In a column for the conservative Bulwark, historians Thomas Lecaque and J.L. Tomlin claim that conservative gadfly Steve Bannon is busily and unabashedly setting the stage for a second insurrection at the same time he is facing a criminal referral for refusing to testify before Congress on the Jan 6th attack.
Late Tuesday, the bipartisan House riot committee is expected to vote on citing the former Donald Trump White House official for criminal contempt of Congress which will then be referred to the Justice Department.
At that point, according to Jonathan David Shaub, a former attorney for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the Biden White House would have to provide the DOJ with a waiver to go ahead with the prosecution of Bannon.
While the investigators' pursuit of Bannon plays out in Congress and likely the courts, the Bulwark report notes that Bannon has been keeping himself busy by continuing pushing Trump's big lie that the election was stolen, while at the same time encouraging crowds to get ready to take to the streets and not give up.
Writing, "... it is worth noting that Bannon's troubling activities did not stop after January 6. Far from it. He is still out in the streets, at rallies, on conference calls, and on his podcast trumpeting it to the heavens: The insurrection isn't over, it's only just begun," the two historians added, "Bannon is neither hiding nor defensively trying to justify his past actions. Rather, he is continuing to push the Big Lie and all of its permutations, tying together a web of far-right ideas and allies. Like most good propagandists, he knows that the veil between fact and belief is very thin in a highly partisan political environment."
Case in point , they note, are three recent appearances Bannon has made to fire up Trump partisans.
According to the Bulwark column, Bannon appeared at the Capitol Hill Club on September 29 to launch the Association of Republican Presidential Appointees, where he rallied the troops and claimed they needed to prepare for taking over the government again with "shock troops" needed.
"We control the country. We've got to start acting like it. And one way we're going to act like it, we're not going to have 4,000 [shock troops] ready to go, we're going to have 20,000 ready to go," he exhorted the crowd.
One week later Bannon attended the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival, an annual event that brings together conservatives with evangelical Christians where they plot to work on common goals.
As the historians wrote, "Bannon's address to the group contained all of the half-truths, gross exaggerations, invented evidence, and irrational interpretations endemic to today's MAGA-populist GOP. What is new is his insistence, based on an existing conflation between revolutionary clergy and modern Christian conservatives, that religious leaders should advocate the rejection of President Biden and his 2020 election victory as an act of piety among their followers."
They added, "... it is hard to think of a time—other than during the Civil War—when clergy have been so publicly advised by a national political actor to advocate open insurrectionism against the U.S. government and our system of elections, " adding, "At best, their beliefs are being exploited by cynical men like Bannon and Trump, who want to use them as a voting bloc. At worst, these groups' beliefs could be manipulated by leaders they respect and by genuine fears they harbor to provoke otherwise law-abiding American citizens into acts of violence and treason."
Lastly, they note, Bannon headlined the Take Back Virginia Rally on October 13 where, they report, "...there was Bannon, who said that "we're putting together a coalition that's going to govern for 100 years" while selling the Big Lie. All of this at a rally where the host, Martha Boneta, had the crowd recite the Pledge of Allegiance to a flag supposedly waved in Washington during the events of January 6."
"On his podcast, in his speeches, and in his interviews, Steve Bannon combines anti-democratic claims: the election was stolen, the insurrection was peaceful, we will build a centennial dynasty that cannot be shaken," Lecaque and Tomlin wite, before warning, "If the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection are becoming the "New Lost Cause" of the GOP, Bannon wants to organize its new fascist apparatus. The charge of contempt of Congress is a good start. But will it be enough?"
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