Tea at Trianon: Bannon Goes Back To War

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, March 5, 2020

Bannon Goes Back To War

From The American Conservative:

Nearly every morning—working weekends would seem an afterthought for this set—during this frigid Washington winter, Stephen Bannon, President Trump’s notorious ex-guru; Raheem Kassam, longtime consigliere to Bannon and Brexit mastermind Nigel Farage; and Jason Miller, chief spox on Trump’s 2016 campaign, gather in Bannon’s bunker. It’s the basement of an equally notorious Capitol Hill row house rented by Bannon, “the embassy,” formerly the headquarters of Breitbart News.

The trio have started a radio show and podcast, “The War Room,” named for the opposition research hub featured in most modern campaigns, and lifting from the “#WAR” mentality Bannon made famous at Breitbart. That Bannon’s newest venture—the podcast, assorted websites, and a confusing web of radio shows, co-hosted with and filled in for old allies—mixes what still passes for journalism with the gloss of a modern campaign is no accident. I’ve visited the show twice since it launched in the fall, and it’s developed speed, reasonably well-watched, well-attended, and well-financed. Its architect certainly has, as the ever-caffeinated Bannon is raring to go by 9 a.m.

On a recent visit, Bannon regaled his motley crew, including Virginia political kingmaker John Fredericks and the veteran operative Jack Maxey, with stories about how it’s antebellum politics all over again. The pre-Civil War era clearly weighs on the strategist’s mind. Revolutionary moments, generally, are an idee fixe. “I’m a Leninist,” Bannon infamously once told historian Ronald Radosh at a party in Washington. The Baby Boomers—its leadership class, at least—are the worst generation in American history, Bannon has said to me.

For the assembled, the project is nothing less than a political beachhead. For “The War Room,” it’s the best of times and it’s the worst. The core troika—Bannon, Kassam, and Miller—delivered Trump to power four short years ago, but they are not, officially at least, in power themselves. Miller missed out on becoming White House communications director in the midst of a brutal personal scandal with fellow Trump campaign official A.J. Delgado, with whom he fathered a child. Kassam, a British national, is ineligible for government service, but nonetheless departed Breitbart in recent years after his own clashes with the post-Bannon leadership. He also had a short-lived tenure helming the rebooted Human Events. And Bannon’s complicated relationship with Trump—he was labeled “Trump’s brain,” to the president’s obvious displeasure—is the stuff of legend. (Read more.)