Jonathan Swan of Axios tells us that Steve Bannon has a new mission:

Nine sources in the West Wing and within Trump's close orbit said the Russia situation is Bannon's shot at redemption. He's being described as a "wartime consigliere" relishing a fight against the "deep state," media, Democrats and investigators....

Why some Bannon allies say he's made for this crisis:

• "Steve is super savvy dealing with the media and dealing with crises," says Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy, a friend of Trump's.
• Bannon ... played a key role during the tensest moments of the Trump campaign (see: "Access Hollywood" tape).
• He's skilled at misdirection and deflection. Along with his street fighter ally from the campaign, David Bossie — who is now under serious consideration to join the White House communications team — Bannon deployed scorched-earth tactics against Hillary Clinton like staging the famous press conference with the women who'd accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault.

So Bannon -- who is allegedly "super savvy" -- is responsible for "misdirections" like trying to change the subject to Bill Clinton's decades-old sexual behavior after Trump's Access Hollywood tape broke. Here's my question: How effective was that misdirection effort? Apart from any Fox-addicted wingnuts you know, did you hear anyone talking about it? If so, was anyone talking about it for days and days? Whereas we all talked about the Trump "grab 'em by the pussy" tape for days and days -- longer, in fact. We're still talking about it.

My point is that Bannon might not actually change what most Americans are talking about. What he's skilled at doing is changing what right-wingers are talking about. And maybe that's worth it to Trump, because he seems to believe he can save his presidency as long as 80+ percent of Republicans still support him without question.

So if you have even a glancing exposure to right-wing media, expect to hear a lot of names that make you ask, "Isn't this person completely out of power now?" Susan Rice. Valerie Jarrett. Donna Brazile. (Why, here's a story about Donna Brazile at Joe the Plumber's website right now.) Expect even more on Seth Rich. Expect terror scares and "knockout game" scares and Black-Lives-Matter-is-going-to-kill-all-white-people scares. The Russia investigations might strike more and more pay dirt, but your right-wing relatives won't even know.

Originally published at No More Mr. Nice Blog