His MBA classmates at Harvard Business School considered him the smartest guy in the room. He’s been called the “trump Whisperer” and a “brilliant strategist” credited with trump’s razor-thin victory.
And, since he boasted at CPAC that trump’s cabinet picks were selected to achieve a goal he’s talked about for years – deconstruction of the administrative state – one could conclude Bannon is indeed trump’s puppet master.
However, this leads to another conclusion: Bannon is the architect of trump’s biggest failures, screw ups and mounting problems:
Installing Michael “Foreign Agent” Flynn as National Security Advisor and all the resulting fallout.
Two failed Muslim-Ban executive orders blocked by Federal judges.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions being forced to recuse himself from all federal investigations into Russian interference in our election process.
Comey announcing to the world that the FBI is investigating contacts between trump’s campaign team and Russia and Wikileaks.
And Friday’s colossal trumpcare debacle.
(The above is a partial list – feel free to add more.)
Falling for the PR, I once feared Bannon’s supposed Machiavellian skills. But as the chaos continues to unfold, I’ve concluded he’s as clueless as trump — both prime examples of the Peter Principle while serving as each other’s mini-me.
These two self-aggrandizing conspiracy theorists have more in common with internet trolls than any characteristic remotely related to effective leadership.
They’ve bumbled into power (thanks to 80,000 some odd votes spread over three states) and, just 60+ days in, the wheels are coming off “their” administration.
Add to this, we’re just starting to drill down into the Russian connections and other sundry signs of widespread corruption.
Bannon isn’t smart. Not in the way one would need to be smart to puppet-master his way into the world domination he and his fellow white supremacists fantasize about.
In fact, after decades of alcohol and unmitigated hate pumping through his veins, it’s highly likely he’s mentally deficient.
(Just for morbid curiosity, I read the transcript of his meandering 2014 Vatican speech on www.buzzfeed.com/… and found myself agreeing with Andrew Sullivan who said. “It reads like the apocalyptic, paranoid fantasies of someone who writes letters to the editor, single-spaced, in all caps.” nymag.com/...)
Seriously – what has Bannon been doing the last 10 years?
Founding member and executive editor of Breitbart News – the alt-right sewer of the internet – a bubble of hate, for sure, but it hardly provides him with the skillset required to achieve his deluded “vision” for the US much less the world.
Bannon is no one to fear. Bannon is someone to ridicule – often and with vigor.
With this puppet master pulling trump’s strings, we can look forward to more ignorant, arrogant mistakes and failures that will further weaken – and ultimately destroy – this administration, soon.
Sources:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/11/26/look-steven-bannon-and-his-years-harvard-business-school/B2m0j85jh5jRKzKbMastzK/story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/02/23/bannon-trump-administration-is-in-unending-battle-for-deconstruction-of-the-administrative-state/?postshare=161487879490400&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.bb589074ac92
http://www.newsweek.com/president-trump-approval-rating-latest-570917
http://thedailybanter.com/2017/01/fck-steve-bannon/
http://billmoyers.com/story/a-fish-called-bannon/