I Really Don't Like Steve Bannon
Let me count the ways.
Steve Bannon looks like the dad who left home in 1970 to buy cigarettes and not only forgot to come back, but also forgot to take a shower or change his clothes. He's just been deadbeat dad-ing it around for the last 50 years. Steve Bannon looks like he smells bad from the inside. Like if you cut him open, he would bleed and then the air would get thick with sulfur. Steve Bannon is halfway to Beetlejuice. Steve Bannon doesn’t look like he has an alcohol problem. He looks like alcohol has a Steve Bannon problem. Steve Bannon claims he gave up alcohol years ago, which is interesting because he presents like the kind of guy who keeps a vodka-filled flask on him for emergency situations. Steve Bannon's idea of an emergency situation is "being awake." Steve Bannon looks like the kind of person who was mean to a witch one day, and that witch not only cursed him that day, but she has cursed him every morning since. Steve Bannon looks like he was trying on shirts in his house, and he asked someone, “Which of these shirts do you like?” When they said, “all of them,” he didn’t understand, so now he wears all his shirts at once. You know how we all have that ex-lover that we can't believe we were ever attracted to? Steve Bannon is the patron saint of that ex-lover. As my dad would put it, Steve Bannon looks like a horse who was rode hard and put away wet. And, as I would put it, Steve Bannon looks like when he was “rode hard” he was actually being ridden by a horse.
Somewhere a garden is missing its gnome while Steve Bannon traipses around the country like a reverse Paul Revere. Instead of telling us, “The British are coming,” Steve Bannon is telling us, “The white nationalists are coming!” Unlike Paul Revere, Steve Bannon couldn’t be more excited about it. I would bet Bitcoin that Bannon is so pumped up for America to be a white ethnostate that, when he thinks about it too long, he gets a medically-induced half-a-chub. I really don’t like Steve Bannon.
Steve Bannon’s open-faced mediocrity is proof that even the least of the white men in this country get a booster shot of systemic and institutional white supremacy. He is proof that absolute evil has absolutely no shame. If I was him and I had been kicked out of Trump’s first administration after less than a year AND THEN I also served time in prison for my actions, I would just disappear. But nope! Now that Trump is back in the saddle, Steve Bannon is begging to be ridden hard again. When I say “ridden hard,” I don’t mean to imply being “ridden” is a sexual act. I’m still in my horse analogy. I mean ridden hard like what happens when people are mean to horses. They abuse them and then toss them aside when they are done. Bannon wants that treatment from Trump again. To paraphrase something ‘90s ephebophile Jerry Seinfeld said as his character Jerry in his TV show Seinfeld, “He’s into it.”
And in this way, I sort of almost could feel sorry for Steve Bannon if he wasn’t such a tremendously awful example of humanity. At this moment, Steve has become the kid whose dad left for cigarettes and never came back. Of course, Trump is the dad. Trump has turned his sights to his new favorite kid. Not Jethro Dancin’ Vance. Nope. That was last summer’s fling. Just today, JD was in the Oval Office trying to prove to daddy Trump that he should be the favorite son.
And forget about Don Jr. being Trump’s favorite. Luckily, Don Jr. is easily forgettable. Don Jr. is getting the full-on Fredo from The Godfather 2 treatment. “Hey Don Jr., we need you to go check out Greenland. We are thinking about buying it. Yeah… so go there. And stay there until we call you. Don’t call us.”
The person who is the [McDonald’s] apple [pie] of Trump’s eye is Elon Musk. Elon Musk, who gets less impressive the more you see of him. (To me, he was never that impressive.) Whenever he speaks to the press, you can tell that he isn't used to talking to people who he isn't paying to pretend like he is fascinating. Whenever he gets two sentences in with the press, you can tell that panic strikes him. His words sound like a toddler negotiating their way down stairs for the first time. Normally, I wouldn’t criticize someone’s way of speaking, but we’ve spent the better part of the 2020s being force-fed a narrative that ELON MUSK IS, LIKE, SO FUNNY AND SMART AND CHARISMATIC! HE’S LIKE IF ROBERT DOWNEY JR’S TONY STARK WAS REAL! Welp, Tony Stark is not real, and neither is Elon Musk. But if you insist on using pop culture to define Elon, then I’ve got a better example. Elon Musk is the lovechild of Edgar – the alien who wears a farmer as a skin suit in the movie Men In Black – and Jason from Friday The 13th – slow footed and clumsy, but dangerous. Elon is like a charlatan who is trying to charm you while he is also, clearly, peeing his pants.
Yet, Steve Bannon is somewhere right now yelling into a microphone about the deep state when all he really wants is his daddy to love him. That explains why, last week, Steve Bannon decided to fire off the limpest Nazi salute the world has ever seen. He was trying to get daddy Trump’s attention. Bannon thought the best way to do it was to imitate his lil brother Elon’s Nazi Bat-Signal. But you could see that Bannon’s heart is not in it. Not because he isn’t into the Nazis, but because he is so into Nazi ideology that he felt silly having to physically demonstrate it. HAVEN’T I DONE ENOUGH TO PROVE MY LOVE TO YOU, DAD?
Steve Bannon has traveled the world for years screeching at people how much he loves white nationalism. Although to be fair, sometimes he advocates “European nationalism.” “Europe” being every white nationalist's favorite code word for “white.” In a 2018 appearance at a conference for France’s then-named National Front party, Steve Bannon made it plain, saying:
Let them call you racists. Let them call you xenophobes. Let them call you nativists. Wear it as a badge of honor.
And now in 2025, Steve Bannon, the grandmaster of white nationalism, sees a white nationalist green belt taking his spot. It must be devastating. At least I hope it is. Hopefully, he still has a flask filled with homemade, bathtub rubbing alcohol to keep him warm.
Of course, after the media firestorm that he intentionally created came for him, Bannon pulled the ultimate punk-ass move and said he was just waving to the crowd. If you believe that, then ask yourself, if you were a person who was aligned with Trump – and you had seen all the controversy that came out of Elon’s Nazi salute – then wouldn’t you avoid waving in any kind of way that seemed in any way similar? Yes, you would. So is it more likely that Bannon did the Nazi salute to get his dad’s attention, but his heart wasn’t really into it and/or he wanted plausible deniability? Yes, it is! After Bannon saluted, the new leader of the National Front Party (now renamed the National Rally party) decided to cancel his appearance because secret Nazis don’t want to hang out with confirmed Nazis. Even the ADL called out Bannon’s Nazi salute, which is funny because they didn’t call out Elon’s Nazi salute. And it’s even funnier given the fact that Bannon’s Nazi salute only exists because of Elon’s Nazi salute. It’s like an ouroboros of hypocrisy.
But the rest of us have to be committed to calling out the Nazis in all their forms. We must call out the old-school Nazis, the Neo Nazis, and even the shy Nazis like Steve Bannon. No matter how mealy-mouthed and half-cocked they are, bullshit is bullshit. And in this era the least we can do is say when it stinks.
We had another opportunity to call bullshit this week, this time in Michigan. Michigan State Representative Trumper Josh Schriver decided that he would be the guy to begin the repeal of marriage equality. He scheduled a press conference so he could look the press right in their eyes and challenge them to tell him that he was wrong.
Just kidding. He stammered out his prewritten statement, all flop sweaty and Cindy Brady-ey. Then, like a sprinter in the Olympics who just heard the starter pistol go off, Josh ran away from his podium as soon as he finished the statement. He took ZERO questions. Zero questions AT A PRESS CONFERENCE??? Quickly, Michigan State Democratic Representative Jeremy Moss took the opportunity to assume Josh’s spot at the podium. Moss gave a full throated, extemporaneous, funny, and clear-eyed rejection of everything Josh had just said.
That’s what we have to do now. If you can’t do anything else, the least you can do is call these toxic clowns out. Mock them. Laugh at them. Expose them for being as ridiculous as they are. And then take up their space with truth, righteousness, and wit on your side. Rebuke and refute! In a world of Joshes and Steves, be a Jeremy.
Look, here’s me trying to be a “Jeremy” by calling Steve Bannon a Nazi on CNN!
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The Who’s With Me? tour rolls on!
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April 8 - 13 - Berkeley, CA at The Berkeley Rep
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Let’s Support More Teachers!
With all of the Trump administration’s attacks on education and plans to dismantle the Department of Education, it is a very important time to support teachers.
Let’s start with Ms. Hum, an elementary school teacher here in Oakland, CA. Take it from her.
My Family Divided is a book that speaks to my students' unique experiences in this country. Many have families divided, brothers, sisters and mothers left behind. This is a book that will resonate with my students. Rarely do they see books about themselves. My goal is to infuse my students with a love for reading with a story about themselves.
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Save the Date: March Office Hours
Thanks to everyone who came to our February Office Hours with special guest Kahlil Greene! We have a real treat in store for March. On Thursday, March 20th from 1pm - 2pm PT/4pm - 5pm ET I’ll be joined by Anna Sale, the host of the podcast Death, Sex, and Money and the mind behind the newsletter From Somewhere with Anna Sale.
We’re going to try something new this time. Substack now offers the option to stream live video conversations in the app (you can also watch them on your computer). So instead of convening on Zoom, we’ll have a live video chat here on Substack. Paid subscribers will be able to comment and ask questions throughout the conversation.
As we get closer to the date, we’ll send you some more information on how, exactly, you can join!
I can't look at Bannon without a barf bag.
There's a rock that is enormously relieved Bannon no longer uses it as a hiding place.