Steve Bannon’s relevance is over. The media just can’t admit it.
Steve Bannon tried and failed to use his contempt proceedings to force the DOJ to reveal the broader criminal case he believes it’s building against him. Even he expects more serious criminal charges. But the media and pundit class will ignore this when it puts on a show of lamenting over his short prison sentence for the contempt charge.
When Bannon is sentenced somewhere within the contempt guidelines, we’ll once again have to put up with endless lazy cries of “he got away with it all” – without regard for how severely this kind of defeatism the do-nothing types might demotivate those of us who are trying to fight and win political battles.
Instead of acknowledging that Bannon is likely looking at far more serious charges and that Bannon’s relevance is essentially over, the media will play into the public’s clinical addiction to defeatist outrage, by simply omitting the context of broader charges.
Major pundits are already spinning defeatist tales of doom in which Bannon will use his prison sentence to make himself even more immortal by writing a “manifesto” or even raising an army. Anything they can make up to scare you into staying tuned in.
The media has used Bannon as a ratings goldmine for years. Right wing media plays him up as an omnipotent hero. Mainstream media plays him up as an omnipotent villain. The media can’t and won’t admit Bannon is toast, as long as it can get ratings by pretending he has some big future plans that none of us are smart enough to see coming.
Bannon says something as laugh out loud ludicrous as he’s going to raise an army of 20,000 people against the United States, and the mainstream media (left, right, and center) all runs with it as if it were a real thing that were possible. Instant ratings.
If you’re sitting around fretting over a broken loser like Steve Bannon, you’re not being “vigilant.” You’re being a gullible rube who is unwittingly helping Bannon by handing him leverage that he doesn’t have. And the media is exploiting your gullibility for ratings. It’s time to break the cycle.
