As interesting a character as Steve Bannon is, we could easily have an equally revealing thread on Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's pick for National Security Advisor. Like Trump, like Bannon and Breitbart News, and like Alex Jones, whom Trump recently called to thank him and his conspiracy mongering fans for their votes(and promised to appear once again on Jone's show soon), ret. Lt. Gen. Flynn is a fan of conspiracy thinking:
https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/23/politics/kfile-michael-flynn-sharia/
Interesting that, given the irrationality of conspiracy thinking in general, that the President-Elect and some of his key appointments and allies are such keen fans of irrationality. I'm not sure it can really be said that subscribing to irrational conspiracy theories( remember Bitherism, chiefly promoted by Trump himself?) is an admirable quality in a President. But there it is. He's a fan, Bannon is a fan, and Flynn is a fan as well.
I keep in mind that, in terms of being an elected governing official, Trump is a tabula rosa. He is truly a blank slate. Presidential briefings, including being kept abreast of our foreign policy actions, missions, etc, are offered daily since the election, but Trump has only attended two, the last being this past Tuesday, before he flew to Florida for Thanksgiving. He's not the first President-Elect to be adverse to daily briefings I suspect. Pence has attended a briefing every day. I think, given Tony Schwartz's( author of "The Art of the Deal") observation that Trump has the attention span of a child, I can't be surprised that Trump is not interested in being educated on American foreign policy. Maybe that will change once he's in office; maybe not. I do suspect not.
Making his surrogates and official appointments all the more important, perhaps. He indicated recently that he would like to keep holding rallies. I predicted that would be the case in one of our Trump threads. I did so based on my belief his oversized ego would need those cheering crowds in the manner of an ego stroking fix. I suspect his governing style will mix rallies and official TV addresses. Minus the press. I believe we will continue to see a very adversarial relationship toward the press. It will be interesting to see if he continues to communicate by twitter once he is in office.
Since he has tweeted "lying media" more often then I can count, and singled out the press corps for derision at virtually every rally, and since public opinion of the press has probably never been lower then it is in 2016, we probably should expect a free press to have very little ability to convince the public that any decision a President Trump makes is anything other then the best thing the American people could ever hope for. When the media says anything critical at the time, Trump can dismiss them yet again as "the lying media", and dismiss any criticism that way. He laid the groundwork for his followers to thoroughly hate the mainstream media. I suspect that will continue, and twitter has been his preferred method for demonizing the press. We'll see if that continues to be the preferred attack vessel.
At any rate, the two guys likely to have the easiest access to Trump's ear would seem to be Bannon and Flynn. And, since like Trump,,they are fans of conspiracy thinking, and subscribe to questionable beliefs, it would seem the big 3 of Trump, Bannon, and Flynn have a strong foundation in irrational mind sets. I don't believe I am speaking from either a liberal or a conservative bias when I say that concerns me quite a bit. I am, however, looking forward to an exciting 4 years. If Trump intends to turn America into Amerika, well, I also look forward to the Resistance. I certainly don't expect internment camps for liberals, lol, but we'll see, lol.....