Insurrectionist in Chief (Bannon)
The New Republic Magazine
Insurrectionist in Chief How Steve Bannon led the vanguard of the Capitol riots
Adele M. Stan, The New Republic, March 10, 2021
https://newrepublic.com/article/161574/steve-bannon-capitol-riots-insurrectionist-chief?utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=EB_TNR&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1615577699
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As Election Day neared, Bannon was again at the center of the action on the insurgent right, and plainly relishing his role. The 2020 election eve edition of Bannon’s podcast, War Room: Pandemic, featured future Trump attorney Sidney Powell, who duly floated conspiracy theories about shady election practices while assailing FBI Director Christopher Wray. (Powell has a Bannon-like grudge against Wray, thanks to his alleged role in the convictions of Arthur Andersen and Enron executives in fraud cases after she represented them.) Bannon promised his audience that Sidney Powell would be appointed to head the FBI the next night, when Trump won the election—unless, of course, the Democrats were to steal it. “We know you vote by the pound, down in Philadelphia, you vote by the pallet, right?” Bannon asked. Then he and Kassam, calling in from just outside Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton, primed the audience for trouble ahead.
Inquiring of the locals, Bannon asked, “Do they really understand that tomorrow night’s just the kickoff of a process that’s going to be brutal?”
“I don’t think people are clued up right now just to the extent of the cheating that we can expect from the Democratic Party after election night,” Kassam replied. Bannon suggested, in his trademark glee over the prospect of institutional collapse, that there would be knife fights “in the canvassing rooms” over the certification of ballots. It almost looks in retrospect as if Bannon had access to the Trump campaign’s internal polling, and knew the incumbent president was going to lose.
Three days later, with the election still uncalled but trending away from Trump, Bannon took to his podcast to tell his audience that they were facing the same kind of decision taken by the nation’s founders in 1776—to pledge their lives and sacred honor for the goal of revolution. In his disquisition, Bannon compared himself to John Adams, then invoked once more the Strauss and Howe schema of historical transformation.
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