Tr*mp and Bannon on the end of the state

32 comments on “Tr*mp and Bannon on the end of the state ”

• Comments are now closed

1. Andre 1

   1 March 2017 at 8:00 am

   Bannon is fukn scary.

   In Trump’s case, it’s just another example that there’s no filter between what passes for neural activity and his mouth. But there may be a tiny bit of self-awareness emerging that he’s got himself into a situation where he’s got no fukn clue.

   http://www.salon.com/2017/02/28/trump-and-his-fans-are-discovering-that-government-is-complicated-theres-a-reason-we-hire-grownups-to-run-things/
   • Draco T Bastard 1.1

     1 March 2017 at 10:17 am

     Dude, all of the Republicans are fucken crazy. Same with National – they’re cut from the same cloth after all.
2. Sabine 2

   1 March 2017 at 8:46 am

   i am sure that we have that same mind set here and elsewhere. People just so unhappy with what ever that they rather go back to the dark ages then prepare for the future.

   I guess, the ‘alphas’ all believe that hey will be the most winningest in a land without an administration and administrators, cause who needs hospitals, schools, roads, electricity and such. They all just gonna survive on their life style plot with a few hens and their own grown vegetables.
3. Bill 3

   1 March 2017 at 9:53 am

   So Trump takes part in a ‘bene bashing’ interview on Fox and reckons that when the economy crashes because of Obama Care and whatever other social security measures, the poor will riot to take America back to the way it was when it was ‘great’.

   And Bannon likens his ambitions to those of Lenin who captured the state.

   And Sarah Kendzior reckons that together they are revealing…why exactly?
   • weka 3.1

     1 March 2017 at 10:08 am

     I thought it pretty obvious. A journalist who is also a researcher on authoritarian states and was writing about the problems with Tr*mp and potential fascism a year before he and Bannon came to power reckons that both of them are in favour of not just capturing the state but maximum chaos and collapse as part of that (there’s some stuff floating around about the fundamentalist Christians in the WH who believe in the literal armageddon and their divine place in that too).

     If you think there isn’t danger of an authoritarian take over of the US that includes a huge amount of societal destruction, feel free to make the case.
     • Bill 3.1.1

       1 March 2017 at 10:31 am

       You’re setting up straw men Weka.

       There were two specific quotes that were (I guess) meant to paint an obvious and simple picture. But when the Trump quote is put in context, the easel or paper or whatever that’s meant to accommodate or support the Bannon quote vanishes.

       Trump said (delusionally or otherwise) the poor would riot to take things back to some previous ‘great’ US after Obama Care and what-not else that the Democratic Party were doing, brought about an economic collapse.

       And Leninists or Lenin admirers are (or at least used to be) ten a penny. Bannon likens himself to Lenin? Big deal. Some may find it a bit odd that an avowed rightist compares himself to an erstwhile hero of some authoritarian leftists, but beyond that….nuffin.
       • marty mars 3.1.1.1

         1 March 2017 at 10:42 am

         You are stretching bill. Maybe take the quotes at face value they are self explanatory and not coded imo.
         • Bill 3.1.1.1.1

           1 March 2017 at 10:59 am

           Can you explain why you think it’s me and not Sarah Kendzior that’s doing the stretching? (Trump makes a delusional prediction on the effects of Democratic policies while Bannon says he’s a Leninist… )

           And just to purely incidentally use this comment to pre-empt any potential silliness on this thread, of course the US is becoming more authoritarian, and yes, Bannon seems on the face of it to be overlaying some Leninist plays on the contemporary US political landscape. (This article compares and contrasts some of them).

           All I’m commenting on is the tenuous nature of any link between the two quotes used by Kendzior. I’m not saying anything about her general analysis of the US or anything else.
           • weka 3.1.1.1.1.1

             1 March 2017 at 11:06 am

             Kendzior tweeted this a week after the election. She was giving a heads up on what was about to happen. I haven’t looked but I’m guessing something happened that week around Bannon.
           • marty mars 3.1.1.1.1.2

             1 March 2017 at 12:00 pm

             Steve and don are doomers really. I think it’s unwise to not take them at their words – they seem to be saying and then doing quite convincingly so far.
             • Bill …

               1 March 2017 at 12:12 pm

               Indeed.
             • Andre …

               1 March 2017 at 12:39 pm

               Looks to me like they’re trying to do. By issuing decrees. But they’re finding that actually doing requires organisational competence that seems to be lacking, so far anyway. If they develop that competence it will get a lot scarier quickly.

               http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/what-has-trump-really-accomplished-214838
       • weka 3.1.1.2

         1 March 2017 at 11:00 am

         What’s the straw men?

         Ok, so you think the context is the Tr*mp interview, and something abstract about Lenin. I took the context to be Kendzior’s long history of writing about authoritarian states and how they came about and she pulled those two bits together to demonstrate the values of both those men who are now in charge of the WH and what they mean together.

         I don’t think the point is that Bannon compared himself to Lenin (sure, who gives a shit). I think it’s the particular bit about Lenin he identified with. Take the word Lenin out of the piece and see how it reads.

         “X,” he answered, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Bannon was employing X’s strategy for Tea Party populist goals. He included in that group the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as the traditional conservative press.”

         As for Tr*mp, he’s talking about the idea that the Democrats were intent on a system that meant people didn’t have to work, and that that would collapse the economy, and then there would be riots that would take the US back to when it was great. So Tr*mp sees the solution (in 2014) to what I can only assume was an intentional false framing of the Dem governance, is post-collapse rioting making the US great again. What do you think that means, rioting to take them back to when they were great again?

         Now that he’s in office he has a senior advisor who wants to destroy the structures of society. Kendzior (IMO) was putting those two things side by side to get people to think about what it meant to have not just Tr*mp as president, but to have Bannon there as chief strategist. Yes, you can write that off as a superficial juxtapositioning for effect. Or you could look at that in the context of what people are saying about the rise of authoritarianism in the US.

         As I say below to Ad, I don’t know how this will play out, but the point is the danger is there and we don’t know what will happen.
         • Bill 3.1.1.2.1

           1 March 2017 at 11:38 am

           The last sentence of your initial response seemed to imply that I was unaware or blase about deepening authoritarianism in the US and invited me to argue a point I’ve never ascribed to.

           Contexts. Two quotes. Surely the context is the conversation around the quotes rather than the history of the person using the quotes?

           Take the reference to Lenin out? Okay. What you are left with is someone crowing about their anti-establishment credentials but unable to beef them up by referencing historical precedents.

           Trump interview. He’s enthusiastically putting the boot into the poor and warbling shite about work ethics and American dreams (with not a little help from the interviewers). He reckons that people living in the US would prefer to work for peanuts and be stomped all over than support a welfare system? That welfare equates to the death of the American Dream? The guy’s on a planet that’s somewhere that isn’t here if he reckons unemployed people having a social safety net would riot to have the safety net removed. Seems that’s how much he’s caught up in the “work = dignity = American Dream” nonsense.

           What does he mean by America’s greatness? Might as well ask what Anders Breivik thought he meant by Norway’s greatness. It’s all nonsense.

           Back to the quotes. I’m not saying the juxta-positioning was superficial – I’m saying it was poor.

           On how things play out, I see a few avenues.

           1. Trump and Bannon push their stuff through and many people suffer.
           2. Trump is bumped and Pence steps up, removes Bannon, and many people suffer.
           3. Trump and Bannon remain and enough Republicans side with Democrats to frustrate Trump’s policy preferences – and many people suffer.

           For what it’s worth, I think the third avenue is the one that possibly leads to the least suffering.
           • weka 3.1.1.2.1.1

             1 March 2017 at 12:02 pm

             “The last sentence of your initial response seemed to imply that I was unaware or blase about deepening authoritarianism in the US and invited me to argue a point I’ve never ascribed to.”

             More an invitation to clarify where you sit on the spectrum of perspectives. I have a reasonable idea of where Ad sits for instance and it seems consistent with his politics and views. Your own I am unclear on. You definitely come across as quite a bit less concerned about what is happening than I am, but it’s hard to tell exactly.

             “Contexts. Two quotes. Surely the context is the conversation around the quotes rather than the history of the person using the quotes?”

             I would say don’t stop at the context of the soundbite sources (e.g. the video or the article), but put them in the context of the bigger and deeper picture. Hence the suggestion that Kendzior’s history on this provides a better context than the video or article alone. Doesn’t have to be her, I just find her work credible, and it makes sense since she pulled the two bits together. Point being that if one looks at the sources on their own without looking at the context they happened within, one misses some pretty important stuff.

             “Take the reference to Lenin out? Okay. What you are left with is someone crowing about their anti-establishment credentials but unable to beef them up by referencing historical precedents.”

             So I guess we disagree on the threat that Bannon poses. Likewise Tr*mp.

             “What does he mean by America’s greatness? Might as well ask what Anders Breivik thought he meant by Norway’s greatness. It’s all nonsense.”

             See I wouldn’t see Tr*mp as some extremely violent loner. I’d see him as a very dangerous person in charge of some incredibly potent power structures. So his views on US’s greatness hold a very different import than Breivik’s views on Norway’s. Better comparison, problematic as it is, would be Hitler’s views on Germany. Not that I think Tr*mp is akin to Hitler, but that the role and power and extremity is a better comparison.

             1. Trump and Bannon push their stuff through and many people suffer.
             2. Trump is bumped and Pence steps up, removes Bannon, and many people suffer.
             3. Trump and Bannon remain and enough Republicans side with Democrats to frustrate Trump’s policy preferences – and many people suffer.

             For what it’s worth, I think the third avenue is the one that possibly leads to the least suffering.

             To be honest, that seems like a kind of minimising of the potential problem here. I’m not sure you mean that exactly, but that is how it comes across. The qualitative differences between those three things are much more pronounced than is implied by ‘many people suffer’ in each scenario. Applying ‘many people suffer’ suggests that there is a bit of difference but not much. My own view is that the potential is for a huge difference. I guess worse case scenario would be nuclear war. Collapse of the state and civil war might be a less serious one for the planet, but still a long way worse than Pence being in charge and maintaining some semblance of the state and neoliberalism stumbling along in a slower decline.

             (I’m not arguing against the collapse of the state btw, depending on how it happened it might be our best bet re AGW).
4. Ad 4

   1 March 2017 at 10:00 am

   I’m not so sure the results will be as blatant as the willing destruction of the state.

   As usual, follow the money.

   We’ll get a slightly slipperier US state, more mercantilist.
   Perhaps a coarser society.
   Trump has been pretty up front that everything is a deal, everything is for sale.

   And my Patron Saint of MSM Television Rachel Maddow of MSNBC continues hammering away at it:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR1t8F3TGj8

   Trump is the best reminder to good citizens that at some point it’ll be good to have an alternative to a true Republican Party state. Sure some will enjoy it, but most will figure it out.
   • weka 4.1

     1 March 2017 at 10:38 am

     “I’m not so sure the results will be as blatant as the willing destruction of the state.”

     I’m not either, I think it could go a number of ways. If Bannon gets to control things in a way that’s more manageable maybe he will just dismantle the bits of the state he can while retaining the basic overall structure. Or maybe he’s genuinely intent on bringing it all down. Or something in between. I think the point is we don’t know.

     “Trump has been pretty up front that everything is a deal, everything is for sale.”

     True, and if it was only about him and the team behind him knew how to run the country albeit in a RW Republican way, I’d put the above quote down to bombast. But the level of incompetence (personal and professional), fascist ideology, and ‘don’t give a shit’ amongst his team is more of a concern. So even if the intention is to make more money and bugger the manners, when things go wrong do we trust the people there to do the right thing by people or democracy or the structures of society? I don’t. They’re already willing to throw the people not like them under the bus, that’s already happening.
5. Adrian 5

   1 March 2017 at 10:03 am

   Huge failures are instigated by those, to quote that great line, think they are the
   ” smartest guys in the room “.
   They take a lot of the impressionable with them initially, but when it all
   turns to ” arse gravy ” ( thank you, Johnathon Pye ), cover up.
   There will be a crucial moment when for the first time in his life Trump realises
   that he is actually pretty bloody thick and drowning.
   I can’t wait.
   • Bill 5.1

     1 March 2017 at 10:15 am

     … when for the first time in his life Trump realises that he is actually pretty bloody thick…

     “The day I realized it can be smart to be shallow was, for me, a deep experience.” – Donald J Trump. 😐
   • joe90 5.2

     1 March 2017 at 10:28 am

     There will be a crucial moment when for the first time in his life Trump realises
     that he is actually pretty bloody thick and drowning.

     Nah, the day he realises he’s actually pretty bloody thick and drowning he’ll blame someone else.

     .
     President Donald Trump on Tuesday dodged responsibility for a botched mission he ordered in Yemen last month, placing the onus on the military and Barack Obama’s administration instead.

     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-ryan-owens-seal-raid_us_58b58852e4b0780bac2d58c6?l4u6jemi

     Asked about the recent wave of anti-Semitic attacks and threats across the nation, President Trump on Tuesday told a group of state attorneys general that “sometimes it’s the reverse,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said of Trump’s comments in his and other officials’ meeting with the president.
     “He just said, ‘Sometimes it’s the reverse, to make people — or to make others — look bad,’ and he used the word ‘reverse’ I would say two to three times in his comments,” Shapiro said. “He did correctly say at the top that it was reprehensible.”

     https://www.facebook.com/notes/buzzfeed-news/trump-says-sometimes-its-the-reverse-when-asked-about-anti-semitic-threats-and-a/1422820731072274
6. marty mars 6

   1 March 2017 at 10:24 am

   Scary dudes – they have a plan and the dupes and apologists are enabling them. Luckily a lot of smart perceptive people oppose them. Those people will wade the shit river of fake news, the baseless attacks, the mealy mouthed lackey slurs and bring the whole sorry plan to daylight. This may not stop trump and bigdaddy steve but no will have any doubts of the sides in this unholy contest. And that will be important once the dust and fallout settles.
   • tc 6.1

     1 March 2017 at 11:40 am

     Scary dudes courting an even scarier dude with form and an agressive military machine at his disposal, Netanyahu.
7. joe90 7

   1 March 2017 at 11:37 am

   Trump style.

   I /2 >10

   1) Increased #antisemitism: Trump will end antisemitism envoy2) Uptick in #Police violating minority civil rights: #Trump will not sue them https://t.co/sTBrlZgyr6— Avi Bueno (@JasperAvi) February 28, 2017

   https://twitter.com/JasperAvi/status/836653364691742722
8. marty mars 8

   1 March 2017 at 12:13 pm

   Trump now blaming Obama for the leaks from trumps white house – it is beyond parody trump is a very sick bastard.
   • Andre 8.1

     1 March 2017 at 12:31 pm

     And blaming the military for the botched Yemen raid he approved at dinner with no experts at hand to discuss it sensibly.

     http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/2/28/14766918/trump-blame-military-yemen-seal-botched-raid-pentagon-fox
9. joe90 9

   1 March 2017 at 3:16 pm

   …the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy cow…..the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy cow…..the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy cow…..

   https://twitter.com/i/videos/tweet/836752539567677440
10. Sabine 10

    1 March 2017 at 4:02 pm

    This is a good read,

    https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/magazine/jeff-sessions-stephen-bannon-justice-department.html

    but its all good, america will be great again. so great. so tremendously bigly great and beautiful of course.
11. Glenn 11

    1 March 2017 at 4:37 pm

    Trumps Presidential Address to Congress
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2017/feb/28/donald-trump-presidential-address-congress-live
    Includes fact checking which picks up a number of mistruths.
    This was interesting…
    “Trump announces that he has “ordered the Department of Homeland Security to create an office to serve American Victims. The office is called VOICE –- Victims Of Immigration Crime Engagement.”

    The news was not greeted by cheers, but by rumblings. One of Trump’s election arguments for tighter border control was because of the supposed huge numbers of immigrant criminals.”

    Lots of standing ovations by the republicans and little applause from the Democrats. I find the patriotism over the top but I guess that’s America.
12. Sabine 12

    1 March 2017 at 5:28 pm

    ahhh the company you keep.

    Surly any day from now someone is gonna pivot 🙂

    http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/how-genocides-begin-internet-stunned-by-trump-plan-to-set-up-voice-program-targeting-immigrants/
13. emergency mike 13

    1 March 2017 at 6:25 pm

    Maybe publishing a weekly list of crimes by immigrants would help push things along.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-speech-voice-immigrants-crimes-list-agency-donald-joint-address-congress-a7604836.html

    A bit like breitbart has a ‘black crime’ section. And a bit like the Nazis published examples of ‘the Jewish criminal’.

    I guess the next step is to resurrect Trump’s Muslim registry that he talked about during his campaign. You know, because of all the immigrant crimez.
14. Glenn 14

    1 March 2017 at 8:37 pm

    Bernies response to Trumps speech..

    https://www.facebook.com/senatorsanders/videos/10155681411947908/

    The murder of anyone is a tragedy, and our hearts go out to all families who lose a loved one to violence. But let’s be clear about what Donald Trump is doing tonight in inviting family members who saw a loved one murdered by an undocumented immigrant. He is stirring up fear and hatred against immigrants and trying to divide our nation. That is his political strategy and we must not allow him to get away with it. Why didn’t Trump invite the family of Srinvas Kuchibhotla, the immigrant from India, who was recently shot down in cold blood by a white, native born American? Didn’t his life count? Why didn’t he invite the families of the black parishioners shot down in a church in South Carolina by racist Dylan Roof? Weren’t their lives important? President Trump, any murder is a tragedy. Don’t use these tragedies to stir up divisions by race and nationality?
15. millsy 15

    4 March 2017 at 1:09 am

    It should be apparent to everyone concerned that Trump and his motley crew want to roll back the federal government to probably the size it was during the antebellum period — think 1857, James Buchanan. The only government departments were the army. navy. and a few tax collectors.

• Comments are now closed

• Log in
• Donate
• Contribute post

• Articles RSS