but of utmost importance, Kochs, Singers, Scalias, Rehnquists, Adelsons, et al, and runaway capitalism meshed with greed that has been unmatched in human history by numbers never seen before.
4
Bannon is a poseur, nothing more. Making a movie about this phony, supposedly "interesting guy" is just another way of Errol Morris cashing in on Trump fever.
What a waste of time.
12
If you had any actual knowledge of Errol Morris or his work, you could never accuse him of this kind of commercial cynicism. It begs the question; why say anything when you don't have anything to say? Commentary like this is a form of vanity and adds nothing to the conversation.
So if you don't like Bannon and don't want his ideas to spread around, don't make a movie based on sixteen hours of interviews with him!
4
@JS27--Like all evil, it's better to bring him out into the light and let people see him, for the same reason it's important to let the Richard Spencers of the world speak. Otherwise, it only makes him into a martyr for those who would promote his despicable ideas. Putting Bannon out there for movie goers to see could bring him new fans, but that's the chance you take for transparency. More likely, audience members will feel they need to go home and shower after listening to his disjointed, incoherent and malignant "theories."
I will never abandon America to the likes of Bannon & Trump & today I will honor John McCain as another American who never gave up.
T & B are the antithesis of what America is & I’m buoyed by what young people are bringing to the fight for American values.
T & B will be remembered w/ disdain, McCain with honor & respect.
3
"I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people. That I can’t understand. And that I find horrifying and depressing." Nor can I understand that abandonment, and I too find it all too "horrifying and depressing". Mr. Bannon tapped into the deep resentment many white males in the Republican base harbored against a black President. He fueled the notion that their white privilege had been usurped. He fed the flames of xenophobia, misogyny, anger, and fear in the lead up to the 2016 election. He was and remains the cheerleader for white supremacy, all the while claiming he isn't a racist. Now he is urging those who are called out for their racism, xenophobia, and nativism, to feel honored.
Bannon believes in an authoritarian nativism, and is an admitted admirer of Mussolini. These beliefs were infused into a narcissistic, amoral reality TV show candidate who used his vulgar bombast to appeal to populists looking for a white daddy-figure savior. Stephen Bannon remains a dangerous man. He fuels hate and fear wherever he treads.
8
Currently, there seems to be a consensus that comparing Trump with Hitler exaggerates both the president's evil qualities and his importance, a judgment with which I agree. But we can identify parallels in the historical contexts that facilitated each man's rise to power without discussing their characters.
Hitler received aid from wealthy industrialists and powerful politicians who thought they could use him as a tool to destroy the Communists, whom they perceived as the real threat to their economic dominance and political influence. Some of them paid a high price for their miscalculation.
Trump, as well, attracted the often reluctant support of some members of America's economic elite, who regarded him with contempt but believed he would back their goals of lower taxes on the rich and fewer regulations on business. While he delivered both, the president has proved to be a stubborn egotist, who rejects all efforts to persuade him to behave as a conventional president. His apparently genuine commitment to a trade war, moreover, has shocked the Koch brothers and other industrialists, who stand to lose profits in such a conflict.
If Trump's misdeeds and irrational behavior lead to his removal from office, either through a trial in the Senate or a defeat in the 2020 election, the backlash against his wealthy supporters could cost them their tax breaks and their freedom from regulation. Hardly the equivalent of what Hitler's enablers faced, but still a nasty shock.
8
@James Lee
Excellent analysis and overview. The only piece left out is the Russia piece encompassing Trump's affinity for Putin and possible collaboration with him and the Russian interference in the 2016 election. It is difficult to understand why the business elites seem to be comfortable with the entire Russia piece.
4
Mr. Bannon has very little in common with the characters played by Gregory Peck and Alec Guiness. He has a lot in common with a giant Staypuff Marshmallow Man less the sweetness. He spreads bitterness, vile and hatred. He gets his kicks out of playing the destructor. Expanding outward with every headline and bit of attention. Pleased to meet him. Hope you guess his name.
7
What real or imagined slight makes for such a man? The grandiosity of wanting to tear down without the slightest plan for building up is appalling. Even Lucifer would reject this guy . He's just too creepy.
15
I would have liked to know why Morris used the word “Dharma”. It’s a Hindu/Buddhist concept meaning the path of “goodness, truth and duty”.
3
I do not understand why anyone is still giving our American faux preppy revolutionary so much attention (NYT ?). This guy is Trump with an education which still ends up as word salad when he speaks. Both men are racists using their 'best words' to incite division while offering NO real solutions to today's problems.
When Bannon lost his Oval Office position the first thing he did was run up here to LI to make sure his sugar daddy Robert Mercer would still fund his DC townhouse and all the perks of his lifestyle.
Then he had to decamp to Europe to find an audience. And what does he offer them? Nothing but hate the immigrants, kick them out and your life will be better. A simplistic 'solution' to the very complex problems of immigrant migration to Europe countries. But hey he is making some money and gets the attention he craves.
Why not cover the nationwide prison strike now on day 19 instead of this hateful self-absorbed desperate to remain relevant man?
Bannon offers hate and nothing else.
8
Remember Monica? Yeah that one because she is stilll out there somewhere but no one cares. That is where the Devil Bannon is headed, too. He is a writhing bloody maniac drifting around on his little moment of fame in DC but now he is nothing and no one. A few years from now someone will say remember Bannon? No one will.
1
I like Frank Bruni's writing because he is able to engage with opposing ideas without screeching or becoming hyperbolic, unlike most other NYT writers.
1
Bannon is a rabble rouser and an intellect free zone.
A hollow unshaven man in a slept-in suit of clothes.
5
There are outright racists like Klansmen who make their positions clear, and then there are slimy racists like Bannon and Stephen Miller and Steve King who peddle racist ideas subtly and then deny that they're being racist when they get called out, so that they can normalize their racism. While both types of racists are despicable, there is a special place in hell for the latter type.
8
It is hardly surprising that Bannon would choose "Twelve O'clock High" over, say "High Noon" as his vision of the Basic American Hero. Iron will to draw everyone into one's own hellish belief in how to win, versus one man's iron will to remain true to his values.
Bannon sees himself as the one to lead us all into the hell of fascism, with iron will, to save Western Culture. It's OK if we die doing it. The key is we are sacrificable; Bannon is not.
Throughout history, when the narcissist demagogues seize power, they sell a good story and disaster follows. Bannon is channeling demagogues, and if we don't start recognizing it fully here at home, as well as overseas, we are in for a rough ride.
The key to remember is that demagoguery doesn't end well for cannon fodder.
5
My gosh, what a miserable excuse for a human being! There's something terribly wrong with our culture when such a horrible person can wield such power.
9
Bannon needs to see a dermatologist. His forehead is as much a mess as his ideas and purported beliefs. Indeed his external self is a look into the corrupted creature who lies beneath that mottle-mess of skin.
7
Bannon's like a tooth with an aching cavity and Morris just can't resist probing it with his tongue.
While cracking eggs and mixing metaphors, let's toss in the proverbial highway wreck and rubberneck slow down by the crumpled, upended cars with steam hissing and wisps of black smoke that portend a spectacular explosion that Bush and Cheney will claim as evidence of WMDs.
Too many are mesmerized by these political mutants who see opportunity, fame and fortune in catalyzing misfits and misfortune into momentary movements of mass mania.
Before Bannon proclaimed himself Svengali to Trump's Huey Long, he toiled in the grimy dark pit of Goldman Sachs on Wall Street before literally going Hollywood and snatching a perpetual percentage of Seinfeld royalties, which Forbes estimates as a spanking $32 million.
Not quite a sealed train to the Finland Station or even post-depression Louisiana but a good demagogue will manufacture a miasma of misery if there isn't a real one in the 'hood. And with an estimated $25 million in assets, including $10 million in real estate, Bannon created his Les Misérables on a 3-D printer with software on a thumb drive attached to his Harvard MBA.
Stalin and Hitler were also cineastes like Bannon. They also shared Bannon's love of costume though his Bwana Joe outfit at Moore's event suggests Larry David missed his chance to cast Bannon in the Show About Nothing as Kramer's anti-Semitic side-kick who beats his wife.
Ask him about #MeToo.
6
@Yuri Asian
Amazing that Bannon's history of misogyny was not mentioned- or was that part of the deal?
Also amazing how the idea that Hillary was "so hated" is such a throw-away line. There has been a hate campaign against her ever since she worked on issues in Bill's presidency. Rush Limbo's sneering pronunciation of her name was echoed by his ditto-heads. She became the witch the right offered up for hate.
During the 2016 election, targeted social media messages brain-washed the poorly informed and the otherwise susceptible to believe, as a few have said to me. "Well, she killed all those people, didn't she?"
Hillary is warm, funny, brilliant and compassionate- especially to the most needy. She won the popular vote and the Russians/Trump stole the election. All, or many, of the swings states were informed that their voting systems were hacked by the Russians. But let's just brush that under the rug and continue looking for faults in Hillary as to why she lost the election.
1
What a creepy ugly dispecable man Steve Bannon is.
He promotes white nationalism, but who really wants their children to look like him ?
He is the ugly American giving us a bad name to the rest of the world.
6
Steve Bannon is more like Ignatius Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces than he is like Milton's Satan.:)
3
I look forward to the day that Steve Bannon is no longer a topic. In the last two years too much time has been spent on the incoherent.
1
To be the intellectual father of Trumpism is like being admiral of the Swiss navy. Bannon's a fraud, and his parlor trick of quoting obscure, middleweight philosophers is the surefire mark of one. He made some money, made some films, caught the attention of some snake oil salesmen further up the food chain than he was, and got spat out the opposite end to the one that sucks up the oil. Good riddance. The European far right deserves him. He'll fit right in there.
9
"Who would have thought that one man’s irrepressible desire to photograph his penis and to share that with women on the internet could destroy Western civilization?"
I think Mr. Morris is onto something here. He's reduced 2016 to a single punchline, but let's flesh this out a bit:
- Citizens United: Suddenly it's "one dollar, one vote". A crushing game-changer.
- The Koch brothers, the Mercers, Sheldon Adelson, et al. They take Citizens United and make it possible for just a few megalomaniacs (some of them seriously unbalanced) to literally write the script for our political dynamics for the next four years.
- Steve Bannon. A 21st-century Rasputin who wraps the Mercers and Trump around his fingers. A relatively nobody who (like Woody Allen's Zelig) just has very good timing and luck.
- Facebook revolutionizes social media just between the 2012 and 2016 elections. Polls show that 65% of Americans in 2016 get 100% of their "news" from Facebook - and most of that "news" is a combo of racist and Russian propaganda which half of America swallows whole.
- 30 years of Hillary Hate is drug out of the closet and weaponized by all that plutocratic cash and fed it into Facebook. Benghazi and e-mail servers become Crimes Against Humanity in the eyes of 50 million living in the Faux Noise bubble.
If you combined all these ingredients and wrote an updated Manchurian Candidate script in 2015, Hollywood would laugh you out of the room.
And then reality became stranger than fiction.
9
Steve Bannon is a great man. A genius who God delivered at just the right time. Just at the right time to give America a chance to redeem itself and again become an example to the world that competition in business and politics is the way to move the world forward.
Bannon's is a war for liberty against the liberal-democratic trend towards a one world totalitarian Godless government where babies are aborted, old people are euthanized and political correctness reigns supreme, in other words, a false utopia, a living hell. God Bless Steve Bannon.
2
@Michael Do
If you think Bannon has an authentically God-fearing bone in his body, you've missed the forest for the trees.
Bannon would advocate for anything if it got him where he wanted to be. Just like Trump. If Trump's base were for abortion, he and Bannon would be as well.
Sounds like you've been reading one of Sarah Palin books.
A pernicious underlying thread is the Seven Mountains Domionist religious extremism cabal. Bannon,DeVos,Conway, Pence, “lieing” Ted Cruz are adherents to this cultish takeover of society.
2
The most over rated human alive and there is, as usual, NY Times giving oxygen to this preposterous almost buffoonish clown.
17
"Terms for Trump, who had no ideas, really, but ideas that Bannon poured into this vessel."
Describing Trump as a vessel is perfect, albeit a poisoned one. And Bannon is not the only malevolent manipulator pouring a toxic brew of chemicals inside. Just about every exploitative, greedy, profoundly irresponsible extremist in the country and world has figured out he can be had for a compliment, which explains the execrable policies that weren't born of his bigotry and intellectual bankruptcy.
If Bannon is a Catholic, I hope at some point he decides not to go home, to hell, but to attempt to make up for the damage he has helped inspire.
It's solely wealthy Republicans whose politics consistently squeeze the poor, which almost defies explanation unless they're simply mean-spirited and actually hate the poor just because they are poor. Bannon is a drunk and a creep, so much so that even Trump couldn't keep him around giving his terrible advice. There will always be ugly men like Bannon running around the world praising other ugly men who are filled with hate. Thankfully there are far fewer of them than good-hearted folks. Hey Steve, maybe it's time you said good-bye and leave the hatred to the KKK.
1
Trump succeeded because all of the problems were real, including misogyny and Hilary hatred. Trump is failing because he promotes the Russian agenda and resolves nothing in favor of America. His followers prefer to believe he was sent by god....they forgot about what god sent Noah...
Inconsistent racist pseudo intellectual Bannon succeeded because elites not just refused to admit their ignorance/arrogance but failed to publicly acknowledge the same i.e., the great egress...see PT Barnum....
My opinion: Bannon is a huckster and a shyster. He can't be a sartorial success so he dresses like a slouch. He tries to identify with blue-collar workers because they are more inclined to believe the unbelievable aka conspiracy theories. He uses anecdotes to deflect from the truth. He sets himself up as the arbiter of fairness even though he lost the arbitration. It's as though Steve Bannon walked off the cover of 1984. Don't give this $3 bill an audience.
6
Steve Bannon is fading into the oblivion of irrelevance as we speak. Charlatans are self-extinguishing. (Imagine a soggy newspaper trying to burn bright.)
4
The creeping incrementalism of extremism that has overtaken our political dialogue appears to know no limits, and it is too soon to fathom the damage it is doing to the country. It is not inconceivable to expect our Twitter-driven president to some day claim and blame, as the late comedian Flip Wilson famously said in jest, that "The Devil made me do it." Perversely, that might actually endear Trump to his fundamentalist base.
There always seem to be Svengali-like people who surround firebrand, absolutist presidents. History is replete with the likes of Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, John Bolton and Lee Atwater. Their tolerance for differences of opinion, let alone compromise, is or was extremely limited. Their precise motivations, a combination of political expedience, lust for power, hatred and conviction is difficult to fathom or calculate. Most, save for Atwater, seemed to lack any sense of humor or humility.
The country needs more advisor-statesmen like David Gergen, who has served presidents of both major political parties, and yes, John McCain, whose dedication to traditional American ideals revolved around competence, facts, decency and respect for other points of view.
Bannon may go down in history as influential and colorful, to be sure. He is just as likely to be remembered by many as the Devil-incarnate, motivated by intolerance and hatred, and sentenced by the Almighty to a long and permanent vacation in Satan's flames of Hell.
3
@Quoth The Raven I don't think I've ever seen a list of people that better states our failures.
Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, John Bolton and Lee Atwater? Of course, you only forgot Trump and the poor fool W.
Frank, a great article.
Honestly, I love your writing, but may have bypassed the subject matter today.
I am sure you are aware (as you work for the NYT), there is much angst about the new format. Count me in on the angst.
The bylines are gone. Everything is now a photo and a slick headline and nothing in order it seems.
ah ha , I see an article by Bruni. Hey, someone I know on the NYT, however the subject of Bannon is not my cup of tea.
Yet, I click on and was pleasantly rewarded for doing so. Great Frank Bruni coverage of this upcoming documentary.
Memo to NYT:: bylines should not be a thing of the past.
4
“Who would have thought that one man’s irrepressible desire to photograph his penis and to share that with women on the internet could destroy Western civilization?”
Well that says it all, doesn’t it? The irrepressible desire of men to share their penises has always shaped civilization and probably will continue to do so.
Witness governments of all kinds, the Catholic Church, the fascination with guns, the fascination with war, the fascination with of money...
Ultimately it’s all about the power of the penis.
Sad.
14
When I read this title, I recalled an early porno hit entitled "The Devil in Miss Jones," whose plot involved a woman who lived a boring, totally virtuous life and commits suicide out of boredom. The Devil considers this a waste, and sends her back to life to "earn" hell through all forms of debauchery.
When Steve Bannon expires through what appears to be congestive heart failure, he won't be as lucky as the character Georgina Spelvin portrayed. He's already earned hell--several times over!
1
'I finally said to him, “You know, I’ve been reading ‘Paradise Lost’ again. And that Lucifer character — he seems Bannon-esque.”
And he starts laughing with enormous pleasure. And he says that Lucifer is the most interesting character in “Paradise Lost.” And then I quote him the line, “Better to reign in Hell,” and he finishes it for me, “than serve in Heaven.” How many people that I interview embrace a comparison of themselves with Satan? '
Could it be Khan Noonien Singh? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYPsoxpt0BU
Hillary was not hated until the Repubs unleashed years of phony investigations and the very sexist media (Charlie rose, Matt Lauer, etc) obsessed over her emails like they were porn, and the Russian bots, natl enquirer and alt rt media showered the internet and the grocery lines with criminal nonsense about her, while the real criminal was hardly questioned. And the brainwashing continues cuz if trump can keep people hating hillary, he can hold rage over his illegitimate election. Please don’t fall for it. Look at her polls in 2012..
5
Apparently Bannon thinks he's channeling Patton (the movie) in the photo. I should have stopped reading at "intellectual godfather". Bannon's an ignorant, self-absorbed boor who has made no contribution to society, and whose idiocy and conceit may have destroyed the world.
7
Everyone of the founders would have read Paradise Lost before trying to set up a Heaven in which we all served instead of the Hell where we all rule.
I was Montreal Moe who cited Milton's epic work whenever I could before Dineesh D'Souza claimed he read Paradise Lost and Hillary Clinton was Satan and I knew not only wasn't knowledge power but it wasn't even an asset.
John Milton was a Liberal Puritan who rejected the Nicene Doctrine and for whom Satan and Jesus represented each and everyone of us and our internal conflicts.
In the late 18th century it was Samuel Johnson who helped us understand Milton and gave us a dictionary so we could communicate. It was the curmudgeon Samuel Johnson who held court at the salons of London with a razor sharp wit and an intolerance of fools. It was Samuel Johnson who gave us conservative philosophy and conservative wit the two fundamental attributes that real conservatives must have and which today's conservatives neither possess nor respect.
Life should not be a bathetic Monty Python comedy sketch hat ends with a dead bouzouki player.
Steve Bannon gave us Trump and the opportunity to go back to what Jimmy Carter tried to warn us about. When America chose Reagan it was no longer America it was a bull in the china shop lashing out blindly at its invisible enemies. I wonder if Bannon got what he really wanted an opportunity to rule in Hell.
2
Bannon is a megalomaniac, trying to make history...but not realizing he is on the wrong side of it, supporting dishonorable thugs that are intent in screwing their fellow men and women. Therer si no excuse for him supporting despots a la Trump and Orban, both a real pain in the 'lower back', disgraceful beings nearly as bad as himself. Sowing discord and poisoning the well is akin to arsonists happy to watch forests burn, with total disregard for the mayhem.
I believe now that preoccupation and disgust with Trump, Bannon and the right-wing clown car has eclipsed the greater horrors we've wrought over the last fifteen years.
I count needless war and death as the ultimate failure barometers. Whatever dark scenarios we fear under Trump, it was Bush and his war that actually spent human blood --- how many hundred thousand dead souls are directly attributable to the fires we lit in that whole region?
That war fanned the jingoism and bellicosity that are also part of oru precious American ethos. Let's face the truth: we are a global scourge and were even during Obama's presidency. And we liberals are (as Tom Friedman can attest) still living down our failure to stand up and stop the juggernaut of war.
The wasted trillions we spent killing middle easterners could have been preemptively applied to the gaping, wounds of inequality we endure today. How much of it was sucked up by that wrongheaded war and its greedy contractors? To me, Trump is a demented joke; Bannon is a gadfly.
But it was Bush who actually put all that blood on our hands. Let's keep our perspective.
5
Steve Bannon is a microbe next to Trump's true master Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump is Putin's dummy pet puppet.
The Devil ain't got nothing on Putin.
2
A particularly fine profile of Steve Bannon by Mr. Bruni, and reminiscent of what it might be like to spend a night in Bosh's Hallowing Hell in his company. No Water Lilies or Monet for him, and now I understand better why a powerful figure, once reflected that the motivation that drives men is not sex or riches, but to kill and destroy. Orwell wrote an excellent essay on why all art is political.
Thank you, Mr. Bruni for taking the time to unravel this mystery of what draws some of us to the flame like moths. Mr. Errol Morris has helped on the matter of honey badgers who don't care.
Bannon probably goes into a deep-freeze when he has to go to the dentist. A flamboyant figure, entertaining, with a knack for doing something dangerous if he is bored.
As for the abandonment of American values by so many, this is dreadfly, dreadfly sad, but it is an illusion, and God won't allow it.
Bannon is a stupid sociopath's idea of a what a clever sociopath must sound like. No wonder that Trump bought him, and no wonder that Bannon sold himself to Trump -- a marriage made in Hell.
But there is no honor among sociopaths any more than among honey badgers, and they cannot abide the other stealing more of the rubes' devotion (neither gets any from non-rubes, after all). There is no limit to the nihilism of sociopaths. But that they, their Russian co-conspirators and a political party of liars, racists and fascists sold their bogus, people-hating "populism" to just enough deplorable, howling WWF fans, cynical opportunists seeking a cash windfall and desperate social losers (in the competitive sense, not necessisarily the personal sense of the word) to steal an election is to America's eternal shame. Like post-war Germany and Italy, it will stain us for our lifetimes and beyond. We have squandered our birthright again in this generation.
11
Steve Bannon is like a fly; he eats garbage and bothers people. A can of bug spray would work wonders on this pest.
16
I was shown pieces of 12 O'Clock High during a team meeting at the last corporation I worked for. It was positioned as a film about good and bad management styles. Still not sure what the full message was, but guess it was more interesting that endless powerpoints.
Many modern Milton scholars would disagree with the conclusion that Lucifer is the most interesting character in Paradise Lost. While he appears at first to demonstrate all the elements of a swashbuckling Epic Hero, very close reading reveals his bombast as superficial, a self-involved, essentially empty and flat fraud. How fitting the comparison to Steve Bannon.
18
Bannon and Trump represent America's "dark side." They are informal and formal (respectively) executives of our fears and anxieties, and our bargain with that devil Morris raises here. That's why so many, many people have signed on to such a dark vision, in the guise of 'white hope' and more.
History tells us we need a 'we' and a 'they' -- and a progressive, humanist mindset is the 'they' the 'we' is now disparaging via the Trump mouth and the Bannon vision. It'll be intriguing to see what more comes of Morris's film -- and the Mueller investigation. If the mid-terms and 2020 allow Trump and his followers to emerge victorious, we know we are in for a long, dark ride.
3
"What I can’t really understand is what happened to America after 2016 and the election. I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people. That I can’t understand. And that I find horrifying and depressing."
I understand the last part perfectly. The GOP has been the party of hypocrisy and racism since Regan. The party of "family values" has none. However, they're great at framing issues. Invading a woman's privacy and deciding they know what's best for her turns into protecting the sanctity of life. Not baking a cake for a gay couple is "saving Christianity." Destroying the Earth for profit is saving jobs (except for solar-- that's the devil's work) etc., etc. etc.
Steve Bannon, Donald Trump et al just exposed what's been there for decades. It's nothing new.
8
"the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people. That I can’t understand. And that I find horrifying and depressing."
Exactly! Perhaps it is epitomized in Mitt Romney kowtowing to Trump in an attempt to get an appointment as Secretary of State.
If not that, look at the surrender by major Evangelical leaders - Graham, Falwell, Dobson, Jeffress, ect. - of ALL their professed moral scruples in exchange for a mess of thin porridge that may feed their emaciated souls for one or two turns of the political wheel.
Or perhaps the almost complete abandonment by Republican's in Congress of their long-held political convictions in the hope that Trump's base can help them stay in power a little longer.
" . . . so many, many, many, many people . . . "
7
"I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people."
I don't think it's all that complicated. Suppose you're part of a population that perceives itself as not doing well in life. You're likely fearful that things are going to get worse. Easy to imagine: bad things are happening in the world, and the government seems to support everyone but you and yours.
Along comes a flock of persons (everything from cynical opportunists to True Believers) and they tell you it's all the fault of Other People. Your fear manifests itself as hatred of those Other People, you respond by voting for things like Trump, and there we are.
Some thoughts:
-- "American values" are disposable. Scared? Concerned for your future? Then maybe Truth, Justice, and the American Way are less important to you than getting yourself onto solid ground so you don't have to be afraid, eh? Supporting "American values" is easy if you think you're doing OK; if you're not, you've likely got different priorities.
-- We hear a lot about racism, but maybe it's not about race per se: it's a more generalized fear-hatred of The Other. That's how Bannon strikes me: as an equal-opportunity hater.
-- If you're interested in advancing a progressive program, you're likely have a much easier time if you're dealing with an electorate that feels comfortable about itself and its future. That's a big message for a lot of liberals---myself included.
13
"I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people. "
I can, especially now that two of my good friends and my landlord, who are all varying degrees of really wealthy, didn't like trump at first, especially after the antisemitic and similar remarks. However, when they recently got their big tax cut return, suddenly trump can do no wrong. It's all about money.
America's obsession with "capitalism" and our confusion with that and "democracy", has infected us with money lust. Some quarters can take advantage of this more than others. About 1% of some quarters, to be more precise.
6
I to find it all horrifying and depressing. I try to hold out hope for November and a return to our senses.
4
It's a shame about Bannon and "Twelve O'Clock High." My family loves it. But we are a mixed-race family and have nothing in common with him.
In my experience, good business sales and marketing folks never believe their own hype. By extension they, understand every shortcoming of what they are selling.
How can Bannon believe Trump is an honest populist? Does he really believe that? Is it self-deception or just plain deception?
The Chinese Great Wall was an utter failure, as scholars of Chinese history know. The multi-cultural multi-ethic Tang Dynasty (earlier than the Great Wall) was a high point of Chinese civilization.
Speaking of China, Mao was upper middle class and very well educated. And he look at the destruction. Look at what he blew up. Burned to the ground. Now Bannon is Harvard Business School Davos.
I like the idea of "a history of caprice, ... of unintended consequences, of horrendous results from very minor antecedents or seemingly minor antecedents."
I also believe that the Weiner mess, and Comey's part in it, had a disproportionate impact on the election. Me too: "I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people."
Wonderful interview, Frank. Thank you.
4
@Robert
Our family liked the movie "Twelve O'Clock High." We liked it because it looked like an accurate portrayal of the self sacrifice and tragedy associated with fighting and prevailing in the just and necessary war to halt Hitler. Others here have correctly noted that Harvard Business School, among others, used the movie "Twelve O'Clock High" as a case study in leadership. That was where Bannon encountered it. The business school used the movie because it supported an approach that we ourselves find altogether unacceptable: "Leaders must do whatever is necessary including treating their employees as disposable pawns." The connection between Bannon's "blow it all up" philosophy and the movie is clear. We, however, could not disagree more. For one thing, a just and tragic war should be nothing like day-to-day business operations. When I was a graduate student at the other university in Cambridge several decades ago, I worked for the chairman of one of the HBS departments. I did not ever encounter the movie or that line of thinking about it, though I'm sure it existed.
1
"The abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people." And just what are American values? One of the mythical American value is that America offers opportunities for all to succeed. That might be true for the 10% of the people who own 84% of the stock market. That might be true for the boards of companies who have used their tax cut windfall to buy back stock instead of passing along a smidgen of the prosperity to workers whose wages have been stagnant for two decades. Those who thought truth, integrity, morality, and equal opportunity for all realize that if they were American values, Trump would not be president. American exceptionalism is a hoax, and American values is an oxymoron.
4
More than once since I returned home from Vietnam have I said, out loud to myself and others, the really lucky ones didn't make it home. How is seeing my country, the one served as a medic in Vietnam and believed in, and which at one time was making the world a better place, but now is crumbling politically, intellectually and morally, thanks to Bannon and to his student, Trump, how is this better than having died in the jungle 49 years ago would have been?
1
@Glen Thank you for your service in such difficult circumstances. I have often been..relieved?...that my father, who rejected two deferments and ran to enlist in the navy, where he was a gunnery officer in the South Pacific (burying shipmates at sea), did not live to see where we are today.
3
@Glen It is precisely because of citizens like you, who are guided by a high sense of honor, duty, and integrity, and who have sacrificed so much for this country, that I hold fast to the belief that from the political, intellectual, and moral rubble will arise a new United States, a phoenix from the ashes. But the fight will be hard, and it will take people like you, with your experience. So I know I speak for many when I say that I am relieved that you did not perish in that jungle in Vietnam 49 years ago. Thank you for your service.
1
I don't understand how any politician that put
the needs of Immigrants, especially those who are
undocumented, ahead of the needs of citizens,
can expect to be elected President.
[ I don't blame anyone for doing whatever they can to
get ahead in life, but if borders do not mean anything
and if the Elites want undocumented immigrants to be
their wage slaves because they do not trust poor Americans to work for them - the Elites have no one
but themselves to blame.]
Identity politics does no one any good and ignores
that the largest political block in America are those
who fear losing their jobs.
Perhaps not too many of the Elites who read the
New York Times have lost their jobs to un-documented
Immigrants or watched as a distinctly under-qualified
person was hired or admitted because of the tincture of
their skin - not because of their character or education or abilities.
Trump bubbled to the surface and he may soon be
skimmed off by the Courts and Impeachment but
those who think the problem is just Trump - do not
see the boiling rage that will soon sweep much of what
Liberals hold dear - away.
3
@John Brown
You must be referring to herr Trump, who employs underpaid, undocumented workers at Mar-A-Lago all the time. Did you see the article in the Post about the farmer in Colrado whose peach crop is currently rotting on the trees because not enough migrants can get there?
All of you in the millionaire and billionaire class (and who self-identify in right-left categories that are now completely meaningless, that signify nothing (as Jean Baudrillard accurately pointed out they have become in Simulacra and Simulation) are completely clueless. Many of us no longer see any of you in the elite millionaire and billionaire classes as able to help us. Many of us are so cynical that we no longer know what to do with regards to voting and participating in this system. No, I do not equate the repulsive propaganda of Trump and Fox News with what appear to be the well-meaning opinion writers of the Times and Post (and many of the well-meaning commentators on MSNBC). But I do know the outcome when any of these meaningless right-left categories hold power is basically the same: The economy funnels more resources to the entitled monied elites and makes life less livable for most of us. Surely, entitled monied elites on the meaningless category of "the left" can understand why those of us struggling now have trouble voting for them, can't they? Does the DNC really believe it has offered the majority of struggling, working American people anything of meaning since ... I don't know ... the 1960s? Do you not realized that the post-WWII managed economy with its social supports (tepid as they were) has completely collapsed and that we are living in a Friedman/Rand nightmare world, where most of us are one bill away from complete insolvency?
2
It's highly satisfying to see an interview -- yours with Errol Morris -- in which the right questions keep coming one after another and the answers are so articulate and cogent.
There's a lot to appreciate here. For one thing, Morris's opinions are made all the more stimulating by the fact that he recognizes not only the abomination wrought by Bannon and Trump, but also the validity of some of the grievances they exploited in the absence of energetic Democratic action.
For another, it's fun to ponder Bannon's liking for the film Chimes at Midnight (a mashup of Shakespeare's plays featuring Sir John Falstaff). There's a temptation to suppose that Bannon sees himself in Orson Welles's scruffy fat beguiler. There's a still greater temptation to suppose that he relishes both the similarity and the difference between Falstaff's story and his own. Falstaff, after all, is cast off by his immature protege and partner in irresponsible mischief, Prince Hal -- after accession to power transforms Hal into a mature, responsible leader.
But the part I like best in this whole column is the combination of words, "an intellectual godfather of Trumpism". That's good. That's really good.
1
The movies mentioned were standard curriculum for HBS students in the MBA program back in the day. This is a case study guy.
7
We refuse to admit it, but the democratic system of elections have failed. Also. the two party system is basically undemocratic. Money has become the foundation of winning an American election. Social media has become propaganda outlets, and talk radio has filled the heads of compliant people with opinion presented as factual reporting.
People, generally, do not vote intelligently, Wedge issues like abortion, gay marriage, guns become the important issues to most citizens. That is after the historic family singular affiliation with one party or the other--'my grandfather was a democrat/republican)'...........and so on.
It is ironic that it appears our basic freedoms of speech, universal suffrage, etc, will be the factors contributing to our demise as a cohesive society.
What's the alternative? If there is a good one, I have no knowledge of what it would be.
7
A fascinating interview that leaves me in the same place with Mr. Morris: "I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people. That I can’t understand. And that I find horrifying and depressing."
I think the next project that Mr. Morris should undertake is investigating, dissecting and explicating the Trump supporter. I'm sure they are not all clones, they have their individual warped rationale for supporting Trump and they have their own rationalization for claiming American values, but there is something common among them. Perhaps it is racism, perhaps xenophobia, perhaps gullibility to snake oil salesmen. But more likely it is Fox and other right-wing radio and Internet forces which mean America no good.
I have yet to see a study, an expose, of Trump supporters. I think America needs this to begin to understand what went wrong, what is wrong, how to correct it, especially if we are ever going to regain confidence in our national identity and position of respect on the world stage.
4
Being able to easily quote classical authors doesn't mean one is an intellectual, it means one has a good memory. It is easy to see how a superficially educated businessman can be taken in by someone spouting pseudo-intellectual nonsense.
Every action is followed by a reaction, for better or for worse, and we are witnessing the worse in Bannon's Frankensteinish creation; he has released the Id lurking just underneath the thin veneer of civility.
Good interview Frank! Scary,but revealing. I was waiting for the question of whether Bannon took credit for electing Trump, and sighed when it came. Another way of putting all of this is that we live in a time in which public relations reign...
Thanks Frank, and thanks Earl. Frank, in my eyes you have redeemed yourself from last week when you opined (and sorry, it was not your best day) that Melania could be the greatest first lady.
Earl Morris is an American treasure, and a treasure for the world. I look forward to this movie very, very much.
13
A wonderfully revelatory article; I will see the movie. An underlying issue is the difference between appearance and reality, words and actions, ideas and their consequences. Bannon has achieved a good bit of attention, power, and influence but he is a destroyer not a grower, builder, or ameliorator. In this respect, he embodies the worst side of America that came to this continent, fought with and slaughtered Native Americans, buffaloes, and much of the natural world , and then moved on to the west to despoil again. So what happens in California where all these movers ended will tell us where we are going and how this will all play out. The “fire next time “ or the fulfillment of this nation’s promise.....or an endless oscillation between the two.
15
Excellent dialogue - Steve Bannon is a symbol of many unknowns of Western Culture - a culture build on legacy of Christianity, age of reason, colonialism, Violance and Enlightenment. The word racism is too loaded and negative, it is white supremacy that is hidden in all white people in their subconscious mind, a creation of Victorian nineteenth century mems. Before that this consciousness was not there - people of all races were viewed equal in all societies. Through Bannon we can see the image of that white mind and unwrap the layers of modernism, post modernism, and globalization. The rise of Asia is a big challenge to the Victorian mind and deep culture of Indic civilization is challenging the Judio-Christian thoughts. I read many Western intellectuals writings and surprised that their knowledge base does not have any understanding of Upanishadic thoughts. It was not like that - most of the nineteenth and twentieth century Western scholars and scientists read Upanishad and understood deep Indic culture and adopted the deeper connection of humanity. Bannon missed that depth and he also missed the concept of Dharma. Dharma hold the integrity of the society, it is not to destroy it. Like Lennin, he can do tremendous damage to mankind.
9
Thanks for this revealing interview. That is, revealing of a very smart, insightful man - Morris. I look forward to more from him in the future, and I very much share his views. As for Bannon, just another rank, extremely damaged opportunist of a human being, not nearly as smart as he pretends. Mephistopheles come to life - sees already corrupt and tragically flawed humans and takes full advantage. Trump being the prime example. Despicable, really. And very much birds of a feather.
33
"I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people. "
Abandonment by so many people--all of one political party. Democrats have not abandoned American values. But there is 90% approval of Donald Trump among Republicans; that number together with the Republican- leaning voters among so-called Independents gets us to the approximately 40% of Americans who support Trump.
Morris' question is indeed the central question of our age. Has there ever been another case where a very large political party has so completely and thoroughly turned against its own country? Especially in a time of relative peace and prosperity? We are almost two years into the Trump era and I still cannot believe what is happening.
142
@Matt
Mr. Bruni (and several commentators here) have found this noteworthy: ""I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people. "
I can.
And don't blame the GOP. Blame our country. We have been asleep at the wheel while the abyss of unequal opportunity has swallowed us. I interpret the fact that so many people were (and are) willing to hold their nose and support Trump is simply a reflection of the utter soul crushing desperation that is felt .. especially in the 'flyover states'. And we failed to see it. And still fail.
Now, do you understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people"?
13
@AP917
AP917's comment is a post facto rationalization that overlooks the facts. The pertinent studies, as reported here and elsewhere, tell us (a) Trump's voters were relatively well off, and (b) they were principally motivated by racial resentment. In fact, studies also tell us that the Sanders voters who went on to vote for Trump were also motivated principally by race and gender. I myself believe economic inequality is a large problem but it was not the principal motivating force for Trump voters.
AP917 wrote:
"...Blame our country. We have been asleep at the wheel while the abyss of unequal opportunity has swallowed us. I interpret the fact that so many people were (and are) willing to hold their nose and support Trump is simply a reflection of the utter soul crushing desperation that is felt ..."
@Matt -- Without exonerating the Republican Party's disgraceful lurch to the right, the Democratic Party, including Obama, has and continues to be an inexcusably large part of the problem.
The evisceration of the middle class, the surge of inequality, the exportation of manufacturing jobs, the explosion of college debt, our dysfunctional health care system, our too-big-to-punish banking system and our dollar-based electoral system have all been part of a thoroughly bipartisan effort by elites in both parties over the last 40-years.
Worse, that continuing complicity among the Democratic elites is preventing the party from mounting an effective challenge to the off-the-rails Republicans.
2
"I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people."
Really? It is easy to understand if you factor in the reality TV/Facebook phenomenon that has gripped many Americans for the past decade. Everyone wants what the Kardashians have...money, fame, & looks without apparently having to work for it. (They clearly work for it, but we're talking appearance here not-ironically-reality).
We have the reality TV President who promises everything and provides nothing. He promises his viewers we can all have what he has and we deserve it, never mind the details about how that will happen. The illusion of success is why some people post on FB and why some admire Trump. They hope that they too will one day be able to boast, look at me! My life is great!
42
@Tina Gordon. I don’t think that’s what Bsnnon means. The values he mourns are those that maintained a strong white male supremacy. The values that put women in the kitchen and shut them down, the values that kept minorities “in their place,” the values that led the rise of robber barons. These are the values he holds.
I disagree with the author's last paragraph. it is the progressive left that has abandoned American values, and this has fueled the rise of Trump.
8
@Robert And what "so called" American values has the progressive left abandoned? Equal representation and protection under the law for all, clean water and air, a dignified life including education, health care, a safe job that pays a living wage for all, rich and poor alike, a country that does not favor the rich and white, the Judeo- Christian belief that our country is only as good as how we treat those that have the least....these are all American values and progressive values. If what you mean as "American" values is a jingoistic false nationalism/white European identity, libertarian capitalistic values that only value the wealthy, individualistic mythology that every person does it alone....then you can have that America. I'll take the former any day.
53
The progressive left embodies American values. The "values" you seem to think they have abandoned were never American values at all. They were conservative false values.
3
@Robert
If you really believe that, then you haven't been paying attention – AT ALL – for the last 40 years.
1
Today, I can only think and compare John McCain to the fraudulent expertise of Bannon and Trump.
McCain knew that few things are all right or all wrong. And chose the right thing.
Bannon seems to choose the evil when there is a choice. He knows that simple solutions seldom solve complex problems but chooses them because of their ease of selling.
We will see the easy solutions on Bumper stickers by Republicans soon.
28
"in Italy, cheering for an amateurish, fraudulent strain of populism"
That is a remarkably tone-deaf way to write off the politics that has emerged in Italy. It has crushed a status quo that was mired in failure for decades.
If anything was fraudulent, it was the politics that failed Italy for so very long, the most successful of which was the clownish fraud Berlusconi, who remained in office winning over and over five times longer than his nearest rival since WW2.
I agree this new politics in Italy is half formed, inconsistent, and incoherent. It is however clear what it is not, and that is what went before.
Dismissal of the challenge of voters to the status quo is the source of the last Democratic failure. Bruni like so many failed to understand then, and he just repeats that failure here when he writes off Italian voters who just voted a big fat "No."
16
Yes well unfortunately the world can now see a real life example when you vote "No" for no's sake. We have someone running the country that is ill equipped to do so.
Not ony that, but we now have the most corrupt administration in US history.
Think hard before casting your vote.
Do your homework.
Really listen to the candidates.
How anyone could vote for Trump after listening to him during the primaries is beyond me.
It's sad and frightening.
Have a great day.
@confounded -- Then hear the voters, and don't just defy their "No." That is what brought this on.
"Do you have a better sense today than you did, say, a year and a half ago of what went wrong for Democrats and Hillary Clinton in 2016?
Yes, I do. I did not have an understanding of the degree to which Hillary Clinton was hated."
Errol Morris has it right.
Really, if one has to pick one raindrop out of the perfect storm, it wasn't the Russians, it wasn't Comey, it was Hillary Clinton. Post election public opinion polls showed a lower percent of Democrats voting for HRC than Republicans who voted for DJT. She couldn't inspire Democrats as much as Trump could inspire Republicans. And Trump won the Independent vote too.
Most recent consequence is the Dems decision not to allow 'superdelegates' to vote on the first ballot.
29
@Nat Ehrlich She won the popular vote by 3 million so more people liked her. The Democrats were manipulated and did another Nadar - something they said they'd never do again. I wanted Biden but I knew Trump was evil. There is always a greater evil. Stupid Democrats don't get that.
1
@Nat Ehrlich It is worth pondering WHY Hillary Clinton was hated so fiercely. The level of hatred for her cannot conceivably be explained by the sum total of her actions throughout her career.
1
@Nat Ehrlich You forget Hillary won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. 80,000 votes in a few states won the electoral college vote. Hardly a landslide.
The idea that Satan is the real hero of Paradise Lost goes back to Dryden, and was common among in the Romantic era among critics like Blake and Hazlitt.
Rebellion is always superficially attractive, and certainly a lot more fun than running a complicated and imperfect bureaucracy.
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@Jonathan Yes, like most of Bannon's ideas, that one's second-hand. If you look from a great distance through blurry glasses, it's the kind of observation that makes him look as if he were some kind of intellectual.
He is the most interesting character, not the hero.
Interesting interview and a very interesting interviewee - I'll try to see this (whereas before this piece I never would have).
I agree with you Frank about the 2016 election - Trump's win does make a kind sense owing to the large-scale feeling of disenfranchisement of so many. But like you what is so sad and shocking is that his supporters continue to believe him and to believe in what he is doing "for them".
Trump has become their David Koresh - I hope the ending turns out better.
66
@JFR. David Koresh, or Jim Jones.
"I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people."
Really? It is clear to me that many, many people never held what you consider "American values" in the first place. Fully half the people I have encountered in school, work, and my travels define "American" values in nativist, exclusionary, often racist terms. This is despite my natural tendency to select for people with more inclusive, principle-based viewpoints. And it includes even recent immigrants, many of whom won't admit it but want to pull the bridge up behind them. One of my immigrant parents longed for a Trump to vote for, and died before he could get his wish. It is hard to imagine how Mr. Morris could be so naive as to be surprised at all this.
57
@charles, I think these values go way beyond immigrants. We have it in Anglo Texans, including thenone currently at the helm. Greg Abbott, Texas small town boy, grows up, gets a law degree, and moves to the big city, Houston. Here a neigbor's tree falls on him, doing such damage that he becomes a parraplegic for life, rightfully collecting millions of dollars in damage from his neighbor's insurance company.
He later becomes an elected appellate court judge, siding with insurance companies against people injured just like him.
Now he is the Governor of Texas, operating from a wheel chair, working to deny healthcare for the working poor.
5
This all started with GOP Ronald Reagan and his, "Government is the problem." rhetoric. It set into many minds that our own government was the enemy of the people. It is not the government that is the enemy, it is bad government. The Republican party, many years ago, was the party of good government. Hoover is a good example. That man was a mining engineer who was given herculean tasks and achieved them successfully. He used private and government resources to help millions of people. Now, lesser mortals in the Republican party do not want to do the hard work of reform. They have reduced the "answer" to Government is the problem. government is the enemy. That is not the right answer and therefore we are seeing a lot of disconnect between problems and the actions taken. Problem: Wage stagnation? Solution: Corporate tax rate cut. Result: Stock buybacks and higher dividends. This is just one example, there are many others. Blue Wave Nov 2018 !
86
@Joe Parrott We'll see about 2018 but don't count on 2020. The Democrats will do another Nadar/Bernie/Stein and Trump will get another 4. Look at the past, it's what they always do. The Republicans are smart and hang together.
Hoover? Hoovervilles? The Great Depression? That was a good Republican?
@Joe Parrott. Question One:. Why do so many people who really believe that the government is the problem spend so much time, energy, and money to become a member of it?
Question Two:. If government is so feckless and evil, why are those same people eager and willing to throw most of a trillion dollars annually at the government war machine and trust it with thousands of nuclear weapons?
I see things through the lens of someone who was never dazzled by the flashy glitter of the bright shiny objects that distract most people. Rational thought requires one to view the value of everything as it relates to everything else. My life is better when those around me lives are better. What does it cost others for me to gain what I want.
There were times when this countries citizens valued the collective more than themselves, why else would anyone go to war knowing that it might cost them their life or health unless forced to do so.
Today, and for the past several decades, the excuse to do things that cost the collective but enrich the individual has been "if I don't do it too then the others will anyway, and I will have lost the benefits to myself". This justification is exclusively about monetary enrichment and is the cancer that has invaded the body of this country. It has infected all of our civil, governmental, and institutional organizations.
52
To be clear, I do not accept all of Bannon's ideas. However, the problem with the Left (remember Bannon was a Democrat) is that in the never-ending quest to identify by diverse groups they destroy the unity which is even more important than diversity. Once a former diverse group (i.e. working "white" Americans) which supported and was important to Dems success is discarded that group will turn with a fury and abandon some of their previous philosophical beliefs. Further, the loss of that group (and similar groups) will eventually weaken the entire system of selection by diversity because other groups will eventually realize they will be discarded as well. What Bannon correctly identifies, and is, therefore, able to speak to is that each group has some philosophical principles, merit, and value (other than just race). By acknowledging the facts (principles and beliefs of the group) that the "Left" won't Bannon gains credibility while the Left loses more of it. Moreover, the Left suffers more because it tends to be collectivists instead of individualistic (which is what our country was founded on and the Right beliefs).
Instead of merely complaining or whining about Bannon consider why he is successful. Sun Tzu essentially said that you obtain victory by making no mistakes and capitalizing on your opponents.
10
Obtaining victory is not the same as governing, as the Republicans continue to prove. Defining society as zero-sum winners and losers is the very problem with Bannon, Trump, and conservative "thought". Besides, working class voters abandoned the Democrats, the ONLY party that ever looks out for their interests, when Reagan waved his shiny "no taxes" object in front of them. They've been blind ever since. Take Bannon himself, who was so upset at leftist "elites" that his father lost money following the advice of a conservative talking head on TV that he became a conservative talking head on TV. That's typical conservative "logic".
2
@Matthew
Sorry but no, individualism was not our foundation, read the founding documents, the Declaration ends with "...our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor".
The Constitution begins "We the People of the UNITED States".
There is no me, or mine, or just some of us.
The early European settlers, and for that matter the early Asiatic settlers, all came and stayed in groups.
You may admire the tales of the rugged individualist, but it is most unlikely that you would be happy, or capable, of living on your own, remember these "loners" relied on gunsmith for their arms, blacksmiths for their tools, and brewers and distillers for their drink. And of course usually traded with each other, local tribes, and of course regular group gatherings to sell their furs, and buy supplies.
1
@Matthew - Hogwash. Republicans are the ones who pick groups to demonize and strip of civil rights, Democrats merely insist that everyone be treated equally.
I can vividly recall the Obama rallies with people of all ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations etc. coming together joyfully.
The rise of Bannon and Trump are direct consequences of the greed "revolution" that Reagan and Dark Money started in the '80s.
It's hard to be optimistic about America's future, but then again who thought that Communism will end by 1989. I take solace in the fact that throughout history human spirit and humanism ultimately prevailed.
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"What I can’t really understand is what happened to America after 2016 and the election. I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people."
Like other commenters, I'm not sure why Morris comes across as a bit naive here. A large minority (at least) of Americans have always had a soft spot for oligarchy, plutocracy, plutonomy, whatever you wish to call it. There always existed the danger that what Marcos did to the Philippines, what Mobutu did to Zaire, what Trujillo did to the Dominican Republican, and what other kleptocratic plutocrats did to other countries during the Cold War with often unconditional American support is what Americans would eventually do to themselves.
Lyndon Johnson, who grew up as a non-rich white person in racially segregated 1920s Texas, understood this well and stated the problem perfectly with his "lowest white man" quote: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
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A society that values individualism and 'BE THE BEST YOU CAN - REACH for the STARS' mindsets, forgets one thing: the REST around that individual.
In a 100m sprint, with 10 contesting athletes, the logic is: NINE must LOSE so that ONE can WIN. Mind you, the NINE that lost have still tried their best but it wasn't enough.
Knowing this, human societies built safeguards, 'insurance' systems, at the most primal level 'functional' families to endure and weather wars, famine, plagues, political oppression, etc. You name it.
But that is crumbling and has crumbled. Because we idolized the HAVEs over the HAVEsNOT. And because of that we keep digging deeper instead of digging somewhere else, we keep preparing for the next sprint, submitting ourselves to the performance logic (disregarding the society around us) to anything and everything we want to achieve in life.
We forget that society is a system. Sure, there are winners and losers in all life's races. But in the end, we should always remember that we never walk alone. Left and right, other people, have also dreamt and hoped and despaired.
Steve Bannon, a lucifer? A 'light bearer'? For whom? And for which path to follow?
Following his logic, of lateral selection, extrapolating his efforts in the US as well as various european countries, if he were to sell his philosophy all over the world, the resulting set of humans that would qualify as 'fitting' to his agenda is ZERO.
DIVIDE and CONQUER. That is his philosophy.
52
@john tay
Bannon's path is the road to hell.
1
To properly understand Steve Bannon's surprising political and media impact, one has to get to grips with HBD theory (Human BioDiversity theory) which underlies so much of his political philosophy. HBD theory is not exactly the same as out-and-out racism (defined as straightforward dislike of other races) but is closely aligned with it. HBD is a key component of Bannon's philosophy and a major source of his widespread influence.
12
@Peter Johnson Racism is any ideology that accepts essential differences between races or peoples. 'Human biodiversity' is hogwash, or perhaps whitewash.
@S North
Different people have different definitions, but I do not think it would be scientifically appropriate to say that any exploration of genetically-caused differences across ancestral groups is "racism." David Reich the Harvard geneticist has a thoughtful exploration of this in his recent book. Also, note that it does not follow from the fact that Steve Bannon (or any unpalatable political figure) is motivated by HBD theory that therefore HBD theory is scientifically false. Those are entirely different criteria - scientific validity versus political affiliation. Those are different. I did not say that HBD theory is scientifically false.
It's not clear to whom Morris is referring when he talks about "the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people. That I can’t understand. And that I find horrifying and depressing."
For me, I would include not only most Republicans and still loyal Trump supporters, but large parts of the consultant-ridden Democratic Party establishment that remains loyal to its elite donor class instead of the country and continues to distract from the severe economic and social issues faced by most middle-class Americans.
This overage party elite stubbornly continues to repeat self-defeating name calling against Trump voters, indulge in impeachment fantasies, resist needed and popular economic changes and push incoherent centrist platitudes.
All this is preventing the Democrats from calling forth the bold value-based leadership needed to win back the country. This to me is a key part of the "wholesale abandonment of American values" we've seen since Trump's election. I find it even scarier and less explainable than his election.
43
@Guy Baehr It's plain: the money's too good. And too easy. And hard to combat when it's endemic. "It is difficult for a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
50
Guy Baehr People need to realize that mandating candidates for office be fully self-financing when it now costs over a BILLION dollars to run for president, means they have to reach out to parties they would ordinarily not court.
We need to DEMAND publicly financed elections, with a six week limit on campaigning and free public airtime on airwaves officially owned by the American people and licensed out, with REAL candidate debates that are actual debates, with groups like the Womens League of Voters who previously did that. The most recent "debates" were hosted by Budweiser and other corporations
16
@Guy Baehr
In the words of that rascally Monday Night Football philosopher, Dandy Don Meredith, "Turn out the lights, the party's over".
1
Bannon as "the intellectual godfather of Trumpism"?
That person does not exist, because the whole point of Trumpism is to degrade our intellect in favor of hatred, zenophobia, and ignorance.
Bannon is not just a stain on America. He is a grubby and deluded
embarrassment to the human race, and a scary avatar of where we might be headed.
161
"What I can’t really understand is what happened to America after 2016 and the election. I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people."
This suggests that the "American values" may not have been as ingrained into the national psyche as we thought they were. Given the shift from "we're all in this together" to "how much can I get for me" has reduced core values from a solid foundation to a thin veneer of same. One that can be easily erased further by the desecration of civilized interests by people like Bannon, and made manifest in his Frankenstinian creation Trump.
78
@Patrick
American values are a myth. The Trump base exposed the myth. We can now think about what American values really are. Understand the values that drive the juror from the Manafort trial who spoke out, and you will understand the values of the majority of white middle class voters. Sounds weird but she is a quintessential soccer mom. Bannon is part of a cadre who understands exactly how to play to the soccer mom fears.
1
@Patrick You're right, Bannon was a prime creator of Trump. He taught our president that it is all right to say any thing he chooses to say as long as he can't be sued for it.You know how important Money is to Trump.
1
While the 2016 election result was a horror I never expected to live through, like Mr. Morris, I find the aftermath where almost every norm and value, if not shredded already, at great risk of being completely decimated in the near future, to be even more awful, mostly because it's happened so quickly and easily.
The pillars of our democracy crumble before us.
We need a victory in November.
Vote!
126
What bothers me is the examples to the children about these new "values." I always call Trump's presidency a cancer that will spread much farther than we could originally have thought.
1
Well of course any serious comment needs to wait
until seeing the film...however I am curious
whether the film deals sufficiently with the essential
economic con as an "acceptable" political device to recover power
for the Volk at the expense of the Other, which would
be harder to achieve directly. The riling up and
fury towards the elites and those among the Others who have profited from the elites' economic and social programs has both
a racial and economic "logic".
Were one to adopt a populist economic program to
oppose the dominant paradigm of market autonomy (in
opposition to a favorite term the "administrative state"),
tariffs would be on the table but not a giant tax cut for
the elite. So, how to explain how one sells this to
the Volk is a fascinating question.
Bannon realized that it's not the Volk to
whom the economic program is directed. It's the rhetoric
used to sell the program that is, whence the con.
The beneficiaries will be the funders of a bannon,
the extractors of mineral wealth, the carbon energy extractors,
the vulture capitalist guys who want the unwinding of that administrative state.
But how to sell that to the Volk is difficult if limited to economics.
"Administrative state" is also code for policies
promoting social equality, opposing racial discriminations etc.
Dismantling that legal structure is understood as the goal even if it's not articulated (only to specialized audiences).
Does the film go into this in sufficient depth?
19
12 O'clock High was done in 1949 and was, as far as I know, the first war movie that questioned the judgement of some of our strategy. It also suggested that all military personnel were blindly faithful to the leadership. At the end of the movie, the hero, Frank Savage, cracks. He cannot get in the ship for
another raid. My late father, who flew 50 missions with 8th AF, then again in Korea and finally for SAC eschewed all war movies except Catch-22 and MASH.
People love going back to WWII for military reference because the lines were clear and we won a great victory. We knew who the bad guys were.
25
HBS, and other management training courses (unrelated NYT story mentioned use at IBM) use 12 O’ Clock High to show leadership is not about just ordering people around. The War provides the driver for the purpose of the unit, the risks it faces and the tools the leaders have. You don’t see much actual fighting except people leaving in planes and not returning or returning damaged. Frank Savage has to focus his teams on goals (it is not FDR and the flag), identify leaders that can embrace and implement the goals (they are not always in the right boxes on the org chart), influences and cajoles more than he orders, cope with demands of senior executives ( generals senior to him) and alter his tactics in a very fluid environment. In personality, Savage is not an ideal fit, but he is smart enough to understand what this particular unit needs and becomes that person, at least for awhile (situational leadership). In the end, he absorbs too much of the burden. He delegates tasks, but the burden of life and death catches up to him. While no business managers have similar life and death decisions, students should recognize the similarities and challenges.
9
@Michael Blazin
The 8th AF had a 50% casualty rate. No other military organization of similar size had as many casualties. Every mission was a coin toss as to whether you survive. My father survived 50 straight flips. He rarely discussed the war and we were very close. I knew it profoundly effected the rest of his life.
1
@goofnoff, actually l believe the 8th AF had a casualty rate approaching 65%; however, the German U Boat service exceeded that by a large margin. They had the highest casualty rate of any distinct group in WW II.
I don't think that there was this "wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many people." I believe there have always been this many people who would follow whatever authority is in power, who have little or no understanding what is truly going on, nor any understanding whatsoever of democracy and how our government actually works.
What has changed is that one major party -- the GOP -- has gone completely off the rails. A mere 25 years ago, both parties followed norms that prevented America from being dragged down to the lowest common denominator. Not anymore. The GOP is no longer interested in democracy. It is only interested in its own power. If we make it out of this nightmare, the question of how it became an enemy of democracy will be one that will occupy future historians for centuries to come.
183
@LNL
From a joyful pessimist here, this historical question might be of singular occupation to future authors writing from Outer Space. The inhabitants of Earth, centuries from now, will be fighting it out with sticks and stones.
@LNL
Donald Trump, with Bannon's guidance, had one simple, overriding message that took a number of forms, but was, throughout, very clear just the same: The "Others", (not only minorities, immigrants, and the Democrats, but government as a whole), are coming to take your place and your stuff, and I'm the only one who can stop it. In fact, not only will I protect what you've got, I'll add to it. Every campaign speech, every interview, every tweet could have been distilled down to those two statements when you think about it.
That sixty three million people were willing to turn their futures and their country over to a madman peddling alarm and insurance, surprised and disheartened me as much as it did Mr. Morris. I knew the fear and hatred were out there, I just didn't know how pervasive it was.
4
The interview with Mr. Morris was spot on. Mr. Morris is a wise and perceptive force in this ongoing national debate between civility and, well, madness.
It's a mystery to me if most citizens could even articulate what values, democratic or otherwise, social or personal, that they hold dear, such is the state of the American mind. Our national inability to discriminate truth from falsehood seems readily apparent. The lies we are fed from cradle to grave via advertising, politicking, talking heads on TV, radio, and our so-called smart phones are like the blanket fire bombing of Dresden (for no reason) during WWII; only it's our psyches and intellects that have taken the scorching.
For an undisciplined thinker like Bannon to be taken seriously by anyone, anywhere is a testament to the vacuousness, immaturity, and wholesale ignorance of not just the citizens of the U.S. but apparently in parts of Europe, too. He's a small man with old ideas, low morality and a huge ego. Beware!
85
I have to keep reminding myself that the country did endure worst. Good interview. The incoherence of bannon’s anger, cloaked in intellectualsm, with the anti-thetical policies of trump can’t get enough attention. It’s a sickness that needs pastoral healing. The zero sum game of politics will only feed the beast. Again, good interview. I find it healthy to have a point of view based on curiosity and self awareness.
32
If you can't clearly see the narratives woven into history, you will never understand the future.
Steve Bannon did not put Trump in the White House - 63 million American voters did.
Then the question becomes, what made them do that?
And that is the real question that needs answering. And you will never find that answer by talking to Steve Bannon. Why? Because even he doesn't know. But he won't tell anyone that.
I spent 4 years working and traveling in America in the early 2000s and I could see some of that answer already forming. From the Maytag plants that I visited that were closing to the crumbling infrastructure of the Interstate system, and waitresses who only made $4 dollars/hr. I could see something was going wrong.
Then in 2008-9 came the Great Economic Collapse. You Americans call it the Great Recession, but in all honesty America, Wall Street tanked the Western world.
And because of this event, it would eventually lead in Europe to a debt crisis in 2010-12; austerity and a whole generation of European youth who in Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Greece and other places - saw their futures dry up.
Then the big event...Brexit 2016.
For me, this forms the base of my answer as to how Trump came to power. It was Brexit. No Brexit no Trump. To see the United Kingdom start a new path inspired Americans to break with the past too.
In this new documentary, he is nothing but a bit character.
And the narratives of history in time will show just that.
48
@The Peasant Philosopher-Worth noting: To improve on its Trump Campaign strategy, Cambridge Analytica teamed up with Leave.EU, the UK's largest group advocating for Brexit to help them better understand and communicate with UK voters. Cambridge claimed, "We have already helped supercharge Leave.EU's social media campaign by ensuring the RIGHT messages are getting to the RIGHT voters online, and the campaign's Facebook page is growing in support to the tune of about 3,000 people per day." CA goes on to boast "whether you are trying to reach out to a voter, change hearts and minds about Britain's EU membership, or move product, the more you know about your target audience, the better you will be able to engage, persuade, and motivate them to act." CA acclaimed to have over 500 data points on 230 million Americans. In the US, it relied on data from the RNC, voter registry, "commercial data brokers (i.e. Facebook)" and consensual data (per their Soviet colleague's FB survey) Steve Bannon, Cambridge Analytica VP, has reasons for his unbounded arrogance.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-russi...
https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/big-data-better-donald-trump/1383025
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/10/russian-influence-brexit-v...
16
@The Peasant Philosopher: I remember distinctly my fear at the pit of my stomach when Brexit passed. My first thought was, "My god. Trump could win, too." And here we are. The only way out is for Democrats to sweep the House and stop Trump and Bannon cold.
4
@The Peasant Philosopher The average American has no clue what Brexit means or what it is all about.
If Bannon ever threatens to go away, liberal minded writers and documentary filmmakers will rush to resurrect him for further investigation and dissection. But after all, what is so complicated about an opportunist who listens to what people are saying and then repeats it back to them in poetic language such as 'lock her up' and 'build the wall'? That Bannon roughly resembles a thoughtful human being may be throwing some people off. If he was a house on the market instead, he'd be the one with the noticeably sinking foundation and the perfectly lousy feng shui.
26
"I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people. That I can’t understand. And that I find horrifying and depressing." I also find it horrifying but understandable. These are selfish people who never held American values dear. They think that America being great means being white, born here even if their ancestors were not, having a job that pays enough to have a car, a house, a few toys, pizza delivered, a case of beer on ice and football on the wide screen TV.
32
It's certainly true that listening to Bannon speak is like listening to the friend you went to Burning Man with who didn't realize you shouldn't follow your LSD dose with a meth chaser.
But the man is dangerous because within all that melange are the threads of ideas that resonate with those who think the world has changed too fast and are worried about the precariousness of their places in it. For example, Bannon talks much of present day conflict between the North and the South of the globe, a thinly veiled proxy for white Western vs. brown/Muslim/immigrant value conflict. This is incredibly reductionist and doesn't even take into account what used to be called the Far East, but it sounds reasonable to Europeans watching their neighborhoods become browner and North Americans worried over immigrants of both the Islamic and Latin American variety.
That a lot of this is driven by economic, political, and climate forces that the Western world has contributed greatly to and which only it has the resources, if not the will, to seriously address at the moment means little to both Bannon and his acolytes. Honey badger don't care.
Bannon really thought he'd hitched his wagon to an Orange star that would take action--basically, burning down the house--that might result in some sort of reset; to late he realized Trump wasn't a fellow traveler but a self-interested grifter, resentful of elites but secretly wanting their acceptance.
Used, then tossed. No wonder he's off.
53
I hope Morris picked up on Bannon's formative years. He was the son of Navy enlisted in the Norfolk area who went, like most smart sons of the working class in Virginia, to VPI (Virginia Tech) where he became the President of the student body! I think he thought he was the next Kennedy: Irish Navy winsome and destined. The notorious Harvard MBA was to fill out the prep, and with it came the chance to get rich with the Ivy boys on Wall Street. But something went wrong. What gets you elected at Va Tech is most definitely not what makes you good company at Goldman. And there began, I bet, the dramatic confusion of self-understanding with bizarre theorizing about the betrayal of America by its elites.
49
@William Fritz-I think all the girls who turned him down for dates; their rejections had a lot to do with his bizarre, off-the-rails philosophies. He's turning this rejection into a revenge plot. End everyone else has to suffer, as a result.
19
@Ann
So... you blame the women? (If they hadn't rejected him he wouldn't be such a miserable git?) What about Vatican II? Or the time his parents sent him to his room without supper? Or?
This piece is a keeper. Thank you.
15
While we are talking about Milton let us talk about Areopagitica Milton's essay about property rights specifically intellectual property rights and freedom of expression and who owns what is between our ears.
I don't know if Steve Bannon is Socratic or Isocratic (sophist) but he knows and understands philosophy and I don't know if Trump is really a Trojan Horse given to the party of 24/7 sophistry.
Bannon is brilliant and I sometimes wonder if he supports Trump for the same reason I support Trump. Trump has Americans doing what they haven't done in over 50 years and that is think. Ideologues can't do good governance.
5
Only an anti-intellectual thinks the fool is brilliant. Bannon is a fool. Trump is an amoral, self-centered idiot. One with a brain might be able to read between the lines.
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Bannon is not brilliant. He is hateful racist with just enough education and intelligence to get lost and unhappy people with no critical thinking skills to buy his snake oil.
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@Memphrie et MoiNo. Honestly, they don’t think.
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It's true that the changes to the tax code that we've seen under Trump aren't populist, but it's also true that populism is not the exclusive province of either the Democrats or the Republicans, and each of those parties is fighting internally between corporate and populist wings.
Ignoring for a moment the fact that Trump, from one day to the next takes his cues from either Ronald Reagan, John Gotti, or Huey Long, New York magazine interviewed Bannon very recently:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/steve-bannon-on-how-2008-pl...
Bannon was ejected from the White House in no small part because he was advocating higher taxes on the wealthy than what most Republicans (especially the Paul Ryan, corporate Republicans who wrote most of the tax law overhaul) wanted.
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@Middleman MD
I am Canadian and America is a land I love but you have no idea of my sorrow since Reagan was elected. I welcome every day of Trump's presidency.
I don't know if Bannon just wants to blow your country up and start all over from scratch but tearing down all your institutions is a good place to start.
The Dark Money Aristocracy that funds conservative think tanks and keeps Bannon well fed, created the problem of inequality and the lack of opportunity in America today. The Dark Money Aristocracy created the problem because economic inequality benefits them.
Trump, Bannon and the other Nationalists have identified the right problem, they just misdiagnosed the root cause. Inequality is NOT caused by immigrants, welfare or social activists.
If you want to know the real root cause of economic inequality, just follow the money. More Billionaires with more billions and more people working two or three jobs just to survive. Coincidence? I don't think so.
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@Ronny
...and stating the obvious follow-on, some of the wealthiest, such as Mercers, Kochs, and Waltons, spend their ill-gotten money on lobbying to get the laws changed to increase their profits. People like Trump and Bannon are just useful idiots in achieving their mission aims.
Perfect examples of this are the tax cuts (for the wealthiest), shredding environmental regulations, and attacking organized labor. Keeping healthcare contingent on employment is also a form of indentured servitude which they like and want to keep.
Like Bannon I was raised in the Catholic Church but unlike him I've abandoned it. But it's been my experience that many who are lifelong Catholics (or adopt Catholicism) have no trouble accepting contradictions. Thus I'm unsurprised that Bannon would hold a strange hodge-podge of beliefs.
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@Iconoclast1956 Comparing Bannon's Catholicism to the beliefs of the many truly kind, smart practising Catholics I know is an insult. He is thrice divorced, (= can't be lived with), has a highly inflated ego...I could go on. My Catholic friends can't stand Trump or Bannon, they pray a lot and lead honourable lives.
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Very interesting - I find Bannon a scary, dangerous man. Time will tell how well he will succeed in spreading his vile ideas.
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Mr. Morris sounds like a pretty smart guy. I hope he makes a documentary about the founding of Fox News some day, examining the lives of Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch. Forty percent of our country is brainwashed and not dealing with reality or facts. Fox News has been the root cause of that.
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@Gustav
The underlying problem, I submit, is not Fox News, but under-education. Ailes-Murdoch is but a symptom, not the cause. There is no way, under the Constitution, a news service like the current Fox could be subject to regulation. Nor is there any way reasonable educational standards could be set up on a national scale, as the Constitution says nothing about how a thoughtful, critical citizenry might be fostered. Public education is left to local jurisdictions, with some rather disastrous results, one of which is the size of the Fox audience. On this crucial issue, as on several others (gun control, campaign financing, etc.), the US finds itself in a real bind, hamstrung by failings of its own making. The prospect for systemic improvement in such areas seems far from encouraging, i'd suggest.
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@Gustav . Murdoch is evil personified, Ailes one of his hired goons. Australia was fortunate to have had Murdoch and his spawn become US citizens and turn their attentions towards northern hemisphere meddling.
Murdoch returned to Australia in recent weeks and it is no accident that we have just seen a political coup staged. For weeks/months his various news outlets have been fomenting an insurgency inside the incumbent government.
Outrageous headlines undermined the government of the day. It was clear the weight of his media empire was turned into a propaganda tool by the right wing/populist stooges within the government party. All dancing to Murdochs tune.
The government he has this week undermined recently changed media/broadcasting laws to specifically accommodate Murdoch interests. As a result he is now rolling out a Fox News clone here in Australia - know as Sky News. We are now being infected and inflicted with the Fox formula of shouting hate and bile and seeking to exert influence.
In any sane world you would require to pass an ethics test in order to own or publish newpapers, own satellites, broadcast and cable TV. Media is too important to be in the hands of a person like Murdoch.
@Gustav
The root of the problem goes beyond Fox News.
Jane Mayer details it in her book "Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right" https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/books/review/dark-money-by-jane-mayer...
He's an incoherent mess who fancies himself a one-man "thinktank". He "gave us" Trump. But who gave us Bannon? The Mercer family...they bankrolled his Breitbart forum and introduced Trump to Bannon. Why? What was/is their motivation? A family who has done incredibly well in this "global" economy, but who puts forward candidates or agents who want to burn it all down. WHY? Can is be just straightforward racism? I'd really like to know!
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@B Strong
Yes, odd that these wealthy billionaires (Trump, Mercer’s) claim sympathies for the common man. Humph. Btw, don’t forget about the Mercer’s connection to Cambridge Analytica.
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Russian connection?
@B Strong. The background to the Mercer’s and the rest of the party craziness is a not so crazy plan to empower America’s capitalists and flip the Congress. Get yourself a copy of Nancy Maclean’s book Democracy in Chains and find out the background to this one off. Bannon, believe it or not, is simply one small part of a much, much larger plan that has just about succeeded in having business own government while incredibly people are talking about “socialism”!
Take Steve Bannon and knock off a bunch of IQ points and you get Donald Trump. The converse is also true, add in some brain cells to Trump, read a few books, and you get Bannon. Call it the communitive property of authoritarian wannabes.
Either way you end up with pretty much the same execrable human being: an incoherent racist malignant narcissist with anger management issues who doesn't believe in democracy.
Unfortunately I need to pay attention to Trump due to 63 million Americans who stopped believing in American ideals and put him in the White House.
But Bannon? Why does he still matter?
I hope to never hear about the "Intellectual" Steve Bannon again. Just like I look forward to the end of this Congressional session and never hearing about "Economics Wonk" Paul Ryan again.
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@LT Amen
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@LT
Would someone please tell Bannon that his fifteen minutes are up?
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What happened AFTER the election, Mr. Bruni, is that lots of white Americans got to see the President of the United States validate their own resentment and bitterness towards "the other": the Latinos, the Muslims, the blacks, the immigrants, the gays, the transgendered, the Jews and the assertive, job-stealing, baby-killing women (as opposed to the docile, jobless, baby-raising ones). The tax cuts are nice (even with the deficits that go along with them) but it's the hatred that they need and latch on to. And it's coming from the President, so it must be okay!
Interesting that Bannon admires "Twelve O'clock High." Unlike The Donald, he actually did serve in the military but never saw wartime action (though he came ever-so-close during the failed attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran). How very unfortunate! Had he actually gotten to lead a naval force into battle he might never have needed to take out his frustrations on the rest of us.
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@stu
I was going to comment and you said almost exactly what I was going to, so I give unto to you the glory Sir.
Well done.
"I can’t understand the wholesale abandonment of American values by so many, many, many, many people. That I can’t understand. And that I find horrifying and depressing."--Errol Morris.
The answer, perhaps, is that America never had any values to begin with. That seems an awful and unpatriotic thing to say, but there it is. How could a country elect a black man as its president in successive elections (2008 and 2012) and then, in 2016, execute a clear 180-degree reversal and choose a man with little more than a grade-school education as its president?
Stephen Bannon is supposed to be the intellectual DNA of the alt right. However, when listening to him speak or read his words in news articles, I come away with the idea that he has memorized bromides that he has read or has heard. I simply cannot believe that he believes any of it. I think the common thread that he and Donald Trump have in common is that both crave attention; both want the last word.
Trump is an intellectual cipher; there's nothing there. Bannon, on the other hand, is, as the article says, very well read. How many Americans have read "Paradise Lost," or who know who John Milton is? Trump certainly does not.
I think Bannon sized up the candidate before he got to the bottom of the gilded escalator in 2015 and told him what he wanted to hear or gave him ideas to bounce off the ether. Now, since his exile from the West Wing, Bannon seems a Wandering Jew type figure, roaming Europe looking for an audience.
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@Soxared, '04, '07, '13:
"Little more than a grade school education?"
Mr. Trump holds a bachelors degree from the University of Pennsylvania, an ivy league school.
Unfortunately he seems to have forgotten the basics of Econ 2A, the introductory economics course at Wharton. We were taught that tariffs were always a bad idea, and that comparative advantage was far more useful than protectionism.
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@ed connor:When I was at Penn, a few years after Mr. Trump, I had many international friends and learned to appreciate the importance and value of different races and creeds around the world. Mr. Trump never learned lessons like this.
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When the "comparative advantage" you are exporting is cheap exploited labor, a willingness to pollute and degrade the environment with abandon, and the cost savings in production you can enjoy with an authoritarian regime devoid of any oversight of corrupt practices and the general inconveniences of the rule of law, then perhaps the simplistic analyses presented in econ 2a or whatever begin to look a little dubious.
And the people on the dud side of the deal have been noticing for some time, but only recently have been having their voices heard. Yes, many have voted for Trump, if only because none else was even beginning to secular their discontent. If the mainstream political parties had taken their complaints more seriously years ago things may not have come to the point where we are now.
"Globalism" as taught in econ 2a is a fine idea, but it bears little to no resemblance to the broken and often deeply unfair global game laughingly referred to as "free trade" as is actually is today.
In short, protectionism has its problems, but until we consider the possibility that in some cases it may be the lesser of evils, we will make no progress towards sustainable solutions. And I suspect political upheaval and discord will continue and intensify until a path to sustainable solutions is taken up by the political mainstream. In the meantime, get used to weird political phenomena like Trump, as a symptom of deeper, festering, structural problems.
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I love "Twelve O'Clock High" and have no love for Bannon. Thing is that when the film was made in 1949, many thought that high altitude strategic bombing of German factories in World War II had been a good idea. Later studies indicated otherwise. The vagaries of art and the real world and Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger demonstrate the persuasiveness of fiction over ...fact; something Bannon understands. I am a bit surprised that, as a former navy man, Bannon is not drawn to "The Caine Mutiny" which, among other things, explores what to do when the person in charge is emotionally disturbed. But, then, one of the other characters, played by Henry Fonda on the stage and Jose Ferrer in the film, is Jewish. Ooops.
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While it is scary that outliers like Bannon have an ideological hold on millions of Americans along with some European populists, it is good to remember that a minority of a majority does not equal a majority.
At least in America this week, with the news that Bannon’s pupil and benefactor Trump has become an unindicted co-conspirator to start the process of removing the president from office, either through the 2020 election or through impeachment, it could be the beginning of the end for Trumpism in the U.S.
What will block Steve Bannon and Donald Trump is the sacred democratic principle that no man is above the law.
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The solutions to fixing America are very straightforward:
Support progressive taxation
Lessen income inequality through higher worker wages
Implement Medicare For All
Finance a strong public education and public college system
Eliminate campaign finance corruption by limiting donations to what the average American can afford, i.e. $500 or so; better yet, make campaign taxpayer-financed with zero contributions allowed
Automatic voter registration for all eligible voters; paper ballots; absentee balloting and expanded opportunities for all citizens to vote over a two-day period including a Saturday or a Sunday.
Make gerrymandering illegal.
Eliminate the slave-state-inspire Electoral College
Bring back the Fairness Doctrine
Use the court system to bankrupt the Fake News channel and hate radio for slander
Regulate immigration by increasing funding for ICE and worker visas so they can do their jobs; Trump Nation is not going to pick lettuce and tomatoes and do the nation's 'dirty work'; they are too lazy to do so; give our Latino immigrants some temporary paperwork to work in peace in this country without Trump's White Spite campaign ruining the country
Steve Bannon offers no real solution besides white supremacy and 'deep state' bomb-throwing, and the Republican Party and Trump offer nothing to America except tax-cut nihilism, white spite, guns, 'God' , destroying healthcare and destroying the truth.
Let's vote out the anarchist Bannon Republican Party on Nov 6 2018.
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@Socrates: Compulsory voting, with strict, redundant auditing. At the least, the same psych screening for elected officials as we demand of police officers, which obviously is not a very high bar. A massive reinvestment in education: There can be no common cause without common sense, and no common sense without information and the ability to process it. It is NOT ok that 10 million of us listen to Alex Jones, 11 million watch Duck Dynasty or Honey Boo Boo and believe aliens walk among us.
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@Socrates
I rarely agree with your or Bruni but I do agree
wich much of what you say save:
a) The Electoral College is the key to keeping
the United States of America - United.
b) Poor Americans are capable of very hard work
and many of them do it.
Picking crops is very hard work and some Americans would do it but they rather not.
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@Socrates
Also, every presidential candidate should be able to demonstrate a knowledge, and understanding, of the constitution.
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I'd rather die than watch that movie.
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@Bruce Rozenblit: You'll eventually die anyway. Morris is a terrific filmmaker and his movies demand to be seen.
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@Bruce Rozenblit Well then, if you believe those are your two choices, please feel free to pick one.
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@Bruce Rozenblit
Me, too, Bruce!
Bannon is less than two years older than I and one of his favorite movies is “Twelve O’Clock High”?! Holy petrified dino droppings, Batman! I barely REMEMBER that movie! (Gregory Peck, wasn’t it? How long has HE been horizontal?)
Steve Bannon is mostly ideologue who is an over-the-top bomb-thrower precisely because he’s a “honey badger”, and just doesn’t care. He doesn’t care what Errol Morris or anyone else thinks about him – almost certainly including Donald Trump. He marks his impact on this plane of existence by the ability to sell ANY percentage of his agenda, regardless of how small. He figures if he throws enough bombs, he’ll capture SOME support. His willingness to be pilloried by Morris simply gets his excellent complexion and superb fashion-sense in front of more people for free, which, as Trump can attest to, is worth billions.
His agenda is the deconstruction of the administrative state and the purification of American culture on complexion and religious lines: he’s the ultimate libertarian, mixed with a soupçon of David Duke. If he lived 120 years ago, he’d be running cells of anarchists in Paris and London, throwing REAL bombs.
However, he remains effective because he DOES have his finger on legitimate problems. He clearly figures that his outrageousness is justified if he can bend popular sentiment even one inch in his direction. And he does it. Don’t minimize the man’s impact, yesterday, today or tomorrow. But don’t try to understand his movie-sense.
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@Richard Luettgen: Morris never really pillories anyone- not even Robert McNamara or Donald Rumsfeld. He simply, thoughtfully and deliberately hands them enough rope to hang themselves. What really IS hard to understand is your evident distaste for Bannon as juxtaposed with your admiration for the low-grade thug and imbecile who was so impressed by his nativist philosophy as to run with it all the way to the White House. That's kind of equivalent to loving Lenin while despising Karl Marx.
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@stu freeman
I don't "admire" Steve Bannon any more than I "admire" Donald Trump. Both are tools that have presented themselves at a critical point in our history and should be used as such.
Of the two, Bannon is the more dangerous, because he is by far the more intelligent and sophisticated, and because that reality can provide the intellectual grist for Trumpish excess, without which Trump wouldn't be able to co-opt the support of large numbers of voters.
@Richard Luettgen: Thanks for the clarification though I wouldn't use either one of them to scrub my toilet.
Whatever Bannon truly believes - in terms of ideology, or about Donald Trump's fitness for office - is secondary to the fact that he is pushing a dangerous agenda. Racism and xenophobia are, unfortunately, universal, and Bannon speaks to them at home and the world over.
Bannon has expressed frustration that his dream for the Trump presidency is dead. But for him, it never came down to just Donald at all. Bannon launched his platform with Breitbart, and continues it now with Europe's far right figures.
Sure, Bannon is an opportunist. But even without Donald Trump's support, Bannon can still find receptive audiences for a message from which we all need to move away.
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The best thing we can do regarding Bannon is to ignore him and his infatuation with fascism.
Filming a documentary on this shallow, pathetic, soul, just adds fuel to the dumpster fire.
I thought we destroyed right wing nationalism 73 years ago.
Apparently I was misinformed.
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@Kevin Rothstein: Look on the bright side. Trump will be furious that a movie was made about Bannon and not about him. He fired Bannon for getting too much attention.Trump believes there's a finite amount of attention in the world, and all of it should focus on him.
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@Kevin Rothstein:
The Allies beat the Axis, but Fascism won the war. Because the Allies learned how effective it can be, and that's the lesson they took home.
@Kevin Rothstein "The best thing we can do regarding Bannon is to ignore him and his infatuation with fascism."
Bannon would die a natural death as a public personality if the media would not give him a constant, reliable forum. Outrageous sells apparently.
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The last sentences by Mr. Morris remind of some neglected facts which historian Jon Meacham focused on in an interview where he reminded the interviewer that at Nixon's lowest point, Nixon's approval rating never sank below the low 20%'s and that Joseph McCarthy's approval never sank below the low 30%'s at his lowest point - factoids which demonstrate there is always a certain lurking electorate which is susceptible to divisive rhetoric and won't be thrown off 'their guy' (or woman), no matter what.
Thus we see these days that many many GOP'er supporters have no care that His Unhinged Unraveling Unfitness POTUS 45* would stand Federally indicted for felony if he lived at any other address in the U.S. of A.
Bannon is correct saying the Orange Jabberwock wouldn't be where he is if Bannon hadn't joined the campaign (along with the heft of the Mercers and Cambridge Analytica) following the Mercers abandonment of Ted Cruz when Cruz lost his last primary (a bullet America dodged).
But considering all we know about Cambridge Analytica's workings, how much is really due exclusively to Bannon ?
At root, Bannon's declaration to the Independent:
" Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power. "
fully explains his psyche, as well as his bragging to the Daily Beast:
" I'm a Leninist. Lenin 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. ”
And this guy was White House Chief Strategist.
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@R. Law Actually I think that the 30% and 20% figures represent people who are tuned out completely. Have you ever actually seen or been asked any of the questions on these polls?
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@Ortrud - All we know is what Jon Meacham told the NPR interviewer:
https://www.npr.org/2018/08/22/641005234/how-president-trumps-legal-prob...
though it's reasonable to assume a certain percentage of Americans are sleep-walking through their duties to be informed adults.
@R. Law- Bannon-Mercer support for Trump scaled nicely with Brad Parscale's work to target states with paid ads, social media messages, and other cyber tools. Parscale enabled the Trump campaign to test and run as many as 50,000 Facebook ads a day to establish which ones resonated best with voters. The Campaign also paid for 'dark posts' that were publicly invisible and showed up in a voter's news feed." Interestingly Russia's GRU org posing as "Gucifer" downloaded voter rolls in key states, then similarly sent out millions of bots tailored precisely to individual voters using email, Facebook, Twitter, and political advertising. One claim is that this would have taken cooperation with the Trump campaign to succeed.
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-brad-parscale-russia-digital-guru-637322
GOP hired data company leaked 198 million American's personal data
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gop-hired-data-company-leaked-145100897.html
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