In that case we're ****ed, because, Trump's complete incoherent ideology, and his ties to crime and backdoor dealings make it pretty clear that he's just like previous fascist rulers. He lacks the overbearing nationalist rhetoric of Nazi Germany, but I guess getting Tweets from the Drudge report isn't much crazier than the Bolshevik Jewish conspiracy.

Things are rather murky right now. There was a backlash against it, but it appears to be reversing course into a frontlash.

'owning' the word is literally how people talk about black people taking back the N-word.

The S-word is a slur in America

Which makes sense and is why I quoted myself about how the 'left' is a meaningless catch-all used as a slur here.

Just don't punch anybody partaking in Nazi cosplay.

What's stupid is when people like Bill Maher (who I admit a soft spot for, but man is he smug) rant about how the Right has it all figured out in terms of propaganda, and that all we need to do is copy their nastiness and sink as low as they do.

The trouble is, that will only work on people dumb enough to only vote Republican anyway.

I still think this entire election was rigged.

Rigged, in the sense that Trump signed a backroom media deal to increase ratings. I am certain that when this is all over he will go on national television to stand on the stage with CNN and take bows as he thanks the nation for being party to an enormous ruse.

(Oh, and a few of his friends outside the media also got rich(er))

It's been happening for a long time before Trump was ever elected.

Why do people care about CNN? I've been puzzling for a year why people care so much about what they do/say.

I used that particular network in my joke because of their very public feud with the president.

There is some real confusion surrounding the circumstances about Bannon leaving the WH.

On the one hand, The Weekly Standard (a neocon rag started by Bill Kristol, arch-enemy of Trump), interviewed Bannon following his departure, with the headline, "The Trump Presidency That We Fought For, and Won, Is Over.". Which sounds pretty darn negative.

On the other hand, if you go to The_Donald, you'll see nothing but celebration, with statements from Bannon himself given in an interview with Bloomberg, where is quoted as saying, "If there’s any confusion out there, let me clear it up: I’m leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents -- on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America." This sounds pretty positive.

You know what? I think Bannon is deliberately putting both narratives out there, as a diversionary tactic. The man loves to play these double games. If the liberal media outlets can garner clicks by enticing people with stories that follow the Weekly Standard narrative that depicts Bannon as a loser, then they will do it. On the other hand, Bannon can speak directly to his supporters and (very easily, I may add) convince them that he is on their side, he can drive traffic to Breitbart.

And here is what /pol thinks:

Why has the Trump campaign taken as its new head a self-described Leninist?

I met Steve Bannon—the executive director of Breitbart.com who’s now become the chief executive of the Trump campaign, replacing the newly resigned Paul Manafort—at a book party held in his Capitol Hill townhouse on Nov. 12, 2013. We were standing next to a picture of his daughter, a West Point graduate, who at the time was a lieutenant in the 101 Airborne Division serving in Iraq. The picture was notable because she was sitting on what was once Saddam Hussein’s gold throne with a machine gun on her lap. “I’m very proud of her,” Bannon said.

Then we had a long talk about his approach to politics. He never called himself a “populist” or an “American nationalist,” as so many think of him today. “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.

I emailed Bannon last week recalling our conversation, telling him that I planned to write about it and asking him if he wanted to comment on or correct my account of it. He responded:

“I don’t remember meeting you and don’t remember the conversation. And as u can tell from the past few days I am not doing media.”

Riding on the Metro to the party, I read an article that had just been posted on National Review Online and in TownHall.com by Thomas Sowell, the conservative economist, in which he opposed the tactics used by the Tea Party in shutting down the government. He favored the intent of the Tea Party, but strongly opposed its tactics. "The only question," he wrote, "is about the tactics, the Tea Party's attempt to defund Obamacare." Their actions did not fit the standard set by Edmund Burke, he wrote, of a "rational endeavour." There was no chance of making a dent in ObamaCare or defunding it when Democrats controlled the Senate. and the public created a "backlash against that futile attempt," so that "there was virtually nothing to gain politically and much to lose."

I then asked Bannon whether or not he had read Sowell's piece, since Bannon was in favor of the very Tea Party tactic that Sowell had criticized.

“National Review and The Weekly Standard,” he said, “are both left-wing magazines, and I want to destroy them also.” He added that “no one reads them or cares what they say.” His goal was to bring down the entire establishment including the leaders of the Republican Party in Congress. He went on to tell me that he was the East Coast coordinator of all the Tea Party groups. His plan was to get its candidates nominated on the Republican ticket, and then to back campaigns that they could win. Then, Bannon said, when elected they would be held accountable to fight for the agenda he and the Tea Party stood for.

If they didn’t, “we would force them out of office and oppose them when the next election for their seats came around.”

That, essentially, was the tactic employed when Eric Cantor was ousted by a far right candidate, virtually unknown college economics professor Dave Brat, in his Virginia district’s primary. It was also the path Donald Trump’s supporters took in Wisconsin, when hoping to duplicate their successful tactics in Virginia, they ran a candidate in the Wisconsin Republican primary against Speaker Paul Ryan in his own district. There are a few Republicans that Bannon does respect. One of them is Rep. Louis Gohmert, the fiery congressman from Texas, who was also at the party. Gohmert, who is part of the self-proclaimed anti-establishment wing of the Republican Party, was an ally of Cruz in the government shutdown.

Trump’s decision to take on Bannon indicates that he wants to wage his campaign along the lines laid down by him—that of destroying the Republican leadership and the Party as we know it. Trump’s behavior thus far has been compatible with Bannon’s belief in Leninist tactics. As the Bolshevik leader once said, “The art of any propagandist and agitator consists in his ability to find the best means of influencing any given audience, by presenting a definite truth, in such a way as to make it most convincing, most easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive.”

Only one question remains. Knowing this, why do leaders like Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and others, who regularly condemn Trump’s statements but yet still endorse him, stick with such a self-defeating approach? They will only end up helping Bannon and company cast them into oblivion and finish their hostile take-over of the GOP.

So I have completed Victory of Faith and Triumph of the Will. Nazi propaganda films are ****ing boring. The speeches don't have much content either, it's just, "lol be ready to suffer, but it's K since it's for Germany" and "rah rah we're really big and tough".

I guess Reagan was the start.

The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

He's also responsible for the employee health insurance mandate - which forces employers to buy health insurance - on the recommendation of his close friend, Edgar Kaiser (of the Kaiser Permanente Kaisers).

wtf

Another thing that amuses me about the right is that they will ruthlessly attack their own moderates, all the while benefiting from them. I see this being played all the time on the AM radio band, with, e.g., Mitch McConnell being viciously attacked on almost a daily basis. It's either the nefarious "left" bogey man, or their own leaders that they unleash the fury of the base upon as both a distraction from the faults of their own scam, and as a unifying cry against the outgroup, all the while shifting the Overton window by radicalizing their supporters.

Is this really a feature that's distinct to the right? Or isn't it just a way in which the conflict between establishment/elite Republicans and anti-establishment/anti-elite conservatives plays out? Because something similar is happening on the left.

Unshaven and working from home in cargo shorts as he moves into "Bannon the Barbarian" mode, Steve Bannon is thinking bigger than Breitbart.

Axios' Jonathan Swan hears Bannon has told friends he sees a massive opening to the right of Fox News, raising the possibility that he's going to start a network.

Bannon's friends are speculating about whether it will be a standalone TV network, or online streaming only.

Before his death in May, Roger Ailes had sent word to Bannon that he wanted to start a channel together. Bannon loved the idea: He believes Fox is heading in a squishy, globalist direction as the Murdoch sons assume more power.

Now he has the means, motive and opportunity: His chief financial backer, Long Island hedge fund billionaire Bob Mercer, is ready to invest big in what's coming next, including a huge overseas expansion of Breitbart News.

On Day 1, Bannon declared he's taking his West Wing infighting to the outside, telling Bloomberg Businessweek's Josh Green that he's "going to war for Trump against his opponents — on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America."

The reality is that Bannon will go nuclear on former colleagues he calls "West Wing Democrats": economic adviser Gary Cohn, Jared and Ivanka ("Javanka," as he calls them) and Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell.

The revved-up Breitbart operation is also likely to target Speaker Ryan, as it did before Trump.

Why it matters: The country's national political conversation is about to get even uglier, if you can imagine. It's going to be dark, and toxic, with a fight on the right that may be more bitter and personal than hostilities between Republicans and Democrats.

Bannon signaled his subtle approach in a for-the-ages Weekly Standard interview: "The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over … I feel jacked up … Now I'm free. I've got my hands back on my weapons. … I am definitely going to crush the opposition. There's no doubt. I built a f***ing machine at Breitbart. And now … we're about to rev that machine up."

His restoration as executive chairman of Breitbart News was announced less than five hours after the White House confirmed his "mutually agreed" departure as chief strategist. (Translation: He was told he wasn't long for the West Wing.)

Bannon made a "conqueror's return" to a Breitbart editorial conference call last night, and laid out the battle ahead for the staff.

Josh Green — author of "Devil's Bargain," the book that helped get Bannon fired because Trump hates sharing the spotlight — tweeted: "Bannon sounded like he'd just consumed 40 Red Bulls … At least [he] didn't say he's leaving to spend more time with his family."

Around the corner: Expect Bannon to use Breitbart to engage aggressively in September's policy fights. Watch for Bannon to pressure Trump to veto any government funding bill that doesn't include money to fund the building of that big, beautiful wall he promised along the southern border with Mexico.

Watch for a real fight over the debt ceiling. In other words: Buckle up

Breitbart’s defense of Trump has so far helped keep the Russia scandal from gaining traction on the right. But that could swiftly change if Trump, under the influence of Kushner and Cohn, deviates too far from the positions he ran on. If that happens, said one high-level Breitbart staffer, “We’re prepared to help Paul Ryan rally votes for impeachment.”

I am sure it is happening on the left, since evidence of it at all on the right is probably evidence of the dynamic being universal in some sense.

That said, the fact that I observed it on the right as significant, either speaks to me unfairly scrutinizing the political movement of my opponents, or perhaps because the dynamic is more significantly expressed by the right, or finally perhaps (most likely), that the left doesn't have the equivalent of AM talk radio. Maybe that's what Twitter is? IDK

Just a few of Sheev "Palpatine" Bannon's homies, just back from a tour of his wife's meth lab in the bathtub of their Florida apartment.



If memory serves, that's good old Sim on the right there. He was quite the force-sensitive party animal in those days!

The left has historically been much worse for this.

Keep in mind, the modern right wing is a coalition of incompatible factions: Christians and anti-interventionists and pro-interventionists and and white supremacists and anti-globalists and libertarians and yadda yadda yadda. Their infighting has been shockingly mild when you consider how little Republican voters have in common with each other. Mostly it's been doughy Vicodin addicts shouting "RINO" over each other.

The left, however, delights in being as fickle and fracticious as possible. Ever notice how there are always at least four far left parties wherever you go? Social Democracy, Democratic Socialist, Communist, and Communist (Marxist-Leninist). If you look back in their party history, there's a very good chance that they all started as one or two parties, but then broke apart because of in-fighting.

The only thing the left loves more than pointless ideological purity dick wagging is vote splitting.

Much easier to unite under one banner when your ideology is about law and order, worshipping industrialists, and strong leadership, than an ideology about no gods and no masters.

an ideology about no gods and no masters.

The left, however, delights in being as fickle and fracticious as possible. Ever notice how there are always at least four far left parties wherever you go? Social Democracy, Democratic Socialist, Communist, and Communist (Marxist-Leninist).

If you look back in their party history, there's a very good chance that they all started as one or two parties, but then broke apart because of in-fighting.