Bannon Wants to Destroy Our Democracy. He Must Be Prosecuted

[AZProgressive]

For those who study authoritarianism, Steve Bannon's refusal to respond to the subpoena issued by the Congressional committee tasked with investigating Jan. 6 is hardly a surprise. Bannon's aim is to destroy our democracy, and responding to a subpoena issued by a democratic judiciary would affirm the legitimacy of a system he seeks to overthrow.

Bannon had big dreams to become a little Duce in Italy, training Europe's next right-wing "gladiators" in an Italian monastery, but that project failed. Now he's back in America, which in his mind is the new frontier of autocracy. He already feels empowered to discard the rule of law and respect for judicial process. "We control the country. We've got to start acting like it," he said recently on his War Room podcast about his plan to prepare tens of thousands of "shock troops" for an anti-democratic takeover of government once the Republicans return to the White House by legal or other means.

Of course, had Jan. 6 gone Bannon's way, the Biden administration would have been killed "in its crib," or rather, never been born at all. His overheated rhetoric reflects his frustration. Bannon likely thrived in the feverish conspiratorial atmosphere of November 2020-January 2021, when defeated President Donald Trump tried everything to remain in office, settling finally on a violent assault on the Capitol meant to interrupt certification of Biden's victory. "All hell will break loose tomorrow. It will be quite extraordinarily different," Bannon told his podcast audience on Jan. 5. "All I can say is strap in."

All hell did break loose, but Biden was inaugurated anyway. So Bannon and his cronies have a new plan, which draws on old right-wing knowledge of how to destabilize a sitting democratic government. It goes like this: You create a sense of crisis and impending Socialist tyranny so that the climactic authoritarian action, whatever it looks like, is accepted as restoring "order," and "freedom." That's likely what Bannon means when he claims that the Biden administration's own "incompetence and illegitimacy" will bring about its demise.

https://lucid.substack.com/p/bannon-wants-to-destroy-our-democracy

[lees1975]

1. Something is wrong

when a subversive like this is free, and not in prison already.

[traitorsgalore]

3. He would be prosecuted in a country with a functional justice system

But here in the U.S. we praise people like Colin Powell that set up torture camps and committed lifetimes of war crimes.

[lees1975]

5. The stuff he puts out on Breitbart and his podcasts are pure treason

and he should have been in prison a decade ago. He's mentally deranged.

[toughtony]

4. He's an Anarchist

He's been organizing white extremist groups all over Europe. He's also a failure at everything he does. SO WHY HAVENT THEY ARESTED THIS ANIMAL YET. HE'S BEEN IN PRISON FROM FRAUD AND EMBEZZLEMENT (STEALING FROM HIS OWN DONORS, LIKE A TRUE TRUMPIAN). THE ONLY REASON HE'S NOT STILL IN PRISION IS BECAUSE OF TRUMP'S PARDON. What are they afraid of? Do they think this guy is going to cause violence, is he threatening officials with mass murders. What? The worst that could happen is that he'll claim executive privilege and put on some Trumpian shitshow, but at least he'll be arrested. He's making the democrats look weak.

[czarjak]

6. Avowed Leninist are like that.

[BeckyDem]

7. I completely agree with the way author depicts Bannon.

He convinced me he wanted the role of gladiator for Trump. He worked at it night and day for a long time.