Steve Bannon Is Not Done Yet

[DonViejo]

If Trump veers too far from his populist promises, the Breitbart chief is prepared to back a primary challenger. Bet on it.

By KEITH KOFFLER January 04, 2018

Steve Bannon is no snowflake. He’s a grown man, has serious ideas, and is used to laughing off incoming rhetorical fire. But it’s surprising that so many seem to believe his propaganda line that he attaches to himself, “Honey badger don’t give a $%^t.” He does care, and President Donald Trump’s contention Wednesday that Bannon has “lost his mind” and had “very little to do” with his election are not only false statements, but they will come back to haunt the president. Because now he is going to war with perhaps his most critical conduit – other than himself, of course – to the populist Republican base that put him in office. And if he gets too violently at odds with Bannon and his own base, Trump could find himself with a primary challenge from the populist right in 2020.

It’s not that Trump can’t win a “war” with Bannon. He can. If Bannon is a rock star among the conservative populist base, Trump is still the king. But if the president is Elvis to Bannon’s Ozzy Osborne, well, Ozzy still has his fans. That is, given the closeness of the 2016 election, Bannon doesn’t have to convince all of Trump’s legions of supporters to abandon him. Trump may think he won the popular vote, but he didn’t, and just a few ten thousand votes changed in this state or that, and Trump would have lost the Electoral College. Bannon just has to damage him with the base, not kill all his support. And Bannon and his mega-traffic website, Breitbart, are perfectly capable of doing just that, at the very least.

I assure you, Bannon is, to use a term Bannon favors, “pissed.” The Bannon I interviewed for 10 hours for my book, “Bannon, Always the Rebel,” was deeply proud of his role as chief executive of Trump’s general election campaign and of his work at the White House. While not the type to go sulking tearfully off to his room in response to criticism or slights, he is not immune to such things either. “Senior counselor and chief strategist to the president,” he corrected me during a Breitbart Facebook live discussion we had after my book was published. I had inartfully called him a “former senior White House aide.”

Trump heaped on Bannon the incredible disrespect of a presidential “statement” deriding an individual, something I’ve never seen in 20 years covering the White House, with the exception perhaps of Osama Bin Laden. Trump essentially excommunicated from Trumpdom the man who was instrumental in helping Trump win election and who was a key player in many of his early decisions as president.

more
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/04/steve-bannon-is-not-done-yet-216241?lo=ap_b1

[dalton99a]

1. He'll get a child molester with multiple convictions

[Initech]

2. He needs to go away, like to prison, forever.

[Phoenix61]

3. I have no idea how Bannon could have

thought it would turn out different. This is Twitler's pattern. He likes you until you are no longer useful or he perceives you have slighted him. Bannon fits both of those.

[gopiscrap]

4. exactly

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. The author, Keith Koffler, is a flaming right-winger

and author of a previous Bannon hagiography. He usually writes for ultraconservative web sites and publications, so take what he writes with a grain or two of salt. He has a huge man-crush on Bannon.

[safeinOhio]

6. Put a fork in him

He’s toast.