Steve Bannon Sounds East and Attacks West
I read this interview this morning and was quite impressed. I agreed with 95% of it. Bannon has gone full blown warpath against the ChiComs. But there’s one problem. That 5% I couldn’t agree with. I can’t square Bannon pretending that he’s all on board with fighting the Chinese in 2020, yet he has spent years of his life trying to “deconstruct” NATO, The IMF, the World Bank, and all the rest of what he has called “The Administrative State”. How exactly can Bannon be railing and yelling about the existential threat to the West that the Chinese Communist Party is, yet want the destruction of NATO?
Italy was a founding member of NATO, yet they are one of the first to crumble and give way to ChiCom advances in Europe. Much as Venice and Genoa were always gateways for infectious disease from China since the Black Death, the Italians will be the gateway for the Belt and Road Initiative into Europe. I don’t hear Bannon arguing for help for the Italians — other than help building his mountain monastery fortress of Sede Vacantalism. Or for helping the Atlantic Nations of Europe. Bannon is a fascinating man simply because he’s the only outright racist in publication who argues against the Mackinderite Policy that is the Belt and Road Initiative. Which is just Stalin’s policy. Which is just Hitler’s Lebensraum. Perhaps Alfred Thayer Mahan’s foreign policy theory born of the Spanish-American War and the occupation of the Philippines lends itself well to a lush who wants to start a race war? We probably shouldn’t be surprised. Probably all these Geopolitical grand narratives are essentialism at base and therefore need to be disinfected before use.
Up until three months ago, Steve Bannon hasn’t really given a shit about America. He cares about his Catholic Latin Mass, Iraqi-baby Killing, Fascist Vision of America. Steve Bannon doesn’t give the derivative fart of a flying fuck about anybody outside of that. He’ll yell and holler and wear five oxford collars on top of each other on Foxaganda Broadcasting, but he doesn’t give a fuck about America in 2020. He wants some bizarro world America where 35% of the population of the country has simply been removed. Remember, there are only two kinds of Irish Catholics in America — those who want the Mass in Latin. And those of us who want the Mass in Irish. Bannon wants the Church Militant back. And he would murder sizeable populations of the People of God to have that happen. We have to regard him as one of these poor unfortunates who enjoyed the old priestly games of “slap belly” and “rape the weakling”. Why a certain generation of Catholics want the old days back is beyond me. I suppose getting anally dry fucked by a drunk priest in the rectory must have had a certain charm for some men. Never forget, Steve Bannon is a sailor first and foremost — down to the “deck plate”.
Steve Bannon’s outrage against the ChiComs simply is not real. It isn’t real. Is the Communist Party of China with Xi Jinping in charge an all hands on deck moment for all Americans? Yes. It’s also yet another callous and cynical Republican attempt to get America to mobilize the pitchforks and torches against the Democratic Party.
Steve Bannon can’t even pronounce “Xi”, “Wuhan”, or “Hubei” correctly in Mandarin. He couldn’t tell you 上 from 下 in Chinese. But he wants to be considered a China hand. He wants people to regard him as much more intelligent than he actually he is. And in typical con man style, he’s telling you he has secret knowledge about China. Stuff you don’t know. Stuff only he can transmit. And of course, Joe Biden is Bad Guy 2020. Come the fuck on. Does Bannon think nobody else went to Catholic Universities and studied epistemology? I went to a Jesuit School just like Stevie. My bullshit detector operates up in the parts per quadrillion sector. And Steve is a bullshit artist par excellance. He keeps referring to this as a “World-Historical Moment”. Never trust a Catholic who quotes Hegel.
It takes an Irish Catholic to call out an Irish Catholic. Steve Bannon is a flagellant, Church Militant liar who is using China as a whip to attempt to scourge Joe Biden. Nothing more, nothing less. Is Bannon calling out Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao? No. Bannon is just the latest iteration of the White man peddling The China Mirage. He says he knows China, but Bannon is just using the Yellow Peril to attack his opponents in the Democratic Party.
Is The Chinese Communist Party an existential threat? Yes. Does Steve Bannon have the solution? No, not any more than Joe McCarthy, the last drunken Irish Catholic to use the ChiComs as an excuse to get Democrats thrown out of office. They were lying, cynical assholes in 1954. They’re lying, cynical assholes now in 2020.