Bannon's Manipulation Of Trump

Click here for an article at The Great Orange Satan (otherwise known as Daily Kos) by Laura Clawson entitled "Stephen Bannon's idea of 'civic society' is not okay."

You've got to hand it to Bannon; he's had a very interesting career. Click here for his Wikipedia entry.

Born into a working-class family, "He graduated from Virginia Tech in 1976 and holds a master's degree in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. In 1983, Bannon received an M.B.A. degree with honors from Harvard Business School. Bannon was an officer in the United States Navy, serving on the destroyer USS Paul F. Foster as a Surface Warfare Officer in the Pacific Fleet and stateside as a special assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon. After his military service, Bannon worked at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker in the Mergers & Acquisitions Department. In 1990, Bannon and several colleagues from Goldman Sachs launched Bannon & Co., a boutique investment bank specializing in media. Through Bannon & Co., Bannon negotiated the sale of Castle Rock Entertainment to Ted Turner. As payment, Bannon & Co. accepted a stake in five television shows, including Seinfeld. Société Générale purchased Bannon & Co. in 1998."

From 1993 to 1995, he was acting director of Biosphere 2 in Arizona (where his behavior was, shall we say, controversial). He became an executive producer in Hollywood, and produced a number of films, many with a right-wing slant, including at least one fairly big-budget number starring Val Kilmer. He met Andrew Breitbart, became involved in Breitbart.com, becoming executive director in 2012, after Breitbart's death, and stepped down from that position to become Trump's campaign CEO. He hosts a radio show, Breitbart News Daily, on Sirius XM.

Bannon is also executive chairman and co-founder of the Government Accountability Institute, where he helped orchestrate the publication of the book Clinton Cash [a total hit job]. In 2015, Bannon was ranked No. 19 on Mediaite's list of the "25 Most Influential in Political News Media 2015."

Anyway, I didn't know about the "radio host" part; apparently his acquaintanceship with Trump began when Trump called in to the show.

According to Clawson's article, indefatigable Trump-watchdog David Fahrenthold and Frances Stead Sellers of the Washington Post have analyzed recordings of Trump's time as a call-in guest on Bannon's show, amounting to a couple of hours of one-on-one conversations. They note a disturbing pattern. Bannon starts by flattering Trump. He follows that by presenting his view of a political subject that Trump knows little or nothing about. He then asks Trump a leading question, to which Trump agrees. Trump is now on record as holding a position that in actual fact he is completely clueless about.

Say what you will about Bannon -- he's good at what he does.