We've talked a lot about our 45th president, Steve Bannon, around here lately, and the reason is simple: He's basically a xenophobic war-monger who gives voice to neo-Nazis, and he happens to be running the country. Sure, Donald Trump was "elected" and "sworn in" and "is technically the president," but the truth seems to be that the real power in this country rests in the hands of the former Breitbart chairman, accused wife-beater, and propagandist, whom many can't decide whether to call a "white supremacist" or a "white supremacist sympathizer," as though one were better than the other. Now, typically when you have a shadowy figure pulling the strings, they have the decency to at least try to, well, stay in the shadows. Not Bannon. Here's an actual quote that he gave to The Hollywood Reporter after the election:

"Darkness is good... Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power. It only helps us when they" — I believe by "they" he means liberals and the media, already promoting calls for his ouster — "get it wrong. When they're blind to who we are and what we're doing."

The dude compared himself to Satan, AND HE MEANT IT AS A GOOD THING. It would be so great if we could confidently sit here and be able to believe that most idiotic of excuses the alt-right loves to use in cases like this and say that Bannon was just "trolling." But now he's in power, and we see that he was just being honest. And as we discussed yesterday, he has now ascended to an unprecedented position of power for a political operative and has unseated two veteran security officials on the National Security Council, making him a huge player in dictating our foreign policy. This wouldn't be quite as scary if it weren't for the fact that Steve Bannon believes we're in a holy war with Islam, according to The Washington Post: