US government continues to imprison people who make it look bad

It was Steve Bannon, not The New York Times or the BBC, who was the first to report the corruption & incompetence of our elites. He heads to prison for the rest of the election season.

I had planned to write this week on the recent social media footage of NYU graduates proudly announcing their preposterous degrees. 

But then news broke of Steve Bannon’s imminent imprisonment, a matter far more pressing than a bunch of silly college grads and their soon-to-be-crushed hopes and dreams.

Bannon was ordered Thursday to report to prison on 1 July, for the crime of refusing to appear before the Congressional subcommittee on the 6 January Capitol riot. He will serve four months, keeping him behind bars until a few days before the presidential election.

Interesting timing, isn’t it? I have been a regular listener of Bannon’s daily news show, War Room since the beginning of the Covid pandemic in 2020. It was there that I first heard the term ‘gain of function research,’ and learned how it had been banned from being carried out on US soil by President Obama because it was so dangerous, but had simply moved to China and other countries. Where US money continued to support it. 

It was on War Room that I first heard tell of the Wuhan lab and how it had been the subject of a 2018 US State Department cable regarding its shoddy safety practices. This was reported on Bannon’s show at the very beginning of the crisis, when the official party line was that the virus was definitely was NOT caused by sloppy, American-funded bioweapons research. No, no. The world was being forced to stay home because someone in China ate an undercooked pangolin. And anyone who suggested otherwise was basically Hitler. The entire mainstream media was singing that tune. Only Bannon’s band of renegades was willing to say otherwise. 

It was on War Room that I first learned that Hunter Biden had flown to China on Air Force 2 way back in 2013, when his vice-president father was going on a state visit; and that while in China had held business meetings after which his company — Bohai Harvest — was granted a license to conduct business there. The Biden family ultimately earned millions from Hunter’s tax-payer funded trip to China. This was the basis of my 2020 vow to never vote for Biden or another Democrat again.

It was Steve Bannon, not The New York Times, not the BBC, that brought these key facts into the public arena. He changed my perspective on pretty much everything. I’m sure there are millions —including many other former lefties like myself— who would say the same. 

And now, the United States government is throwing him in prison just as the most important election in US history moves into high gear. And before the libs out there who are still triggered by the mention of his name drop comments like ‘but he defied a congressional subpoena!’, here is a video of Merrick Garland arguing that some congressional subpoenas are just too stupid to comply with.

Speaking of triggered, I have noticed that the very mention of Bannon’s name provokes a visceral reaction among people who have been mesmerised by The Narrative. The most deranged and vitriolic hate mail I have received was as a result of mentioning this man in a positive light, more than any other issue. His very name triggers the libs — because that is what psychological warfare does to the mind. And Bannon had to be monstered just as much as Trump, because he was that effective at delivering a smart, empowering, galvanising populist message. 

I’m a populist only insofar as I have a strong instinct to side with, and stand up for, the person, party, or group that everyone else is ganging up on. It doesn’t so much matter who it is. I have no ideology. If a baying mob was dragging competent and fair-minded bureaucrats out from behind their desks, pelting them with rotting food then carrying out sham trials before throwing them into the stocks — I would be siding with the bureaucrats. I despise abuses of power, and patent unfairness being done to others drives me harder than any other motivator. 

To see it being done by the people I formerly considered to be ‘my side’ was shocking, then upsetting, then ultimately, highly motivating. Bannon provided the analysis and information that ultimately gave me the courage to start pointing out the many hypocrisies and travesties being committed by people and institutions I once respected.

I do my utmost to not emotionally attach to public figures from whom I get my news, so as to avoid bitter disappointment should they turn out to be terrible people. I try to be disciplined in this way when it comes to Bannon as well, but truth be told, he has been such a huge resource to the public understanding of how the system works against us, that I just love the guy. 

Barring some miracle, we will be without his trenchant analysis and his bracing pep talks for the most heated and intense part of the American election. This is a blow not just to MAGA, but to everyone who values truth over partisanship.