While watching Steve Bannon’s original news appearance In federal court on Monday, I continued to think about his 2018 confession to acclaimed writer Michael Lewis. His words were like a compass for the madness of American politics. “Democrats don’t matter,” Bannon tell Lewis. “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to fill the area with rubbish.”
That’s the Bannon business model: Flood the area. Odor in the joints. As Jonathan Rauch once said, quoting Bannon’s famous quote, “This is not about persuasion: This is about disorientation.”
So, with that in mind, here’s what Bannon did: He live streaming he went to the FBI field office, to file himself, using his GETTR account. He tell his fans to “focus and pay attention to the message” despite the “noise” of his indictment. He claimed that “we are bringing down the Biden regime.” He used this scene for all the publicity, and perhaps political donations, that it was worth.
Inside the courtroom, Bannon was “very different,” according to CNN’s Evan Perez, who added that he “responds respectfully to the judge when the judge advises him of his rights.” But after appearing in court, Bannon returned outside in front of the camera; vowed to fight criminal contempt of Congress charges; claimed that Democrats “received the wrong person this time;” and said “we will continue the offense.” He told Vice’s Elizabeth Landers that he “100%” has a plan continue podcasting: “They will never close the War Room.”
That’s how he flooded the area – by filming lies for his podcast “ownership” on a daily basis – and by attracting attention from the outside and excessively. Throughout Monday, I noticed journalists and social media commentators grappling with the issue. Like Charlie Warzel speak in 2019, “content creation and shamelessness” is a “powerful combination.” That’s even more true today…
Report “disorder”
The Aspen Disclosure Commission report landed on Monday. You can dive into it here. Commissioners are pressing for major fixes for “federal approach” for disinfection, among other recommendations.
Joshua Benton of NiemanLab speak it was a “solid report” that “makes me nod more often than shake my head”, but he wasn’t surprised by some of the suggestions. “I just think that ‘information disorder’ is both (a) a very real problem that naturally attracted the attention of the Big Commissions, Big Think Tanks and Big Reports, and (b) a unique problem. Unique to Big Commissions and Big Think Tanks and Big Reports,” he wrote.
Indeed, the report notes this challenge over and over again, pointing to broader societal ills being “used to promote misinformation online.”
“The Internet is an amplifier,” wrote Benton in his response column in Monday. “It increases both the reach and awareness of society’s evils. As long as the root cause exists – and as long as there are those who seek power, wealth or fame through being in the dark. exploit them – things will just keep getting louder.” In other words, this area will become more and more filled with trash…
