Steve Bannon—The Man, the Myth, the Asshole

Donald Trump’s top advisor is a loathsome human being

by JANET JAY

Let me tell you about a guy. Not his politics, ideology or career — not yet.

When he got his girlfriend pregnant with twins, he “made it clear that he would not marry [her] just because [she] was pregnant.” She said, he “told me that if the babies were normal, we would get married.” They didn’t marry until prenatal tests proved so.

When a four-year-old asked him where her mother was, he replied, “Didn’t you know? She’s never coming back, she doesn’t love you.” He years later confirmed this but said, “[She] knew I was just kidding.” Not, “I told her I was kidding,” mind you, but “she knew I was kidding. Again, she was four.

He threatened and harassed school administrators at every school his by-then-ex-wife tried to enroll their kids at. He was also, let’s say, “overly inquisitive” circling around the apparently important point of how many Jews his kids would be around at each school and what other Jewish influences might be in play. Surely he was just curious! Surely questions about other religions were coming but he got distracted saving America.

This guy is Steve Bannon.

The former Brietbart mastermind, Bannon is Donald Trump’s chief strategist in charge of “vision,” “goals” and “narrative.” He currently enjoys a degree of political power that most alt-right partisans only experience in their wet dreams.

Surprise — even to Trump! — he’s now on the security council too! On the principals committee, in fact, the top interagency group for discussing national security.

Unlike most who have held similar positions of power, Bannon doesn’t have a past career in government or politics to crystallize his positions for us with examples. Instead, we have to dig a little and listen a little more to get to what motivates him.

There have been a few great articles isolating and examining what is known of his politics, and I’ll touch back on that at the end. But first it’s important to discuss Bannon the man.

One major source comes via the blog The Oppo Report: Unfiltered, Non-Partisan News, Records and Data, which obtained and posted the entire full divorce and custody file from Bannon’s marriage to — and lengthy divorce proceedings from — his second wife, Mary Piccard.

Other news outlets have reported on some of the things in these documents, but the full files weren’t available until this blog put them up.

Yes, it’s a bright new day in America and the guy running the White House is pretty much an ass. How do we know? Well, his public comments are a clue, of course. But many subsequent anecdotes from these files help us get an idea of his motivations, his temper, his ideals.

Declarations like these legal documents should be viewed just like testimony in court, cautioned Oppo Report author Yashar Ali. “Which means that if Bannon or Piccard were caught lying they would face perjury charges which could include jail time,” Ali said.

For all of you playing devil’s advocate at home, yes, much of this is only one side of the story. But it’s a sworn one, and a sworn one he never challenged. She accused him of some rather horrible things and he never refuted her. “In one of the declarations he makes it clear that he doesn’t want to push back against her accusations,” Ali said.

Furthermore, while it’s possible to look at one or another of these incidents and imagine a “his side” that isn’t so bad, when you read example after example after example after example it becomes pretty clear — this isn’t a nice guy.

It puts his self-satisfied gloating in context a bit. “Darkness is good,” Bannon said. “Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when they get it wrong. When they’re blind to us and what we’re doing.”

Considering the numbers of bigots, warmongers and self-important wealthy who voted for Trump, and the propaganda Bannon’s been responsible for at Brietbart, this is scary. Finding out what an jerk he is makes it even scarier.

But an important caveat. Ali perfectly explains the issues involved in using this source.

Trump has decided Bannon should serve in the White House in a role that will arguably lead him to have the office directly next to the Oval office. Bannon will have full access to sensitive national security information and will be involved in helping a President Trump make key decisions that will have a significant national and global impact. If Bannon were set to serve as the head of the Republican Party, I would probably not feel comfortable sharing this information. I believe that most people have a fundamental right to privacy. I do not believe that the President of the United States and his key aides have that same right … they simply have too much power and must be aggressively vetted.

And he wrote that before Bannon put himself on the security council.