Meet Steve Bannon, the Molotov mixologist who wants to light the world on fire. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.
Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.
For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD.
Sources/Links/Notes:
Meet Steve Bannon, the Molotov mixologist who wants to light the world on fire. Please share this episode with your friends and start a conversation.
Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.
For an entertaining deep dive into the theme of season five (Phalse Prophets), read the definitive peer-reviewed taxonomic analysis from our very own Jason Bradford, PhD.
Sources/Links/Notes:
Jason Bradford
Hi, I'm Jason Bradford.
Asher Miller
I'm Asher Miller.
Rob Dietz
And I'm Rob Dietz. Welcome to Crazy Town, where the video for our theme song was filmed on the deck of our mega yacht.
Melody Allison
Hi, this is Crazy Town producer Melody Allison. Thanks for listening. Here in Season 5, we're exploring Phalse Prophets and the dangerous messages they're so intent on spreading. If you like what you're hearing, please let some friends know about this episode or the podcast in general. Quick warning: Sometimes this podcast uses swear words. Now onto the show.
Rob Dietz
Hey, Jason. Hey, Asher. I gotta tell you about a dude.
Jason Bradford
Nice story. Here we go. I love it.
Rob Dietz
Okay, so there's this guy right in your same circles. He goes to Georgetown University to get a grad degree in -
Asher Miller
Our circles?
Rob Dietz
Yeah, your circles. The kind of guys you love. He's getting a government degree in national security. But then he goes to Harvard, or Har-vard as we like to call it, to get a degree in business, right?
Jason Bradford
MBA?
Rob Dietz
Yeah, of course. Most valuable degree on the planet. They earn the bucks. So then he goes to work at Goldman Sachs. Okay? Just like -
Asher Miller
The American dream.
Rob Dietz
Just like you two were trying to do, right, in your early careers. So a few years down the road, our investment banker guy uses his connections at Goldman Sachs to get $60 million in funding for this outfit called IGE. Which, of course, is the Internet Gaming Entertainment company. Okay, so they're based in Hong Kong. And they employed - This is what they did - They employed a whole bunch of low wage Chinese workers to play the World of Warcraft.
Jason Bradford
Their job is to play a video game?
Asher Miller
They paid them to do that? What a nice guy. He's giving them jobs, and just go play video games.
Rob Dietz
It's kind of the dream job, right? Here's some money, play a video game. We'll give you pixie sticks and the occasional-
Jason Bradford
This is one of those massive multiplayer online games if you don't know.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, yeah.
Asher Miller
Where you kill people.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, it's a role-playing game. You go around, sword and sorcery stuff. And you can earn treasures in the game, you can earn gold and special weapons and all that. And you know, you have to buy things virtually in the game. But it turned into a marketplace. Like you could actually sell this stuff in the real world.
Asher Miller
Oh really?
Rob Dietz
So, maybe you're semi-wealthy dude sitting in your mom's basement in America . . .
Asher Miller
Like, I'm too lazy or I suck at the game too much to actually earn all this myself.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. You just go buy from one of these expert players who has gotten so much equipment they can just sell it to you.
Asher Miller
Okay, so wait. This is like globalization in a video game basically. Right?
Rob Dietz
That's exactly what it is. Yeah, you got the low-wage earners, but then -
Asher Miller
The low-wage workers who are?
Jason Bradford
They're professional video game players.
Asher Miller
Yeah, who can, you know, create products, worthless products for high-end consumers in the west who have, you know, extra money that - I don't know what.
Jason Bradford
That's fantastic.
Asher Miller
What a beautiful thing.
Jason Bradford
They can strut around in the virtual world with all their gear.
Rob Dietz
And don't forget This $60 million that basically funded this company.
Jason Bradford
This is Goldman Sachs that's behind this? This is like a series of investment banks behind this.
Asher Miller
So they saw that there was that much profit in this. The difference between what they were paying these poor guys who are playing this game, and what they were selling the stupid shit on the game for was enough that it felt like it was worth a $60 million investment.
Rob Dietz
Of course.
Asher Miller
Wow, amazing.
Rob Dietz
Well, so the mastermind behind all this happens to be our false prophet of the day. Little guy that you you may know called Steve Bannon.
Asher Miller
Little guy.
Jason Bradford
Genius. This is freaking genius. Wow, well-
Rob Dietz
We can all hope to emulate some sort of-
Asher Miller
It's like an evil origin story. Actually, I've learned a lot about Steven Bannon and never knew this about him.
Jason Bradford
That was - It's pretty amazing. I mean, he's had quite a life thus far. And we're gonna go over-
Asher Miller
It ain't over yet.
Jason Bradford
It ain't over yet. So why are we talking about Bannon? Well, basically because he's got these pretty outlandish tactics that are designed to destroy contemporary society. And then he has really an odd vision of the world post-collapse. So it's those two things in combination that make him a false prophet. He basically wants to push society over the edge, and then he wants this other thing to emerge that I think is little a bit sketchy.
Asher Miller
Right. He's not happy to just watch it all burn on its own. He's not busy trying to like, prep for it. He's like, let's hasten this thing.
Rob Dietz
And I think Steve Bannon would, on one level seem like them was obvious of our false prophets in our list. Just because of his crazy right-wing political views. But that's not really what we're focusing on. It's this idea that he's trying to blow things up.
Jason Bradford
I also think there's a lot to how deep his philosophy goes. And it's fascinating where that comes from, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's back up a bit. And, you know, there's so much crazy stuff about Bannon that we could go over. Let's do a quick rundown of kind of the stuff that's happening now. He may go to jail for contempt of Congress any day now. And/or for scheme to defraud donors over the building of a border wall. It was just a gift.
Asher Miller
I gave them so much money for that. Nothing?
Rob Dietz
And that would be fitting because he really does have a lot of contempt for Congress.
Jason Bradford
He's interacting with a lot of litany of sort of shady characters in dealings, run ins with Jeffrey Epstein. One of his buddies is this Chinese billionaire, Guo Wengui, who was raising money to establish an alternative Chinese government. And this guy might go to jail very soon, too. He was with the infamous Cambridge Analytica, which was involved in the 2016 election and submitted interaction with Facebook there. Weaponizing social media for Donald Trump and Brexit. He's been funding right wing political candidates and sort of movements both in the U.S. and overseas. Because of sort of the outlandish nature of the misinformation he's putting out, he's been banned on a lot of social media apps. He's been spreading disinformation like a norovirus running through a cruise ship.
Asher Miller
Wait. He was spreading disinformation about a norovirus?
Jason Bradford
No. He's like a norovirus.
Rob Dietz
I appreciate your poetic license. That was well done.
Asher Miller
I just never know these days. It could have been something he was actually. . .
Jason Bradford
He seems to have had a succession of pretty quick marriages and divorces three times now. And there's a lot of reports from people that have worked with him that he's really a Class A jerk in many ways. Nowadays, you can find him on a podcast that runs twice a day live for an hour. It's called "Bannon War Room"
Asher Miller
Twice a day?
Jason Bradford
He a morning and an evening edition.
Asher Miller
Oh that's lovely. You wake up with Steve. You go to bed with Steve. What a dream.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, we'll get into a little bit more into the details of that show and what it's style is like.
Rob Dietz
Okay, so thank you for that run through. Let's talk about where he came from. He's born in 1953 in Virginia to a middle-class, blue-collar set of parents. They were pro union. They were Kennedy Democrats.
Asher Miller
So this is like a whole, what was that guy on the TV show? Michael J. Fox's character?
Rob Dietz
Alex P. Keaton.
Asher Miller
Alex P. Keaton.
Rob Dietz
It's also like you. It's a rebellion against views held by your parents.
Asher Miller
Sorry dad.
Rob Dietz
Okay, so he goes to a Catholic military prep school. Gets an urban planning degree from Virginia Tech. Mother --so how come all these phalse prophets go to the same schools as I go to?
Jason Bradford
What other ones go to the same school?
Asher Miller
Well, Penn.
Rob Dietz
I don't know. We've talked about like Donald Trump in the past. We've talked - Anyway.
Jason Bradford
Not too many.
Asher Miller
That's why I almost didn't go to college because I didn't want to be associated.
Jason Bradford
You didn't go to Harvard or Stanford, luckily, because there's tons from those places. Or Yale. Oh my god. Those are the worst.
Rob Dietz
They wouldn't have taken me anyway. Yeah. Then he goes into the Navy where he gets stationed in the Persian Gulf during the Iran hostage crisis, and the failed rescue attempt that happened there right around the beginning of 1980, I guess.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. 79 or 80.
Rob Dietz
You know, and he said that was a big impact on his politics. He worked at the Pentagon, and then as I said before, in the beginning, he goes to Georgetown and Harvard. So kind of an elite person himself.
Asher Miller
Yeah. It's funny to think that, to recognize that, because so much of what his rhetoric is sort of anti-elitist.
Jason Bradford
Populist.
Asher Miller
So you know, after those stints, he actually turned towards entertainment. He did that because when he got hired by Goldman Sachs, which we talked about earlier, as an investment banker in the mergers and acquisitions division, he went from New York to LA to work in the entertainment industry. I guess that they were buying and selling companies and they were investing in that stuff. He ended up setting up his own company, Bannon and Co. in 1990. It was like a boutique investment bank for the entertainment industry. That got him a role as sort of an executive producer in a lot of stuff.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, let me cut in here for a sec. Because as the resident pop culture specialist here in Crazy Town, I went over to IMDb to check out his list of movies.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, what's the Rotten Tomatoes score on these things?
Rob Dietz
I don't know. Not real impressive. Let's just say that. Not a lot of big hits that you've heard of.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, he's no James Cameron.
Rob Dietz
No, no. He's not working with Steven Spielberg.
Jason Bradford
But yeah, there's something like 19 films or something he's produced. I mean, that's quite a bit.
Rob Dietz
Most of them are like bizarre right-wing documentaries, but you know. . . Pretty rough.
Asher Miller
Everyone's got to do their thing.
Jason Bradford
He's got his niche. But anyhow, in about this time, while he's got this Bannon and Co. thing going on and funding kind of crazy movies a little bit, he actually helped save Biosphere 2. You remember Biosphere 2?
Rob Dietz
That was the project to like close an ecosystem? Put some scientist inhabitants in there.
Jason Bradford
It's just outside of Tucson, Arizona actually. North of Tucson.
Rob Dietz
There was a documentary with Pauly Shore about that, right?
Jason Bradford
What was that called again?
Rob Dietz
Biodome? I don't know.
Asher Miller
Yeah, documentary.
Jason Bradford
I actually tried to visit it. So you know, I got a picture of me outside the front of it. But they charge so much money, there was a line. I just gave up.
Asher Miller
It's actually a pretty fascinating story how that whole thing failed.
Jason Bradford
Oh yeah. So it failed completely.
Asher Miller
Really interesting.
Jason Bradford
And there was this billionaire who wanted us to figure out how we were going to live on another planet and stuff like that. Creating an ecosystem under a dome. It didn't work. The thing was a mess. And I think Bannon was brought in as this sort of like hatchet man. And he basically -
Asher Miller
Yeah, like the Mitt Romney of the Biosphere 2. Clean this thing up. He basically fired all these people.
Rob Dietz
I thought it was like the Mr. Wolf of pulp fiction. Becoming a cleaner, or whatever.
Jason Bradford
But anyway, you can see videos of Bannon talking about this with the press And it essentially got bought out by I think, Columbia University, and now University of Arizona. And they run it as like a research facility.
Rob Dietz
But you seriously couldn't get in?
Jason Bradford
Well, I could have paid a bunch of money and stood in line, but I didn't have much time. I wanted to kind of go look at it real quick. But no, no. They charge.
Rob Dietz
So it's a tourist attraction now?
Jason Bradford
It's a big tourist attraction.
Rob Dietz
Huh.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. But then in 2005, he becomes a founding board member of the right-wing news outlet, Breitbart News. And that's kind of what people know him for now, right? And it was it was started by this guy named Breitbart. And the aim was to be a kind of Huffington Post, but on the right, okay? Mostly reposting other content. However, the founder Breitbart dies, and in 2012 Bannon took over as executive chairman. And he takes a more aggressive approach. He really expands it. There's a lot more of their own staff. They have offices actually over many parts of the world. And they become aligned with the alt right national movements which were openly racist. They basically you know, Bannon has this quote so you can see Bannon saying, "We are the news outlet for the alt right."
Asher Miller
Fun stuff. Good times. Before we move on to talking about Bannon's worldview, right? The world that he wants to bring to life. I find it fascinating, I've gotta say, just running through that little bio, dude spend some time in these single industry towns that are kind of interesting, right? So he spent time in New York, sort of Wall Street, right? D.C. and LA. So no fucking wonder why he hates elites. Or says he hates elites.
Rob Dietz
Don't forget also the desert in Arizona, where they only do Biodomes.
Asher Miller
That's right. What an industry town. I find that kind of interesting. The other thing that is really interesting, and this came out in a really interesting piece in Politico from 2017 by Eliana Johnson. It's about the fact that he's apparently - I mean, obviously, he went to these elite schools. But he's also like a voracious reader. And in fact, she quotes someone in the piece she wrote. She wrote, quote, "He's a voracious reader who devours works of history and political theory in 'like an hour' said a former associate who Bannon urged to read Sun Tzu's, "The Art of War." Quote, 'he's like the Rain Man of nationalism with a great vision."'
Jason Bradford
Yeah, and we'll kind of outline What that really means - Nationalism - a bit. I think a lot of people understand it, but I think we should shift to his worldview then and how that leads to sort of nationalism. This was a rabbit hole I did not understand I was putting my head into.
Asher Miller
Yeah, we lost you for a little while.
Rob Dietz
Jason, we've talked about how our lead researcher Alana Zuber has been put through the wringer having to delve into the biographies and the works of all these frickin' phalse prophets. And I think when we take a lead on outlining these episodes, like we get into that space, too. And yeah, Elana and Jason are now talking about viewing videos of husky and golden retriever puppies to kind of get their equilibrium back.
Asher Miller
Is it working?
Rob Dietz
We have to give them a few days.
Jason Bradford
I have to get through this episode first. I'm a little reactive right now, okay? It's a triggering episode? Okay, so Bannon follows the philosophy of what's known as traditionalism and that basically says that truth including morality are knowable and unchanging. Alright? Cut in if you need me to restate something, but I'm going to try to lay this out. They believe that there are these essential truths can be found through what is called divine revelation. And so many traditionalists read all kinds of ancient mystic religions and medieval philosophers. This could include Catholic scholars. You know, Bannon was raised Catholic.
Rob Dietz
So divine revelations, does that mean there's some deity who was handing the truth to some medieval scholar?
Jason Bradford
Well, they could be of any age. In other words, they're not prejudiced against the time period in which something happens because they believe that these revelations could have happened to any person in the past and they may have been written down. And that if they read all these ancient texts that have survived the ages because they were useful, they're considered important, that they might be able to glean some of these revealed truths.
Rob Dietz
And what about like a Dan Brown novel? Can they get something out of that?
Asher Miller
The bottom line is that they believe there are fixed truths.
Jason Bradford
Fixed truths. That there is perfect truth. There's perfect morality out there. But that it comes from these sort of divine revelations, okay?
Asher Miller
Not from Oprah?
Jason Bradford
No, not from Oprah. So the juxtaposition, sort of the opposite of traditionalism, is what we know of today as liberalism. Not neoliberalism. Not neoliberalism. So, the incarnation we have today is sort of modernism as well, I would say. And this is sort of the glorification of the Enlightenment and science. That the true traditionalist say have sort of tossed out these wiser ways of the past. So traditionalists want to go back to social structures from these pre-enlightenment eras, which ends up of course, leading to rigid social roles for men and women. This tends to be very patriarchal. And the analogy they often use is that the leader of a nation is like the father of a family.
Rob Dietz
I think Margaret Atwood described this pretty well in "Handmaid's Tale," right?
Jason Bradford
Right. That's what I'm telling you. This is deep philosophical differences between these traditionalists and liberals.
Rob Dietz
And do you see the traditionalists as throwing out the science? Or at least subjugating it to this social structure of the past?
Jason Bradford
Yeah, I think they would be very skeptical of science and technology if it is going to undermine these other truths, in a sense.
Asher Miller
The idea of the Enlightenment and science and study, or whatever is just that you're able to discover the world and to know things for yourself, right? And that's dangerous.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. Okay. So this is an interesting distinction about the role of sort of individuals versus the collective. And so, the contrast between traditionalism and liberalism, maybe it can be understood as a distinction between - The Enlightenment makes claims about the inherent human rights that are there, right? That we can - Of the individual. The rights of the individual. The individual. Individual human rights. The philosophers can talk about why there are human rights and what they are. And it's a lot of focus on the individual. Traditionalists emphasize that individuals actually have a duty and it's virtuous for them to fulfill their role in society. And so-
Asher Miller
In traditional roles
Rob Dietz
Quick idea. Could we take Steven Pinker - Remember his book, "Enlightenment Now?" And we could have him duke it out with Steve Bannon.
Asher Miller
Traditionalism Now.
Jason Bradford
Oh my god. That'd be awesome.
Rob Dietz
You might get a decent philosophy out of that boxing match.
Asher Miller
Or just a great MMA fight.
Jason Bradford
Yes. So you can see how vastly different a worldview this is between what most people that live in modern society, Enlightenment era. I mean, hundreds of years back we have sort of swept aside these traditionalist views. They often agree that, Oh yeah, a monarchy is a good thing. These inherited roles are actually a good thing to have.
Asher Miller
Yeah, it's a father of the family.
Rob Dietz
I watched a lot of Schoolhouse Rock episodes, and it's pretty clear that the king is no good. Right? Pretty clear.
Jason Bradford
So they would say that the king, like a father, has a duty to perform well in their role. If they don't, maybe they should be kicked out as king. So it's not like they say that there can't be bad kings. It's just that there are right and proper roles that you have to follow. Now, traditionalism does not itself espouse fascism. However, it quickly veers towards it. If you follow those who have taken up traditionalism as a philosophy and moved into the political realm, you can imagine that since they have these idealized truths, they also end up having you know, there are best races or best ideas. And these forms are in contrast to others who end up being these demonized minority. So it can get ugly very quickly.
Rob Dietz
It's a recipe for scapegoating, it sounds like.
Jason Bradford
Yep.
Rob Dietz
So I mean, obviously, you can see some danger in that kind of philosophy. But I think that pivots us to the danger that you see in the tactics that Bannon actually employs to get this philosophy out and about as far and wide as he can. And you mentioned earlier, Asher, when you were talking about Rain Man of nationalism that that Bannon was pitching the "Art of War" by Sun Tzu on his friends. You guys ever read that book?
Jason Bradford
I have not.
Asher Miller
No.
Rob Dietz
I've read it.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. In the original?
Rob Dietz
Yeah, of course. You don't want a translation. Come on. Well, I mean, there's a lot of stuff in there about how to defeat your enemy, right?
Jason Bradford
You take their feet off?
Rob Dietz
I don't remember that.
Jason Bradford
Okay.
Rob Dietz
You know, I could have been misreading.
Asher Miller
He was trying to literally defeet.
Jason Bradford
That was very good.
Asher Miller
Good one.
Rob Dietz
I thought I was supposed to be the traditionalist king of bad puns.
Jason Bradford
Dad jokes.
Asher Miller
That was so good. The collective groan right now.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, thanks for that Bannonesque disruption to my train of thought. The whole thing in "The Art of War" is you want to disrupt what your enemy is doing. You want to sow confusion, you know, hit them where they're weakest, turn your weaknesses into strengths, all that kind of stuff.
Jason Bradford
It's funny, you know, that the British did not read this before they showed up in red coats. And just stood in lines with guns. It was the stupidest thing. Like, what were they doing?
Asher Miller
That was the right and sporting way. The honorable way, you know, to kill each other together. Stand in a line together.
Rob Dietz
But then again, after reading the book, I never went out and secured $60 million for a sham gaming operation. So yeah.
Asher Miller
And that's why you're no Bannon. Well, so we should talk about probably the most famous, or the most well known area that Bannon has engaged in in terms of trying to bring forward this vision of the future, right? And I think we should be clear here. He's wanting to collapse the existing system. Right? Like, it's not just having a vision that someday this will revert back to a form of traditionalism,
Jason Bradford
Yeah, using normal political arguments and ballot boxes. No.
Asher Miller
No. He's like, No, we have to make this happen. So, he's engaged directly in national politics. And he's done that primarily through the auspices of one Donald J. Trump. And there are a couple of ways I think that he's done that. The big one is becoming the right-hand man. He ran his campaign when he ran the first time for president, And saw him, I think it's fair to say, as a truly disruptive force. And interestingly, the approach was not one that he sort of invented. There's kind of a model based upon this man Evola.
Jason Bradford
Julius Evola the Italian.
Asher Miller
Italian guy who had become sort of the right-hand man to Mussolini, Benito Mussolini.
Rob Dietz
Anytime you can follow the tactics of someone in the Mussolini government- Say no more!
Jason Bradford
You know, Bannon really likes Evola. And he's a pretty outlandish, scary traditionalist, right? Yeah.
Asher Miller
But Evola, I don't know if anyone's coined this as the Evola model, but there are others in the world who have attempted to do similar things. You look at Alexander Dugan in Russia, some folks might know that name because I think his daughter was just assassinated or murdered in Russia. I think they were actually going after Dugan himself. This was pro Ukrainian forces, supposedly, who had done this. And Dugan has been this very outspoken traditionalist. Highly, sort of, uber nationalistic Russian voice pushing for much more aggression on the part of Russia.
Jason Bradford
So you kind of wonder, you know, you've noticed how Trump kind of was praising Putin, all this sort of stuff. You see a lot of this now, and this wing of the Republicans has a lot of sympathy for Putin. And it's because they share these traditionalists' outlook. Bannon was sort of the Alexander Dugan.
Asher Miller
And there are other strong men. You know, there's Bolsonaro in Brazil, And there's a man named Olavo de Carvalho, who was also kind of a really close confidant or right hand person to him in Brazil.
Jason Bradford
Bannon has met with him, I believe.
Asher Miller
Yeah, these guys have talked to each other. So the playbook here is get close to these guys and use them to advance your goals.
Rob Dietz
I don't know about Evola, but I know about his right-hand man technique. I mean, I'm using it here at PCI. I'm in here trying to push my agenda -
Asher Miller
On me?
Rob Dietz
- And manipulate you.
Asher Miller
Wait, I've been trying to do that with Jason. Jason's the board president. Wait. Who are you trying to manipulate, Jason?
Jason Bradford
I just want to go walk my dog and watch the birds.
Rob Dietz
Oh, manipulating a dog.
Asher Miller
No wonder we're not getting anywhere. Jesus. Okay. Well, and then through Trump, obviously he was working within the administration. He wound up being kicked out of the Trump administration. But was about trying to advance some regressive policies and stoke a lot of division. I mean, he really did see Trump as like this perfect, not even a foil, but a shit stirrer, basically. And it wasn't just as a public figure who was like offending people and, you know, creating all kinds of division within society. It was also about enacting policies like the border wall and other things that may have allowed - Like Muslim bans - Yeah. It may have aligned with the traditionalist worldview, but it also was stoking a lot of division, right. And then, even when Trump lost, he could use him to sort of destroy the political system. You look at all the stop the steel rhetoric. Bannon was really pushing January 6, you know, getting people to come together on that day.
Jason Bradford
That's why he's got a contest for Congress. They want him to talk about it, and he won't show up
Rob Dietz
That is really amazing from a tactical sense, and employing these "Art of War" philosophies. Like it doesn't matter if he's the right-hand man anymore, right? He got kicked out from being the right-hand man, and he's still effective and polarizing.
Jason Bradford
Well, I can tell you, he and Trump are buddies again, and I've been listening to listen to his podcasts, and oh my god. He is really pushing the MAGA movement and Trump and stuff. So they're buds again. I'll just let you know that.
Rob Dietz
Oh, such great news. Well, okay, so another dangerous tactic that comes out of this "Art of War" philosophy is his mastery at manipulating the masses. We can go back to that story of the IGE. The gaming thing with Warcraft. And their business model ended up failing in the end, but he became really interested in the whole online gaming community, and figured out that he could be getting his political viewpoints and his messaging into that community. So really innovative way to recruit an army of, you know, potential January 6thers.
Jason Bradford
A lot of the internet trolling, they call this Gamergate, you know, was one of the things. Where it's like, somehow there's a spillover between these gaming communities and these aggressive men.
Asher Miller
You know, being basically an army of online trolls. And they actually were a force in the 2016 election for sure.
Jason Bradford
Yep.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. And then he also had the Breitbart News Editor, Milo Yiannopoulos, that Bannon had recruited, And they were activating an army through Breitbart as well. So he's really good at looking at these kind of niche messaging methods and manipulating a whole slew of people to his cause.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, so there's a lot of use of media. Of course, Breitbart, and now his War Room, the podcast.
Rob Dietz
Which you've been listening to regularly.
Jason Bradford
Yes.
Asher Miller
That's why you're wearing that shirt, right? The War Room shirt that you're wearing.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. Full of disinformation, misinformation. It's fascinating. There's kind of this unrelenting hitting of the same notes and themes. Imagine there's two of these a day. So there's a lot to draw from. I can't - I listened to a small proportion of what's out there.
Asher Miller
Our listeners should thank you for doing this for them so that they don't have to do it themselves. I thank you.
Rob Dietz
We will not include the War Room in the show notes. No need to link to that.
Jason Bradford
But what's fascinating is that almost every other episode is kind of hitting the same themes. And they're bringing on a lot of the same hosts on and they're taking a lot of current events and interpreting them to hammer the same themes. And so you always hear that the election of 2020 was stolen. So there's a whole stop to steal stuff. They're really protective of January 6, you know. It's not within an insurrection. These are patriots. They were just protesting. They talk a lot about the financial system. How corrupt it is. That it is on the verge of collapse. They talk about you know, how money is made and stuff like that. And Ponzi scheme type stuff. A lot of distrust in the major media. They despise what we would call the transhumanists. The AI, you know, developers. They are really scared of these people. They believe this is gonna cause existential risk.
Asher Miller
As we've discussed, we might agree with some of that.
Jason Bradford
Well, that's the thing, you know. And then they'll switch back to distrust of vaccines, fomenting about border security. And then they cut to the ads with a great theme song of the rapper, Chinese billionaire guy. Unbelievable. So the style - They have better ads than we do, I gotta say.
Rob Dietz
Well, the guy that writes the copy for our ads is horrendous.
Jason Bradford
He probably gets paid a lot for those ads. Buy gold. A lot of stuff like that.
Rob Dietz
This hammering home of one message is pretty deep contrast to what we do on Crazy Town. And more broadly at PCI, I feel like we live in the gray space. We're kind of looking for nuance, new angles on what's going on. I mean, not to say that we never discussed the same theme from one episode to another.
Jason Bradford
The do the opposites overlap a lot probably.
Rob Dietz
Probably, but I feel like we're -
Asher Miller
And our jokes.
Rob Dietz
I mean, I feel like we're actually searching for different angles, you know. We don't want to bore the audience, right? Maybe we should switch though. We should just have two things we say over and over and over and over again.
Asher Miller
Yeah. Well, here he is using media in different forms to sort of manipulate people. What is he trying to instill? I would say it's fueling this vitriol, this hatred, this division in the distrust of elites. Which is kind of ironic considering the guy comes from a pretty elite background himself.
Rob Dietz
Wait. So one of these phalse prophets is actually a hypocrite? You're telling me?
Asher Miller
I know. It's amazing. And unfortunately, there's a lot of truth in the distrust.
Jason Bradford
I tell you. I'm like nodding along with the guy sometimes going, "Wow. Okay."
Rob Dietz
So he's almost got you to make the turn. You're almost a traditionalist.
Jason Bradford
And then it just goes off on something insane.
Asher Miller
Just keep listening. You'll get there.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. Well, something that's also interesting that he keeps pushing is that this is the time. Like, this is the actual natural time for a crisis to unfold that will crash the system and bring forth a new age that is going to be better. And actually, it comes from one of his favorite books. There was a book in 1997 by these academics, Strauss and Howe. And it's called, "The Fourth Turning." And they argue that there's like these generational cycles. Like four generations. 80 to 90 years per cycle, about, throughout history. And that right now we're in one of these crisis/collapse phases. And Bannon identified the 2008-2009 financial crisis as sort of the beginning of this new era, this fourth turning. And he basically looked at Trump as the political figure who can just keep pushing us through this crisis. Break it down. Because in the crisis, the old has to fall for the new rise.
Asher Miller
It's really astonishing, really disquieting, to me, parallels. Because, you know, we also saw what happened in 2008-2009. Not just with what happened in the financial markets and the housing market, but also what was happening with the energy system. Oil prices going up to $147 a barrel in 2008 and then crashing. And before shale came online, seeing that we were hitting the wall with conventional oil. And like, we saw that as a turning point too. I mean, our colleague, Richard Heinberg wrote a book called "The End of Growth" in that period there.
Jason Bradford
Right. It's gonna be it. And he actually, one of his movies is called "Generation Zero." That's Bannon's movie in 2010. And it basically follows the Strauss and Howe argument in saying, "This is the time. This is the time."
Rob Dietz
You're not giving him enough credit here too. He's the writer and director of "Generation Zero."
Jason Bradford
Nice.
Rob Dietz
And over there on IMDb, the user approval rating has got a 3.3, which is probably the worst I've ever seen.
Asher Miller
Out of what?
Rob Dietz
Out of a 10. Like, really good movies get up into the eights, right? And like, a crummy action movie, run of the mill, gets a six, or something.
Asher Miller
Yeah, but his is a conspiracy of elites who just go on to IMDb or whatever, and down rate his stuff.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, that is true.
Asher Miller
The real people love it, you know.
Rob Dietz
Imagine watching a movie that's just filled with Newt Gingrich and John Bolton, and you know, other fun chaps like that.
Asher Miller
I will say, So Jason, your point about the "Fourth Turning" - I mean, I think there's probably two things there. One is, it could be a great communication sort of tool to sort of say to people, this is the time. Now you get to do this. Put it into context of people feeling this sense -
Jason Bradford
It's a normal historical event we're part of.
Asher Miller
Yeah, you should be doing this. I also think he has been a student of history and is really fascinated by it and probably does believe in these cycles as well.
Jason Bradford
Sure. Right. Yeah, that's something - I kind of think in cycles, too. So I'm kind of with him there maybe.
Asher Miller
I guess the last thing I just want to point just as we're talking about sort of different tactics and ways that the guy has been trying to engender this sort of collapse of the social order political system, whatever you want to call it now. He's also been supporting geopolitical discord, you could say, right? So, funding nationalist movements around the world. Literally with a group that's based in Brussels called The Movement, which Rob, I'm just waiting for the joke here. Maybe I'll just move on.
Rob Dietz
Just keep it going. Can I also just say, this is a weird tactic to go, I'm gonna go global to go nationalist.
Asher Miller
Well, no. It makes it actually a lot of sense. You want to - So I actually wonder you know, we talked about that Chinese billionaire dude, right?
Rob Dietz
Yeah. I hope we're pronouncing his name right, Guo Wengui. Something like that, Milo Guo.
Asher Miller
Which he, I think, has a really fascinating story himself. But like, somehow Bannon is in bed with the dude and maybe that relationship is also about again, trying to create this discord. If you want to recreate a national identity, if you want to create a more traditional society here in the United States, break down the geopolitical order. Breakdown globalization.
Jason Bradford
Tear up the tarp and you know, the Trans Pacific trade agreement.
Rob Dietz
And this guy Guo, I mean, you shared with me Jason, one of the ways he's related to Bannon, and that's that Bannon uses his song in the podcast.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. It's wonderful. Every transition in the podcast is this rap song by this guy.
Asher Miller
It's so fucking weird.
Rob Dietz
So Jason sent me the video to this thing, and you see go on a yacht shouting, "Take down the CCP."
Asher Miller
Right. The Chinese Communist Party.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. And you know, he wants to make it safe for him to I guess, get more billions. Because he's on the deck of his yacht smoking a 12-inch cigar. And doing some weird kung fu shadow boxing stuff.
Jason Bradford
He switches between great outfits. An all-white suit, a sort of traditional Chinese kind of gown.
Asher Miller
Can we at least put this in the show notes?
Rob Dietz
Maybe.
Asher Miller
Send people the video, come on.
Rob Dietz
I'm a huge kung fu fan, and he's terrible at it. But I have to say of comedy yacht videos, this one ranks #3.
Jason Bradford
He's not good at it. It's shadow boxing I've ever seen. I don't think it's supposed to be a comedy.
Rob Dietz
Well, regardless of the intention, it's clearly a comedy.
Jason Bradford
It's hysterical. I actually think that tune is kind of catchy.
Asher Miller
See, we're losing Jason.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, no, he's often in War Room land.
Asher Miller
In Bannon land.
Rob Dietz
Strip that shirt off. So #1 goes to Worldwide Prestige, "Boats and Hoes" from the movie stepbrothers. With Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. #2 is the Lonely Islands, "I'm on a Boat" from Saturday Night Live.
Jason Bradford
Those are better. They're better. I agree.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, they're funnier. But Guo's is pretty funny too.
Jason Bradford
It's hysterical. Especially since it's not supposed to be. Alright, so we've got another species here that we haven't had yet. This is very exciting. This one is Homo vandali, or what I call, the name familiar is Molotov Mixologist. So these guys are basically willing to throw the Molotov cocktail and burn down the house. And essentially, they look at these existing power structures as locked in, irredeemable, likely to fall from their own defects. And so, they then justify blowing things up sooner to get it over with. Or, you know, more modestly stoking the political chaos like Bannon does. And this somehow, they believe they will come out on top of the rubble. And I would say that, you know, there's a lot of discussion in the taxonomic treatment that this may be a species that has multiple species within it. It is currently circumscribed. I'm not sure. Because there's some very different philosophies out there that believe in this. That believe in this strategy.
Asher Miller
Yeah, I mean, what you just described could easily be, we're talking about Bannon, but it could easily be somebody that's sort of on the far-left spectrum.
Jason Bradford
Right. So I have the type specimen which is Ted Kaczynski.
Asher Miller
Oh, right.
Jason Bradford
He's the darling of some of the anarcho primitivists.
Rob Dietz
Right. The unabomber with his manifesto.
Jason Bradford
Yes. So anyhow, I think this is an important point, because Bannon tries to keep himself clean a bit. He tries to say that he is not, you know, into the violent stuff. He tries to back out from some of these things. But he's stoking the hatred and the division, and funding a lot of stuff that ends up getting into these fascist type of movements. So here's a quote from somebody who carried out a terrible, horrific attack: "Why did you carry out the attack? To add momentum to the pendulum swings of history. Further destabilizing and polarizing Western society in order to eventually destroy the current nihilistic, hedonistic, individualistic insanity that has taken control of Western thought." So that is part of the description - That's somebody explaining why they basically shot up a church.
Rob Dietz
Molotov Mixologist. So, what have we learned by looking at Bannon's sorted history and this whole traditionalist, and let's blow it up Molotov Mixologist way that he's promoting?
Asher Miller
One thing for me is it's important to differentiate him, I think, from the ecosystem of other people you could look at and sort of say are of a similar vein. So like an Alex Jones, for example, right? You can look at them at the surface and say, these guys are kind of the same, right? They're over the top rhetoric. They're promulgating conspiracy theories, whatever. They're scaring the pants off of people. But you know, Alex Jones is like, fucking grifter. I mean, the guy is out there espousing shit that is some of the most heinous disgusting, disturbing things you could imagine. Just sort of doing it to upsell his vitamins or whatever the fuck it is. Like I think Bannon really believes. He has a mission here.
Jason Bradford
He is more a political animal.
Asher Miller
He is doing things with intentionality that is not just about trying to, you know, run ads and make money. I'm sure he's running ads and making money too. But he's got a purpose and mission, which makes him in some ways, a lot more dangerous than the Alex Jones's of the world.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, one of the aha's for me is something you referenced a little earlier about how disturbing it is that we can agree with Bannon on a lot of points. Like it's disturbing that our close allies, Douglas Rushkoff, for example, would probably also agree with him on some of these points.
Jason Bradford
Yeah, he wrote an essay on being invited to Bannon's show, the War Room. It was called like, "How to avoid becoming a Fascist." And he explained why he didn't go on the show.
Rob Dietz
Well, you know, and Bannon, you mentioned how he's looking at an 80-year cycle. We've talked about that with Peter Turchin, these cycles in history. And sort of looking at how do societies adapt to changing conditions. And the adaptive cycle we refer to quite a bit. And there's the idea that infinite progress is not something that we're going to see.
Asher Miller
A real distrusting critique of technology and runaway technology.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, and maybe even some of this, we need more local self-reliance type stuff. You know, we would try to look at that in a pro-social way, as opposed to the kind of scapegoating and build a wall sort of way that Bannon does. But there's some piece of that that you could say is in common. So I think, you know, this happens a lot with false prophets. There's some nugget of truth in there, right? And they can kind of hook intelligent people with the truths. And then they go off in some set of conclusions that's just taking us the wrong direction.
Jason Bradford
Yeah. I mean, and this is what, when I get in discussions with people about our way of thinking, they often get nervous because they think if you scare people, if people think there's going to be limits or scarcity, then they're going to go down this tact of shaming and out grouping. And they worry about this.
Asher Miller
Well, they'll do that. Or they'll do the prepping thing. Or they'll do the fatalism thing.
Jason Bradford
Yes.
Rob Dietz
And it's a real danger.
Jason Bradford
It is a danger. But what upsets me is that if we leave - So many people resonate, you know. Like, we're nodding along with some of Bannon's stuff. So many people resonate with his critique, and this dissatisfaction with the status quo, and the distrust of the system. Which he's actively undermining, of course. But there is definitely truth in there. And on the far left, you've got these, you know, Ted Kaczynski type followers, the anarcho primitivists, who wanted to collapse the industrial system so it doesn't end up killing all life on Earth. And Bannon doesn't seem to have much of an ecological mindset. But you can see how the right and the left come together, wanting to burn it down at these extremes. And so, what's frustrating then to me, and what I often argue with people - And we've gotten into this before when I talked to Bob Jensen. And we had this episode that dealt with eco-fascism. If we don't have any progressive or visions that are on the populace side, right, that acknowledge people's pain and upset and the corruption, then the voices of the Bannon's are going to own this narrative of this broken system that can't be fixed. It needs to be replaced. And so that's an aha I'd like to bring here. Like, no, we really need voices that are more at the centrist progressive end of things.
Rob Dietz
Yeah, I see that. And that's obviously dangerous if there's no one to fill the void. I think there's another huge danger in the whole collapse-the-system thinking. Whether it's an abandoned style, or Kaczynski style, or whoever's aiming for that. I've got to think the assumption is that something better emerges out of the rubble, you know. The Phoenix rises from the ashes, and we've got suddenly a better nation, or a better government, or a better ecosystem, or whatever. But that's a really screwy thought because usually when you wipe something clean it's not like the utopia just emerges, right? I mean, I went to a doctor and I was having gut problems. And I said, "Well, what if you just give me a bunch of antibiotics and we just nuke my gut and start over?" And she was like, "Nah, that's a terrible idea. Because you're just going to have the most virulent bacteria colonizing your gut first. The most aggressive stuff is going to take over." And I kind of see that as a way more likely outcome. The sort of Walking Dead, meanest, baddest people will kind of have the power if we just wipe out the system.
Jason Bradford
No, we go down that path and it's just horrific. It's hard to turn it off once it starts unraveling like that.
Asher Miller
Well, and let's just say the Bannon path is horrific either way, right? Because if they are successful, what's the end result? The traditionalist world where women are subjugated?
Jason Bradford
I think there was a Hulu series about that.
Asher Miller
Exactly. Great. This is great.
Jason Bradford
Okay, insufferability index. I'm thinking we make -
Asher Miller
God, this is going to be so hard.
Jason Bradford
We may get a record here. But look, like I'm saying . . . It's a 0 to 10 criteria, blah, blah, blah. What do I do with the fact that a couple of ideas, I'm aligned with him? It's hard to get a full high score from those. Do I take off a point? I want to start at 10 because he's just awful. But maybe I gotta back up.
Rob Dietz
10, 10, 10.
Jason Bradford
That's the first time you've ever started with a 10 and then deducted points. It's easier that way.
Asher Miller
So start at a 10, and maybe take one off. That's what I was gonna do.
Jason Bradford
Alright. I'll just take one off. I'm gonna do a 9.
Asher Miller
Me too.
Rob Dietz
I'm giving him a 10. You guys suck.
Melody Allison
Other podcasts ask for a lot of stuff. Buy their merch, join their Patreon, donate your left kidney. No, we're just asking you to share the show. If you're like me, and you find it funny and thought provoking, then please tell three friends, hit that share button, and get some other people joining us in Crazy Town.
George Costanza
Every decision I've ever made in my entire life has been wrong. My life is the complete opposite of everything I want it to be. If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.
Rob Dietz
Okay, we just heard from George Costanza. He always introduces our do the opposite segment. Think we might need to rethink this guys.
Jason Bradford
What are you talking about?
Rob Dietz
There's a little known fact about Steve Bannon, as if we didn't have enough stinking little known facts about him. But every time a Seinfeld episode gets aired, Steve Bannon makes some money.
Asher Miller
So we're helping this dude.
Jason Bradford
I dont know. I think you have play a whole frickin' episode. What do you mean, though?
Rob Dietz
So he was a producer, right?
Jason Bradford
He was an investment banker/merger-acquisitions kind of guy.
Rob Dietz
He's got some kind of tie to the whole Seinfeld deal where he gets royalties off of it.
Jason Bradford
Oh my God.
Rob Dietz
I know. I want royalties off of Seinfeld.
Asher Miller
So, to do the opposite, we've got to do the opposite of our clip and like . . .
Jason Bradford
Let's just talk to our attorney.
Rob Dietz
I think we need to have some kind of like bot reading it instead of George Costanza.
Asher Miller
No, on a more serious note of doing the doing the opposite, if Bannon is about sowing discord, breaking down trust in our institutions and our collective enterprise or collective experiments together, I think doing the opposite is promoting and practicing mutual aid, right? Mutual aid, solidarity, social cohesion over division. Even without the Bannons of the world trying to basically light the puppy on fire, we've got a lot of energy going in the wrong direction in terms of, you know, social media splintering people, and the stresses that are being felt throughout the modern system.
Jason Bradford
Literally successionist movements in states.
Rob Dietz
We have that going on right here. Like the entire eastern half of Oregon is looking to secede and become part of Idaho.
Jason Bradford
Yeah.
Asher Miller
But even without Bannon out there kind of, you know, stoking the fires, we're having all kinds of crises that are hitting us now or now are going to worsen - Climate, energy shocks, economic, what have you. So what we actually need is to put in place efforts that build social ties, that build mutual aid, and solidarity. We actually explored this in a two-part series that PCI did. Rob, you were part of it. I was part of as well. Looking at mutual aid. It was called "Mutual Aid and the Great Unraveling."
Rob Dietz
Yeah, I got to interview Dean Spade as part of that, who's a law professor up in Washington. And he wrote a book called "Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity during this Crisis and the Next." And it was kind of opening my eyes that, you know, you throw around terms like mutual aid. I mean, there's, there's actually kind of a rich history there and a method to it. And I'm not going to claim to be an expert. In fact, I am planning to go through that book in much more detail, but I would encourage our listeners to check that out.
Jason Bradford
Okay. So we'll have links in the show notes. You know, how do you find it? Can you search for this easily on PCI's website?
Asher Miller
Yeah. We'll put a link in the show notes.
Jason Bradford
Okay. Great. I also think that, you know, as Bannon is trying to sow distrust in collective institutions, maybe we should think about building trust. And the building of the trust happens only if you participate to make them more trustworthy, to make them more transparent. And of course, that's a lot easier to do if you're local. So there is actually a series of 25 articles on resilience.org called Democracy Rising. It was organized - Or the Deliberative Democracy Series, actually. Organized by Tom Prue, and it's about really focusing on community-led democracy. So how do you get together and deliberate and sort of share power and decision making, And I think it's a very useful thing to do. Especially for this mutual aid process. Be ready to work together and get through, you know, the crises we're going to be facing. Because part of what I think about is if these guys are talking about how democracy has failed, you know, the question really is how well have we really worked to make the democracy what it can be? And I think we really haven't put enough effort into that.
Asher Miller
And I'll just add another resource along those lines, which is, there's an international group called the Global Tapestry of Alternatives that has done a lot of work. Ashish Kothari and Shrishtee Bajpai and others there, supporting these networks and models of different forms of collaborative democracy and decision making communities all around the world. So it's not just looking at how we could do that in places like the United States, but in other places as well.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. And I think for the three of us, our do the opposite charge is to go get jobs at Goldman Sachs so that we can fund these deliberative democracy initiatives.
Jason Bradford
That's genius.
Asher Miller
That's a great idea. Will they have us?
Rob Dietz
Oh, no doubt.
Jason Bradford
I'm gonna go get a Harvard MBA right now.
Asher Miller
Thanks for listening. If you made it this far then maybe you actually liked the show.
Rob Dietz
Yeah. And maybe you even consider yourself a real inhabitant of Crazy Town, someone like us who we affectionately call a Crazy Townie.
Jason Bradford
If that's the case, then there's one very simple thing you can do to help us out: Share the podcast or even just this episode.
Asher Miller
Yeah, text three people you know who you think would get a kick out of hearing from us bozos.
Rob Dietz
Or if you want to go away old school, then tell them about the podcast face to face.
Jason Bradford
Please, for the love of God. If enough people listen to this podcast, maybe one day we can all escape from Crazy Town. We're just asking for three people, a little bit of sharing. We can do this. We all know about the Patriots plotting to take down the grid. Before they do, all good Christians to prepare to thrive without the trappings of hedonistic corporate profit maximizing modern utility services. And sure, you can buy a set of PV panels. But these so-called renewables are weak and funded by satanic liberal companies with a globalist agenda. Also, the supply chains for the solar devices fund dictators, and most are made by the CCP. And that is why I'm encouraging Crazy Town listeners to invest in one particular precious metal. Sure, you probably already have silver, gold, and platinum, which are essential once the banks are shuttered. But those aren't enough. Perhaps the most important metal you can possess to secure the safety and comfort of your family is uranium. With the Home Uranium Kit, you will have a piping hot slab with 1000's of applications. Drop in a bathtub and heat the water in minutes. Toss it in the oven and bake your potatoes. And at night my friends, it will gently glow and lighten any room. Mined and refined in America. The Home Uranium Kit should be in every patriot’s pantry. Now to get these, go to homeuraniumkit.com and put in the code: crazytown to get 10% off your slab of hot American uranium. That's homeuraniumkit.com. Purchase code: crazytown.