The Delusional Elite
Let’s set aside for a moment whether or not you “agree” with disheveled rich Archie Bunker figure Steve Bannon. Let’s focus for a moment on the fact that: Steve Bannon, you are not living in reality, my friend!
Come join us in the real world Steve Bannon!
Of course many of us have “OUR DIFFERENCES” with Mr. Steven Bannon, who is an old racist right wing loon. But without stopping to litigate all of those differences here, can we, at the very least, request that as long as people like Steve Bannon are going to be afforded a prominent place in our national political dialogue, they be required to limit their rhetorical flourishes to those that can be justified by actual, agreed-upon reality?
From Bannon’s 60 Minutes interview:
STEVE BANNON: I was raised in a desegregated neighborhood. It— it— the north side of Richmond is predominantly black, OK? I went to— I went to an integrated school, a Catholic school. I served in the military. I don’t need to be— I don’t need to be lectured by a bunch of— by a bunch of limousine liberals, OK, from the Upper East Side of New York and from the Hamptons, OK, about any of this. My lived experience is that.
Okay. Look. I know it’s fun condemning the “elites” and all. But here, very briefly, is Steve Bannon’s resume:
- Master’s degrees from Georgetown and Harvard
- U.S. Naval officer
- Goldman Sachs
- Hollywood movie producer
- Multimillionaire media company boss
- Presidential campaign CEO
- White House
YOU ARE THE ELITE MOTHERFUCKER. It doesn’t get any more elite than that! Even if you don’t shave and look like a broken-spirited trucker, you are still the elite. You are Wall Street. You are Hollywood. You are the media. You are the political power structure. You can pursue whatever nationalistic political agenda you want, but what you cannot do is to pretend that you sit on a magic island separate and apart from the “elite” or the “establishment.” You are the elite establishment. Claiming otherwise is like claiming to be ten feet tall. It doesn’t take more than a glance to confirm it’s not true. Just look at your fucking resume, man! What are you even talking about? Remember when you told that insane origin story about how your dad’s stock market losses in 2008 caused you to go down this road of supporting a presidential candidate who would… deregulate Wall Street to make such a disaster more likely again? Remember that? That was delusional too. What’s up with you, man?
Just because you’re ugly does not mean you are not firmly ensconced in the most rarefied circles of money and power. Lack of grooming is a personal choice you can afford to make. Because you are the elite.
It’s exhausting enough arguing against your fucking paranoid political positions without having to argue about whether rich Harvard-educated Goldman Sachs alumni Hollywood producers working in the service of right wing real estate billionaires are populist outsiders. There are no humble unknowns in the White House. There are no powerless common men working to make the tax code friendlier to Wall Street. And there are no virginal media angels running major media outlets. Christ.