Let’s not forget that Steve Bannon is due to go on trial in New York for fraud, money laundering and other charges related to his “Build the Wall” “non-profit” in which two of his cohorts have pleaded guilty and the third was convicted at trial and later sentenced to 63 months in prison for fleecing donors. Trump pardoned Bannon from federal charges related to the scheme just before leaving office.
Bannon has a new hair color that covers up the gray but not his fascist grifting.
His latest grift? Painting his favorite fascist grifter as a great statesman – and first and foremost a big martyr of the American justice system that has charged him with 91 felonies (and counting).
Bannon is apparently very put out by the lawsuits trying to remove Donald Trump from various state ballots for engaging in an insurrection “just by submitting a bogus committee report.” Never mind that the report included video and testimony from many of Trump’s closest advisers.
The newly blonde Bannon went on to whine that Trump’s 91 charges, which he claimed could result in 700 years in prison, are only “because they want him to die in a federal prison.”
That’s happening because the great and powerful Trump is returning to restore America to its greatness, Bannon is now selling. Trump is “the American Cincinnatus,” Bannon declared. If you’re not up on your Roman history, Cincinnatus was a Roman dictator who served briefly during one or two crises, stepped down when the crisis was over and restored republicanism. That’s small “r” republicanism, meaning that the public elects their representatives, i.e. pretty much what we think of as American democracy.
I couldn’t find anything about Cincinnatus refusing to step down, claiming he was the victim of a rigged election and trying to get his pals to stage a coup on his behalf.
But Bannon tried to paint Trump as a great re-conquering hero. “None of this would have happened,” Bannon claimed about Trump’s legal woes, if he had not “now returned and [was] [/was]crushing the opposition.”
“So, they have to frame it in that he is a totalitarian,” Bannon continued. “Basically, they're gonna say this is 1932 and he's Hitler. This is 1932 and he's Hitler. The German people voted Hitler into office. That's what they're gonna say. They voted the fascist in Italy in office.”
In fact, Trump has already indicated he plans a lot of Hitler-like fascism should he be re-elected. But, not surprisingly, Bannon called the comparisons “insane” and ominously claimed that “there are dark days ahead for America.”
