“War is the continuation of politics by other means.”
– Carl von Clausewitz

“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
– Sun Tzu

The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

Donald Trump’s former political strategist “Sloppy Steve,” a.k.a. “Darth Bannon,” is something of a student of political warfare literature, as am I.

Also known as Sith Lord Bannon, he’s back from exile in the Eastern European political desert and has setup shop in a Washington, D.C. basement to unofficially lead a Trump impeachment war room, even though Trump himself says there will be no impeachment war room, since he is the impeachment war room.

But there Steve Bannon was this week, back on American cable television spinning the truth to the alt-right with CNN’s Anderson Cooper letting him get away with it.

According to one account of this return from the political wilderness, The Hill news outlet in D.C. describes his exile this way.

“Bannon spent the past two years on a journey to spark populist movements at hotspots around the world after he was banished from Trump’s inner circle and cut off from Breitbart News, where he was executive chairman, for trash-talking members of the president’s family to author Michael Wolff in the book Fire and Fury.”

What they miss, however, is that there was another reason for Bannon’s exile, his mandatory banishment to the political wilderness, based on his support for a right-wing religious nut and alleged sex abuser of underage girls, Roy Moore of Alabama. This was the height of the time when anyone tangentially on the wrong side of the #MeToo movement was, in fact, banished to the wilderness. Many will never return. Just ask Charlie Rose, who was all over the place in the media before he was outed. He’s now an invisible ghost. It’s almost as if he never existed at all.

I tell the whole story in the new lead chapter to my book: Jump On The Bus: Make Democracy Work Again.

But for our purposes here, let’s just say it was not his finest hour — while it might have been mine — and even Republicans like Senator Richard Shelby played a role in spanking Bannon and sending him reeling out of one of the most red conservative states in the country.

If Donald Trump and Steve Bannon want war, we are happy to accommodate them here — and send them to school on it.

This hinting around about another Civil War, #CivilWar2 — if the Democrats investigate Trump, vote to impeach Trump, etc. — is disgusting and many commenters are saying these words, this behavior, inciting war and violence, is an impeachable offense in and of itself. Even the law and courts recognize that free speech has limits. You can’t scream fire in a crowded theater if there is no fire, or you face the legal consequences of putting people’s lives at risk.

One of these days the computer programmers at Twitter and Facebook may figure this out. I’ve known it as a journalist and college professor for the past 40 years.

….If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” Pastor Robert Jeffress, @FoxNews

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2019

Many of my friends who are Democrats honestly believe that Trump and Bannon are total idiots. But as I wrote in March, 2018, I contend that is not the case.

How Wrestle­ Mania Trumped Intelligence in U.S. Politics

“The day I realized it can be smart to be shallow was, for me, a deep experience,” Trump was quoted as saying many years ago when he first became a celebrity with his early involvement in professional wrestling, a fake sport if there ever was one.

“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable…”

Dumb it down to appeal to the dumb, laugh all the way to the bank, or in this case, the White House.

Trump and Bannon know not just about Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. They also know about Alexander the Great of Macedonia, who is famous for the Greek war strategy of “divide and conquer.”

Democrats are more like Eleanor Roosevelt, who once said, “Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.”

But it’s too late. The partisan divide is real. And it is hardened, and hardening more every day this war continues. The only thing that will dial it down is to dump Trump.

That is exactly what Trump and Bannon are doing, dividing and conquering people, especially the smart people in this country they call the “Deep State” or “the establishment.” That includes the “mainstream media,” which it seems to me is still trying to profit from Trump and still appears ill-equipped to take on this new alternative mass news media — primarily because of the bureaucracy built up around it for the past 200 years plus.

Bannon is launching a new media venture of sorts from the basement of his Capitol Hill apartment, sources say — known affectionately among allies as “the Breitbart Embassy” — where the plan is to broadcast live, seven days a week, from now until the Senate votes on impeachment and beyond.

Bannon is going around claiming that it’s the Democrats, who he says “are routing Republicans with their top-shelf impeachment messaging operation as they investigate Trump’s interactions with Ukraine,” who are engaged in putting out disinformation.

“It’s a master class in disinformation warfare,” Bannon says.

But it’s he who has been secretly called back from the wilderness to put out fake news and disinformation, to try to keep Trump’s base from totally abandoning him in this time of trials and tribulations.

It’s the “end times,” baby, and everybody better get saved and jump on the opportunity bus.

The former Breitbart executive said he’s alarmed by polls showing support for impeachment growing, particularly among independents, as well as Republicans and Christians.

A Majority of Americans Now Support Impeaching Trump and Removing Him From the White House

Gallup Poll: Trump’s Personal Approval Falls With Republicans and Church Goers

Bannon, like many pundits, say Trump’s impeachment and removal from office is “remote.” Yet he expresses worry that even a Senate acquittal will “stop the arc of the Trump presidency.”

If you can accurately call this an arc?

From here, from our war room on the Gulf Coast and the campgrounds around D.C., it looks more like a wrecking ball of a bull loose in the White House China Room.

“The argument that this is all fake news and a deep state witch hunt is just not working,” Bannon said. “Look at the polls. Look at independents. It’s brutal. That’s got to be a fire bell in the night.”

Former Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller is on board the impeachment war room show, as is Raheem Kassam, who was Nigel Farage’s “Brexit” adviser. An hourlong podcast began airing on Saturday, anchored by John Fredericks, an influential conservative talker with a big audience in Virginia, according to The Hill.

A 2020 Trump campaign advisory board member, Fredericks is helping to produce the show.

Excerpts:

Bannon, draped in his trademark green military coat, spoke to The Hill after recording the fourth episode of his “War Room: Impeachment” podcast at a dining table covered in a tangle of wires, microphones, computers and headphones.

Scrawling thoughts in a small, black leather notebook, with a Red Bull and Thursday’s Washington Post in front of him, Bannon said he’s not trying to get back into the administration — he says he’s just a Trump fan who recognizes the historic nature of the impeachment proceedings and believes the White House does not have an adequate defense strategy.

…

A framed Breitbart “honey badger” poster hangs across from a cartoon rendering of Hillary Clinton buying jewelry from an African militant beneath the words, “Warlord Economics.”

A glass trophy from a group called “The Remembrance Society” honoring Bannon’s “tireless pursuit of freedom” sits on a shelf below a yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” rattlesnake print.

…

Bannon says he plans to clear out the living room in the basement to launch his own war room, complete with a rapid response team, a media booker and a polling outlet.

“I’m going all in now, I’ve got to,” Bannon said. “We’re riding to the sound of guns.”

…

Bannon says he’s been inundated with calls from allies eager to contribute.

“War Room: Impeachment” already has the attention of some of Trump’s highest profile defenders on Capitol Hill, including Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who dialed in Thursday.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who led the effort to physically disrupt the impeachment proceedings on Capitol Hill this week, will call in Friday.

…

Over the course of Thursday’s hourlong episode, Bannon made multiple references to “star chambers” on Capitol Hill and West Point “decoder rings.”

…

But broadly, the new “War Room” podcast aims to be a granular breakdown of the impeachment evidence being gathered on Capitol Hill, as well as strategic advice for the president’s allies and a warning to supporters that they must take the threat of impeachment seriously.

“This is already having a dramatic impact on the Trump presidency,” Bannon said. “There is not a single trend cutting toward the White House. I’m a math guy. I see the polls. This is not working…in less than four weeks they’re voting to impeach. Can someone start working 24 hours a day around here?”

This actually looks like fun — for a political news junkie.

It’s really too bad there are no Democrats or independents or progressives who understand this kind of warfare. We could have some fun too — and beat them at their own game.

But the ONLY way we are going to be successful is to match the funding Bannon has behind him. And while there are millions of dollars being raised by Democrats running for president like Bernie Sanders, and businessmen like Michael Bloomberg and billionaire Tom Steyer are spending money like crazy on boilerplate campaign ads in traditional media that don’t work, it is not going in the right direction to counter the $20 million and more planned to be spent on behalf of Trump on Facebook ads alone.

Twitter announced this week that it would no longer allow political ads on its platform. Will Facebook meet the challenge and do the same? That seems unlikely at this point, but it would certainly help news outlets to get some of that revenue back.

Bannon was also on the board and staff of Cambridge Analytica, the now defunct company that was used to mine the political gold in the personal Facebook data of 20 million users or more. They were supposed to delete all of that data, but I suspect they never did. Robert Mercer and company surely still have copies of it all, along with the Facebook ad model to reach and twist millions of Facebook users to their side and cause.

If you recall, they even had Bernie Sanders supporters re-sharing their fake news posts on “Killery Clinton.” Watch Democrats fall for this again. They already are. They don’t understand that when you share the point of view of the other side, you are only helping their engagement score. You can’t counter their point of view by sharing it and tweeting it out.

I once stopped a dam from being built on a river with a budget of $4,000, while the public relations company paid to sell the dam to the public had $450,000 from the Birmingham Water Works board. I know what’s it’s like to be an underdog in a political fight. But $20 million v. $2,750 may be too high a wall to climb.

GoFundMe: Take Down Breitbart ‘Fake’ News

I know how to win. Read my book.

Jump On The Bus: Make Democracy Work Again

We are smarter than Bannon and Trump and company.

But unless the Democrats stop fighting amongst themselves, like what’s going on in the Democratic primary for president and the Alabama Democratic Party, it will be sheer luck if the Democrats come out on top in 2020. The Republicans, after all, have prayer on their side.

Democrats think they can just go on CNN and MSNBC and beat Trump and Bannon. Do they not realize the television sets in most hospital emergency rooms, doctors offices, auto repair shops and more where the average working people of this country go, are all tuned in to Rubert Murdoch’s Fox News (see Facebook)?

This is a war, people, a political war, not yet a shooting war, and it takes resources to win a war.

Why did the North beat the South in the American Civil War? In the end the South may have had gall, enthusiasm and fired-up fighting rednecks on their side. The North had more money and bigger guns.

It took 100 years after that real war for some of the true objectives of American liberty and independence to be achieved, equal rights for African Americans and women. The Supreme Court overturned that victory in 2000, by handing the keys to the White House to George W. Bush.

Barack Obama won that war again by winning election as the first African American president in 2008.

But Trump stooped down and called upon Nixon’s “Silent Majority” one more time, handing the country to a madman mob boss who wants to be America’s first king and dictator for life.

Until the entire press corps gets on this narrative and drives it deep into every home, Trump and Bannon are winning.

Some amazing progress was made back in September, when millions of people finally woke up and started protesting about climate change and the Speaker of the House finally unleashed Congressional committees to launch a formal impeachment investigation of Trump.

But there’s no time for anyone to rest on their laurels. This is war. Not a shooting war. A political war. And like we used to say in the newspaper newsrooms of old: “It’s a war and no one is safe.”

That’s also in the book.

Jump On The Bus: Make Democracy Work Again.

Republicans support their political authors by buying lots of their books and spreading them around. Why don’t the Democrats understand this?

Do they really expect to win this war because the truth is on their side?

Ha ha.

In William Shakespeare’s world, it was believed: “A mystery will always be solved; truth will eventually and inevitably be discovered.”

The Merchant of Venice (2:2): “But in the end truth will out.”

But the people of England didn’t have the German Trump for president, or the likes of Steve Bannon willing to lie to the high heavens all over television and social media — with the undivided attention of half the country.

The truth is on trial here like never before. If you trust a jury of your American peers to find the truth in this climate, you must be an old fashioned naive lawyer right out of the 20th century, out of books like To Kill A Mockingbird.

Well it’s the 21st century now, and the best selling book of the past 20 years is about magic, which of course is not real, and doesn’t work.

Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling sold more than 225 million copies.

We don’t carry any magic wands around here, but we do know how to get the truth out on social media. See the Doug Jones campaign that beat Steve Bannon, Trump and Roy Moore.

We could do it on the national level too, if enough people would jump on the bus and help.