Musk v Bannon

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It's behind a paywall, so I don't have a link, but Ross Douthat of the NYT interviewed Bannon earlier this week. It is a worthwhile read. Lots of discussion about techno-feudalism and how he thinks all the Silicon Valley people are full of shit, and how we should increase taxes on the wealthy if we don't get government spending under control.

I am beginning to believe that the way out of the wilderness for the Democrats is to exploit this schism and peeling off the working class through pure class warfare. Right now, the Dems are just a slightly larger version of the Social Democratic party in the UK.
 
It's behind a paywall, so I don't have a link, but Ross Douthat of the NYT interviewed Bannon earlier this week. It is a worthwhile read. Lots of discussion about techno-feudalism and how he thinks all the Silicon Valley people are full of shit, and how we should increase taxes on the wealthy if we don't get government spending under control.

I am beginning to believe that the way out of the wilderness for the Democrats is to exploit this schism and peeling off the working class through pure class warfare. Right now, the Dems are just a slightly larger version of the Social Democratic party in the UK.
Came here to say the same thing. The Douthat interview was fascinating. Your point about the schism is exactly right.

Trump has sold out the working class people in the MAGA movement to make room for the billionaires. So much for the populist GOP.
 
It's behind a paywall, so I don't have a link, but Ross Douthat of the NYT interviewed Bannon earlier this week. It is a worthwhile read. Lots of discussion about techno-feudalism and how he thinks all the Silicon Valley people are full of shit, and how we should increase taxes on the wealthy if we don't get government spending under control.

I am beginning to believe that the way out of the wilderness for the Democrats is to exploit this schism and peeling off the working class through pure class warfare. Right now, the Dems are just a slightly larger version of the Social Democratic party in the UK.
I’d thought about posting this earlier in the week.
 
Also, a Douthat interview with Andreesen that I’d mentioned on another thread. The juxtaposition is pretty striking. It actually casts Bannon in a much better light than I’ve ever seen him before (low bar, I know).
“Everything they’re doing (the tech oligarchs) — crawling on their bellies, to try to get into and pollute this movement — is because they see the raw political power of this movement. I find it disgusting and revolting.”

I think part of why I find Bannon easier to listen to is that he actually has a discernible ideology that is driven by an internal logic, as reprehensible as I find it. Contrast that mindset with his above thoughts on the tech oligarch class.
 
Welcome to the resistance...checks notes....rubs eyes....double take....STEVE FUCKING BANNON?
 
“Everything they’re doing (the tech oligarchs) — crawling on their bellies, to try to get into and pollute this movement — is because they see the raw political power of this movement. I find it disgusting and revolting.”

I think part of why I find Bannon easier to listen to is that he actually has a discernible ideology that is driven by an internal logic, as reprehensible as I find it. Contrast that mindset with his above thoughts on the tech oligarch class.
What’s he complaining about? As smart as he seems to be he should have known something like what he’s fussing about was bound to happen. Trump is an unprincipled POS. These other people saw it (Surely O’Bannon did) and are just trying to cash in and trumps not going to do anything to stop them because he doesn’t give a shit. O’Bannon knew what he was hitching his star to. I have no sympathy for him.
 
What’s he complaining about? As smart as he seems to be he should have known something like what he’s fussing about was bound to happen. Trump is an unprincipled POS. These other people saw it (Surely O’Bannon did) and are just trying to cash in and trumps not going to do anything to stop them because he doesn’t give a shit. O’Bannon knew what he was hitching his star to. I have no sympathy for him.
I think his main problem is that he sees Trump as an avatar of his own vision rather than seeing Trump for what he is. He feels like he made Trump in 2016 and now others are taking him away for their own purposes.

Maybe some of the way he talks is aspirational. If he sticks with his convictions and talks strongly enough, maybe Trump will really fulfill Bannon’s
vision of a working-class conservative nationalism. We can see past this thinking because we can see past Trump. Bannon’s thinking is obscured by what he thinks Trump can be rather than what he actually is.
 
Welcome to the resistance...checks notes....rubs eyes....double take....STEVE FUCKING BANNON?

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

There needs to be a public effort with readings of Project 2025 and the insane crap that Yarvin, Andreesen, Thiel and Musk have spewed out over time. They have started the class war - those of us who believe in an opportunity, egalitarian society need to tool up. From that view, and that view alone, I can stomach Bannon as an ally.
 
I think Andreesen's political theory stems from three underlying thoughts running around in his mind:

1) "I am a master of the universe of immense wealth, but younger people don't accord me the respect I deserve. That hurts my feelings."
2) "Young people should be working harder to make me more money. I didn't have other interests at their age - why should they?"
3) "San Francisco used to be a nice city. But now there are too many homeless people."
 
Came here to say the same thing. The Douthat interview was fascinating. Your point about the schism is exactly right.

Trump has sold out the working class people in the MAGA movement to make room for the billionaires. So much for the populist GOP.
Who could have ever seen this coming?

The question is, will the working-class MAGA people even care? As I said elsewhere MAGA is a cultural movement more than an economic one. Most of them will delight in the death of DEI and the anti-trans BS and will convince themselves everything is better economically. Heck most of them decided everything else was already better economically the second Trump got elected.
 
Bannon pleads guilty to defrauding MAGAt dolts out of millions, in his bogus Fund the Wall collection campaign.

He gets three years of "conditional discharge." WTF is that? I have no idea what that legal sentence is other than a free pass. Oh, and he can't be part of any charity in NY in the future.

Alvin Bragg says justice was served and the intent of the charges were met.

So he stole conceivably millions of dollars through fraud, and gets less than a petty shoplifter or low level thief? Our legal system SUCKS, it is all smoke and mirrors. It is little more than the small town cops or state troopers, making money for retirement funds, the courts, and lawyers via speed traps.
 
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Steve Bannon Warns Republicans the ‘Oligarchs’ Will Abandon Them: ‘They’re With Us – But Only Temporarily’​


Steve Bannon struck a word caution for Republicans who have fully embraced tech “oligarchs.”

The former White House adviser to President Donald Trump has spoken derisively of certain Silicon Valley billionaires including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla CEO and Trump adviser Elon Musk.

Zuckerberg, who banned Trump from Facebook after the 2021 Capitol riot, reinstated the president’s account on the platform in 2023 and appeared at his inauguration last month. Musk, meanwhile, spent at least $277 million to return Trump to the White House. For his reward, Musk was named the head of the “Department of Government Efficiency,” which he has used to gut various federal agencies.

CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan caught up with Bannon on Wednesday for a brief interview that aired on CNN’s The Source hours later. Bannon told him:

You can tell President Trump doesn’t totally trust the oligarchs. We’re putting in very tough antitrust people into the Justice Department and to the alphabet agencies… Look, I’m not a conservative, right? I’m a Republican ’cause I’m a registered Republican. I’m really a populist nationalist…

And by the way, those oligarchs – and people on CNN are gonna understand it – just like they’ve turned on you now, right? They’ve abandoned the progressive left. They will abandon us and do the same thing. They seek power. Right now, their feeling is they can see the math and they see that we have a built-in coalition. So they’re with us – but only temporarily.

While Bannon has long supported dismantling the administrative state, he has criticized Musk’s approach.

“He wants to impose his freak experiments and play-act as God without any respect for the country’s history, values, or traditions,” he said in an interview with UnHerd this week while calling Musk a “parasitic illegal immigrant.”

And last week, Bannon warned Trump and Musk against slashing Medicaid.

“Medicaid, you got to be careful because a lot of MAGAs on Medicaid,” he said. “I’m telling you, if you don’t think so, you are dead wrong. Medicaid is going to be a complicated one. Just can’t take a meat axe to it, although I would love to.”

 
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