Steve Bannon Upset That Mike Pence, Marc Short Are ‘Ratting Trump Out’

One of those tweets in your article (the one about Koch guys) caught my eye. Bannon’s rise to infamy (and the kind of wealth he now has) is due to the Mercer family. Supposedly Patriarch Robert got away from politics and daughter Rebekah has been calling the shots for quite a few years now. I think it’s fair to say she’s running the show day-to-day but I simply don’t believe ole Robert has left all that behind. I believe that even if not as much, he’s like Ruppert Murdoch who has left the day-to-day operation of his empire in son Lachlan’s hands but as we know the old man still calls any shots he wants to and he exercises that authority more often than we know. In any case, the Mercer wealth is measured in the billions, of which they decided to spend quite a bit on conservative politics with a focus on “Christian” “Family Values” type shit. (Interestingly enough Rebekah, with all her “morals” and “traditional” “values” divorced a few years ago. Seems the final straw for her hubby was her having her dog lick peanut butter from her vagina! Ah, those buttoned up, any sex other than between a man and a woman and only missionary position!) It was the Mercers who funded the platforms that made Bannon so influential and if you recall they backed Ted Cruz back in 2016. Trump was exactly the kind of vulgar individual who so offended their “values.” However, when Trump had secured the nomination they got real world practical, and like Putin figured (correctly) that he could be a useful idiot, hence their successful effort to embed both Bannon and KellyAnne Conway into Trump’s inner circle. As with so many conservatives, it was judges and Justices that mattered. Trump was merely a necessary evil.

So yes, Trump had the Mercers with their billionaire status propping him up and still doing so via their media outlets which don’t have the clout they once did. In fact much of it (Parler for example) never grew to what they’d expected in the first place.

Compare that to the Kochs. The Koch family fortune dwarfs that of the Mercers. The surviving brother (Charles) is worth roughly a hundred billion dollars. He could buy the Mercers for what for him would be tip money. Due to the tax cut and deregulation stuff the Kochs put money into the GOP (and Trump) but while I believe they are evil and want a bought and paid for government that allows all decision making to be controlled by them so that they can become even more obscenely wealthy they are more libertarian in their views. Pro Choice for example. Don’t have a problem with gay marriage. Stuff like that. The Koch philosophy has also always worked hard to more quietly push their agenda rather than engage in the in-your-face culture wars that have come to define the GOP. Basically, that family has had a better understanding of the dangers of pushing too hard and too fast, as well as publicly engaging in culture war stuff. The only culture war that matters to the Kochs is money and the power that enables them to gain more via control of entire industries and even more.

I went into all this because Bannon seems to want to pick a fight with the Kochs. Bad move. Charles surely doesn’t WANT to have a fight, much less one that will inevitably spill over into the public domain but if the Mercers, with Steve Bannon being the front man insist then damn! It would be like me taking to the basketball court again and going one-on-one with someone close to my height like Oscar Robertson (old farts who know the game will remember him – Michael Jordan long before Michael Jordan came along) or Michael Jordan. I’m not talking about the old, fat, broken down with severe lower extremity neuropathy version of me either. I’m talking about the one-time college (albeit not top Division 1 level talent because I wasn’t quick enough to get a scholarship) basketball player I once was. I’d get my ass handed to me!

I say if Bannon wants a “cage match” fight with the Koch empire he’s out of his fucking mind. One should never play poker (for serious money) with anyone richer than themselves because if that richer person has ANY competiveness at all the one who isn’t nearly as rich will lose and lose big.

Given the size and reach of their empire I’m now starting to wonder if various Trump or Trump supporting media projects (most made possible directly by or at least indirectly by the Mercers) keep putzing along and even dying comical deaths due to Koch people sabotaging them! But go ahead Bannon. Keep publicly throwing flaming paper sacks of shit on Charles Koch’s front stoop. At some point he might decide to shove it down your throat. Or shove it in your underwear and give you a massive wedgie.

I for one would enjoy the hell out of that. The Koch empire (which again I note takes the long view) deciding for the time being to make a tactical retreat and fuck over Bannon, the Mercers and more importantly the asshats in the GOP who haven’t had the guts to take Trump out once and for all. As I sometimes say, I take my entertainment where I can find it.

And thus Steve Bannon, arguably the biggest loser in all of the Trump crowd, finds himself behind the eight-ball yet again. Anyone surprised by this has failed to notice how terrible a bungler he is.