Trump is Not In Charge: The Man at His Elbow With His Ear is in Charge

Bannon: A Vladimir Ilyich “Ulyanov” aka: Vladimir Lenin Wannabe

(His words, not mine)

We did it, Steve, we won. So, now what??

(Up to you I guess)

I don’t know Stephen K. Bannon, only what I have read and watched about him, neither do I have any desire to know him. There are things about his man we all need to know and then pay close attention to him since he is the power behind the presidency – that is a hard, harsh fact based on a lot evidence that mounts almost daily.

FYI: After reports about that quote above emerged, Bannon told journalists that he did not recall the conversation. Um … yeah, right…!!!

A few introductory facts:

1.  Donald J. Trump is president; not Stephen K. Bannon.

2.  Trump was elected to the office; not Bannon (he was appointed).

3.  Trump, like presidents before him, is expected to show good judgment in making cabinet and other key government official choices and selections; not Bannon.

4.  Trump may be our president, but he is not acting presidential; Bannon is.

So, who is in charge of our government and thus, the country? That is not a rhetorical question my friends. It needs close scrutiny. It is the most-extremely important question of the day and one based on a mere 50 days in power by the Trump administration.

Much has been written and spoken and still on-going about the missteps and faux pas of the administration – some key and critical questions still remain to be answered definitely. But the real question is: “Who is in charge?” By all accounts it is not Donald J. Trump – it is Stephen K. Bannon. That is my focus today.

Tons of information are out there on Bannon and his views and ideas and methods – some not true, or unverified, or just plain BS; most however are factual: his quotes and writings and speeches, etc. Those cannot be denied. Like the title of this post should be this from Bannon: “Darkness is good: Dick Cheney, Darth Vader, and Satan. That's power.”

Excuse me: One of those three is a person: Richard Bruce “Dark Dick” Cheney and we all kind of know his performance as Vice President for eight years, too. No need to rehash them now.

The other two Bannon cites are not people. They are either folklore, or a religious statement, and one is a movie character. But, merely stating that they are “power” as Bannon does shows a lot about the man and his thinking. A lot more follows:

Bannon for one thing absolutely — and mockingly — rejects the idea that he is a racist and here too, but says: “I'm not a white nationalist, I'm a nationalist. I'm an economic nationalist. The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f**ked over. If we deliver” — and by “we” he meant the Trump White House — “we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote, and we'll govern for 50 years. That's what the Democrats missed. They were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people. It's not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about.”

Yeah, that Stephen K. Bannon and more:

Bannon can seem to be not just a focused voice (behind for Trump), but almost a messianic one when he says: “Like Andrew Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political movement. It's everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I'm the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Shipyards, iron works, get them all jacked up. We're just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930’s, greater than the Reagan revolution — conservatives plus populists in an economic nationalist movement.”

Then several days after the Trump inauguration (January 20, 2017), Bannon told the NY TIMES this:  “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while. I want you to quote this: “The media here is the opposition party.” They don't understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”

At the end of January 2017, in a departure from the previous format of the National Security Council (NSC), the holder of Bannon's position, along with that of the Chief of Staff, were designated by presidential memorandum as regular attendees to the NSC's Principals Committee, a Cabinet-level senior inter-agency forum for considering national security issues. The enacted arrangement was criticized by several members of previous administrations and was called “stone cold crazy” by Susan Rice (Obama's last NSC adviser). In response, White House spokesman Sean Spicer pointed to Bannon's seven years’ experience as a Navy officer in justifying his presence on the Committee.

In February 2017, Bannon appeared on the cover of Time, on which he was labeled “The Great Manipulator” (Breitbart article). The headline used for the associated article was "Is Steve Bannon the Second Most Powerful Man in the World?” alluding to Bannon's perceived influence in the White House. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in the aftermath of the 2016 election, Bannon analogized his influence to that of “Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors.”

Bannon, along with Stephen Miller, was involved in the creation of Executive Order 13769, which resulted in restricted U.S. travel and immigration by individuals from seven countries, suspension of the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for 120 days, and indefinite suspension of the entry of Syrians to the United States.

The National Policy Institute, a think tank that is part of the alt-right movement that includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites, held a gathering at the federally owned Ronald Reagan Building. Their salute caught our attention.

Richard Spencer is an American white nationalist, known for promoting white supremacist views often through the viewpoint of mainstream punditry. He is president of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think-tank, and Washington Summit Publishers, an independent publishing firm.

Well, that’s it; probably enough for this post. Good stuff to hang on to as we see Bannon lead Trump to wherever Bannon wants to lead him like in he refers to in that Lenin quote above. Yeah, that place…!!!

Stay tuned.