Charles Blow writes: it is important to recall the three pillars of the Bannonite “America First” philosophy.
Earlier this year at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Bannon outlined them: national security and sovereignty; economic nationalism; and deconstruction of the administrative state.
Last month, when Trump appointed Mick Mulvaney, a man who despises the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to be acting director of that bureau, Trump continued his Trojan Horse strategy of implanting enemies in government agencies to disable or even destroy them.
When the desperate-for-a-win Republican Senate last week passed their 11th-hour disaster of a tax bill that will eventually prove a jackpot for the donor class and an albatross for the working class, Trump ensured that working people would most feel the pain from the bill, in cutbacks to government services like education and the social safety net.
Trump’s continued attacks on the media — and on truth itself — is an attempt to weaken the watchdogs, to grease the skids toward more oligarchy, more authoritarianism, more fascism.
Even as the special counsel, Robert Mueller, picks Trump’s inner circle apart, Trump is fully focused on doing as much damage as possible before reaching his ever-more-likely demise.
Trump may one day have to abandon the post he inhabits, but he plans to reduce the village to ashes before he exits. [Continue reading…]
I am fairly certain that Mr. Bannon knows exactly who Wayne B. Wheeler of the ASL had been. Wheeler was called by a critic “the most masterful and powerful single individual in the United States” who “controlled six Congresses and dictated two Presidents”. Wheeler used a single powerful issue, Prohibition, to control the election of numerous Senators and House Members. Bannon will try to use one or a few current cutting issues to control 2018 and 2020 Senate and House elections. Bannon wants to become the Wheeler of our time.