Ladies & Gents, it's become William Shakespeare's Othello, starring Steve Bannon as Iago.

[Miles Archer]

YES! Steve Bannon is a blotchy, bloated drunk uncle.

YES! He's the king of "alternate facts," and while reports have surfaced of readership dropping off at Brietbart, he still has Trump's base in the palm of his hand.

But he has TRUMP there as well, because when you start spouting that "Deep State" crap, you play DIRECTLY to Trump's sizable yet fragile ego. You stoke the Nixonian fires inside of him. You tell him that he isn't getting enough credit for all of the wonderful work he is doing, and that the "leakers" are OUT TO GET HIM.

Are any of my fellow DUers IN sales, or have you ever BEEN in sales? If so,you know a core "Sales 101" tenet...essential in the past, frowned upon in the latest generation of sales professionals...is to "find the source of your prospect's pain and AMPLIFY it, make them feel it so acutely that you can ride in on the white horse with the solution.

In a similar fashion, Shakespeare's Iago was a shit disturber. He found Othello's tragic flaw, fanned the flames, and that's how we got to the "tragic" part of the tragedy.

Drunk uncle is rubbing salt in Trump's wounds and TELLING HIM HE IS RIGHT, which is easily the single worst thing you could do with someone as unhinged as Trump. Doing so also drives the wedge between Bannon and Kushner a little deeper. "HEY, Mr. President...I know Jared is your son-in-law, and he really is talented and brilliant, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for him, but with all due respect to YOU, I DON'T THINK HE UNDERSTANDS WHAT YOU ARE GOING THROUGH..."

I mean, you can HEAR that conversation HAPPENING...can't you?

The basis for my take on this is the article which appeared in Raw Story this morning, "Trump ‘obsesses’ over Russia probe as Bannon fears he’s the victim of a ‘deep state’ conspiracy" (http://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/trump-obsesses-over-russia-probe-as-bannon-fears-hes-the-victim-of-a-deep-state-conspiracy/).

[gordianot]

1. Washington Post was comparing Trump to King Lear.

Trump like Lear is obsessed with personal devotion

[Volaris]

2. So trump says it's all fake news bullshit and Bannon believes

It's a real conspiracy by institutional government. I'll split the difference and say yes its real because career government personelle don't want to work for either of them for a moment longer than they have to, but the idea that THESE PEOPLE are the real problem is, correctly, complete bullshit.

Whatever, they're all going down; probably no escaping it this time. Been nice knowing ya, GOP.

[MineralMan]

3. Interesting analogy!