Stop assigning magical powers to Steve Bannon
We must stop assigning magical powers to two-bit losers like Steve Bannon. All that does is give them leverage that they wouldn’t otherwise have. The key to finishing them off is to point out that they have no way out of this, so they can’t use imaginary threats to paralyze us. And if we’re paralyzed into inaction, it means we’re not fighting and winning.
There’s a reason con artists like Bannon focus so heavily on trying to portray themselves as winning, no matter how badly they’re losing. If they can fake us out into believing they’re somehow magically going to defeat us no matter what, and we respond by pouting instead of fighting, that’s the only way losers like Bannon can find an opening for a comeback.
It’s been stunning to see how many political activists on our side shifted their narrative today from “Bannon is magically winning because he’ll never be arrested” to “Bannon is magically winning because he wanted to be arrested.” If Bannon croaked tomorrow, you half expect these defeatists would insist that Bannon magically won by dying before he could go to prison. This kind of defeatist rhetoric is unhealthy for the people spewing it, and harmful to their side’s chances of winning. It’s difficult for those of us fighting and winning to stay focused when people on our own side keep yelling “We’re gonna lose no matter” what in our ear.
We have to stop being held hostage by two-bit bluffers like Steve Bannon. We have to start pointing out, as loudly as possible, why they’re losing – and why they’re losers. We need to portray them as the punchlines that they are. Once we take away the phony aura that Bannon is somehow always winning, we will have taken away the only thing in his arsenal. He’s a bullshitter, and you defeat a bullshitter by calling him out on his bullshit, not by cowering to him and amplifying his bullshit. We have to be more savvy than that in order to keep winning.
