Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/08/17/bannongeddon.html
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I can’t even with this nonsense; it just gets more farcical daily.
Dear God, Karma, Adrestia, Dumbledore and any other powers that may (or may not) be out there in the ether of the multiverse, PLEASE let this foolishness end soon in the most beneficial way possible for the poor, tired and disenfranchised masses.
R’amen.
Play me out, Eric B & Rakim…
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“You can’t fool me, sonny. It’s crazy hateful people all the way down!”
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At the very least it plants a flag and throws a challenge in the face of the GOP to stop flirting with the alt-right – unhinge or go home.
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"more about cementing an American nationalist movement"
This is what chills me - it indicates things won’t end soon or well, regardless of what happens with this election. The election could be a terrible loss for tRump, the Republican party might end up broken and humiliated, but this particularly nasty strain of racist nationalism could have a long future ahead of it. (Where it gets stronger than it is, and becomes a political power to rival the Republicans, even.)
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Breitbart’s Stephen Bannon, now Trump’s new CEO, reveals his master plan
He’s cosplaying as Rt Hon Peter Mannion MP?
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I will always heart an Eric B and Rakim should I see one or the other.
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Cool.
Cause I don’t get upset
I kick a hole in the speaker pull the plug then I jet
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Why am I utterly unsurprised that someone who makes a living out of peddling right wing conspiracy theories should want to associate himself with Trump?
From Revelations 4:
10. The twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
11. “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honour and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”
12. But one of the elders looked dubious, and asked "God, does that mean you created Fox News?"
13. And God looked upon Fox News and saw that it was bad.
14. But God owed Murdoch a few favours, and decided to improve the situation.
15. So God said “Let there be Breitbart” - and behold, now Fox looked good in comparison.
16. And the 24 elders shook their heads and said “The old boy’s lost the plot again.”
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So fix news gets new competition on the right?
There’s 15-20% of the population that will be positively owned by a white nationalist media organ, though many will die off over the coming ten to fifteen years.
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Economically that’s a goldmine!
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Ethically it’s a pit of despair
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#notallgoatrodeos
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Pouring gasoline into the already tRumpster fire is a great Master Plan.
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Like his new boss, Bannon enjoys a challenging grift. Here we have a Harvard grad and Goldman Sachs alum who made his millions off a show steeped in Jewish humour now running an alt-right media operation that appeals to anti-intellectuals, anti-elitists, anti-globalists and anti-Semites.
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To be fair, you can be an anti-globalisation, anti-elitist, anti-anti-Semitic intellectual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek
Now if you had said an alt-right media operation intended to get an audience of white men with huge chips on their shoulders, I would have had more difficulty finding someone I could call an intellectual. Contrarian, perhaps, bot not somebody who could be accused of ever having thought very deeply about anything,
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Absolutely, but Zizek is also a major anti-anti-intellectual. That alone would make him persona non grata on Breitbart.
Also, as you say, the anti-globalisation and anti-elitism on display in alt-right circles are expressed via simple-minded protectionism and isolationism and via spiteful envy and empty self-victimisation. They don’t do nuance over there.
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The handy thing about being utterly uninterested in intellectual consistency, though, is that it gives you the option of tapping people who only agree with you on one issue when you are talking about that issue and then blithely not mentioning them next week(see also: how often ‘libertarians’ get to talk when the subject is taxation or welfare vs. how often they get to talk when it’s no-bid contracts and imperial adventures).
If the person in question does value intellectual consistency, they might be unwilling to play along; and then they wouldn’t get the nod; but if they are willing to stick to a topic of mutual interest they aren’t necessarily untouchable. I know very little about this guy, so I don’t know which side of the line he falls on; but this freedom of selection definitely holds.
(There’s also the sheer competitive aspect: when every asshole in your audience is willing to do the spiteful envy and empty self-victimization for free, and practices it as a hobby, often on hapless dinner guests, you have to be genuinely good at it in order to make it a career. That doesn’t mean being intellectual; but it does tend to mean that the higher echelons of such outfits are markedly more patrician than they like to let on, particularly talented performers, or people who make a high art of low cunning. Sometimes a combination.)
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“Bannon…got rich off the TV comedy Seinfeld.”
And now he’s heading up the campaign that, when it comes to viable ideas, is truly a show about nothing.
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Agreed – there are lots of talented confidence artists in the alt-right movement. As far as Zizek goes, they’re not cherry picking his stuff on alt-right sites like Breitbart. Those who would recognise his name would also know he’s a Marxist academic from Eastern Europe.
I think it’s at least equally plausible to believing he has planned (with his speeches and remarks) to inspire his way into the white house.
@Melizmatic, thanks for the flashback.
Yes, agreed. Do you suppose traction could be made with a campaign to so-called patriots: will you open your home to a third party All-American auditor so they can remove everything that isn’t Made In USA?[quote=“gracchus, post:13, topic:83641, full:true”]
Like his new boss, Bannon enjoys a challenging grift. Here we have a Harvard grad and Goldman Sachs alum who made his millions off a show steeped in Jewish humour now running an alt-right media operation that appeals to anti-intellectuals, anti-elitists, anti-globalists and anti-Semites.
[/quote]
It’s been interesting to have seen Seinfeld, not only the man but the machine, go to such lengths to remain apolitical where many sitcom predecessors (also steeped in Jewish humour) were very much about making statements. They made less $$ but had a greater societal impact. This may have helped create the long simmering “media resentment” of Trump’s followers (on top of which Fox, AM radio and Breitbart/Drudge have built mansions). I also think NY/CHI driven comedy has insulted the South into the arms of the right. Joe Dirt (easy glaring example) made me cringe, not because of it being lousy comedy but because of how it treats southerners. That ignorant hick narrative goes way way back though, and isn’t helping the cause.
Wow, nicely said. I think we all were betting that inconsistency would = fail, at some point. But Trump has stumbled upon tens of millions of people uninterested, the types who hate intellectuals (perhaps interchangeable with communist party members in another time and place). They are voting from their guts.
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I don’t think that show was apolitical at all!
Remember the episode where they boldly confronted anti-dentistism?
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