Per Josh Marshall, this New York Times story about Steve Bannon is a multi-layered thing that isn’t so much about Bannon as about the raging pathology that is the Trump Maladministration. Josh writes:
Good news: Flynn is already being sidelined in his role as National Security Advisor. Bad news: he’s being supplanted by Steve Bannon.
Flynn already appears to be in the process of getting wraithed, the fate of nearly all Trump toadies and sycophants.
Per the Times article, Bannon seems to be the one really in charge of the Administration — he’s the new Dick Cheney, apparently. Michael Flynn got on everybody’s nerves and has been reduced to meekly submitting the daily briefs Donald doesn’t read.
‘“I’m a Leninist,†Bannon proudly proclaimed.
Shocked, I asked him what he meant. “Lenin,†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 Lenin’s strategy for Tea Party populist goals. He included in that group the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as the traditional conservative press.’
There was an America once – and not too long ago – when a statement like that would have caught the attention of both political parties, and marked that individual as a dangerous threat to society, and to be treated as a pariah – a human typhoid epidemic, or leper, left to wander the mountains and valleys, alone.
But, not anymore!
With the Republicans so close to achieving their decades long wet-dream of moving money away from the old, the sick, the poor, the needy, school children, the disabled, and everyone not in the top, oh, say 2%, and using the money in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, S-CHIP, school funding, etc., and, via tax breaks for the top 0.0001, move that money to that elite group of already uber-super-duper rich.
How?
Well, deficits!
The deficits created by the very stupid and needless tax breaks for the richy-rich’s will need funding – by slowly eliminating and and all social safety-net programs!
Of course, they’ll all be privatized first, so that these programs can be bitten off in large but bite-sized pieces, and sold by Wall Street for profit and fun (if you’re one of the rich) until they’re all gone.
And what about the rest of us?
Well, there are still some overpasses that haven’t collapsed on top of the roads under them, so, find a sturdy refrigerator or other large appliance box, bum-fight for some space under that overpass, and then call it “home.”
‘Be it ever so humble…’
Or, we fight!
My fighting days are about over. I was sad this weekend (and last) that I couldn’t join in any of the demonstrations. But, with my disability and worsening health, and my mother’s declining health, I’m unable to lend a hand.
But, I’m there in spirit!
Trump “Maladministration” isn’t that bad: but even better is:
Trump “Regime”.
Holy F]ck, the Tangerine Idiot fires the acting attorney general. Banana republic time.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/backlash-grows-against-trump-travel-002244824.html
Let the games begin!
This may be a more positive development than we know. Obviously good per se, like anything bad — bad and relevant to his political life — that can happen to Flynn; but it may be even better as a portent.
With all the talk of narcissism, my thought have gone to Erich Fromm, and his late work “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness”, which blames much of the nastiness in the world on three things: Narcissism, Necrophilia, and Incestuous Fixation. He uses the terms in slightly non-standard ways, which he is careful to explain; and he demonstrates how closely they are related.
Necrophilia, for instance, includes the strict medical and legal senses, but extends to a general preference for dead or simply inanimate things over flighty, squishy live ones. One characteristic of this personality is a look as if one were smelling something bad. Ever see anybody like that? With initials like AH or BM (sorry, Benito) or DT?
Narcissism in his treatment is the genralization of the strictly clinical syndrome. It fails to recognize the existence of other sentient beings like oneself, with abilities and failings and rights. And one thing you often find in a narcissist is a Savior effect: Not oneself as savior, but some new person one has just found, who is the absolute cat’s pajamas, best person anywhere, who gets lavish constant praise; important jobs; diappointment; fierce enmity; and fired.
Fortunately, I have to move on and not rant further, but you get the idea. Where will Bannon be in a month or so after completely taking over the heart and soul (so to speak) of Trump?
Maybe I’ll treat the dark side of this prophecy later.