关于Steve Bannon被开简单说几句

Dracula

The Ideas and the Vessel: Why Breitbart Chose Trump Over Bannon

http://www.weeklystandard.com/th ... non/article/2011083

I always kind of liked Steve Bannon.

Not liked him liked him. I've never met the man. But I liked the idea of Bannon. Or rather, I liked that he had ideas.

Say what you will about Steve Bannon, but he reads books, and knows James Burnham, and rejects the mainstream, country-club-and-Chamber-of-Commerce view of the conservatism. If you squint at him a certain way—and ignore Pepe and Milo and his enthusiastic embrace of an ugly crew—Bannon was almost a reformicon. Or at least what happens when reform conservatism goes on a date with populism, has five drinks too many, and makes some bad life choices.

And for a while, lots of people talked themselves into believing that Bannon's combination of nationalism and reform conservatism was, more or less, what defined "Trumpism."

Not that Trump actually believed in Trumpism, mind you. As a political commodity Trump has always been, like Obama before him, a vessel. People poured their hopes into him. If you were an immigration hawk, you thought Trump was the only one who would secure the border. If you were concerned about the economy, you thought Trump's business background would make him a good president. If you read Breitbart, you thought that Trump believed in what Steve Bannon believed.

For their part, establishment Republicans in Washington decided during the primaries that, if he were elected, Trump, lacking any of his own ideas, would become the vessel for their priorities. Which is why, when push came to shove, The Swamp backed Trump over Ted Cruz.

The Swamp turned out to be correct, of course. Trump has delivered no border wall, but seems intent on extending DACA. He did not repeal Obamacare, but he did pass a giant tax cut favored by big corporations and the Chamber of Commerce. As a matter of policy, his administration has been indistinguishable from what one might have expected from John McCain or Mitt Romney, had they become president. Only with corruption and staff turmoil and a special investigator and Twitter.

So the Republican establishment was able to separate the ideas of Trumpism from the vessel of Trump—and they chose Trump. Not surprising. Politics is about power and ideas are a luxury.

But it was surprising that, when Breitbart was put on the spot, they, too, chose the vessel. Historically, print publications are centered around ideas. That's why they exist. It seems strange—more than strange, really—that when push came to shove, Breitbart picked the president and the corporate tax cut and DACA renewal over the ideas of Steve Bannon. It makes no sense.

Unless, that is, the animating idea of the Breitbart wing of conservatism isn't actually nationalist-populism. It's just power. And then it all makes perfect sense: For Breitbart, power is their big idea.

Which is funny. Because at the end of the day it means the eager little Cossacks over at Breitbart are actually a lot like the bloated, grasping, Washington establishment types they hate so much.

The only difference, really, is that The Swamp always wins.