President Trump Bannon’s Playbook
The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed. The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable. The people shall not be restrained from peaceably assembling and consulting for their common good; nor from applying to the Legislature by petitions, or remonstrances, for redress of their grievances.
This is the first amendment of the U.S. Consitution, and ultimately one of the Constitution’s most important. The idea that freedom of information, and the right to share it has been tested throughout our countries history multiple times but never to my knowledge has a core foundation of our country been outwardly attacked by an elected representative— until today.
No you did not misread that. Yes I had to read it three times as well. The President of the United States has begun waging war on the First Amendment. Not only that, he states the press is the enemy of the American People. As diplorable as that is, shake off the shock and look closely at the play. It’s a warning sign of things to come, and it’s our first rule in the Presient Trump Bannon playbook, we’ll call it simply “Lügenpresse”. To understand this play, we have to look at history a bit so bare with me as I recap this as breifly as I can. So to start, here’s the wikipedia entry:
The term gained traction in the March 1848 Revolution when Catholic circles employed it to attack the rising, hostile liberal press. In the Franco-German War (1870–71) and particularly World War I (1914–18) German intellectuals and journalists used the term to denounce what they believed was enemy war propaganda. The Evangelischer Pressedienst (de) made its mission the fight against the “lying press” which it considered to be the “strongest weapon of the enemy”. After the war, German-speaking Jewish Marxists such as Karl Radek and Alexander Parvus vilified “the bourgeois lying press” as part of their class struggle rhetoric. The Nazis adopted the term for their propaganda against the Jewish, communist, and later the foreign press.
Basically, the term was coined by Reinhold Anton in 1914, before Nazi Germany. At the time, Anton used the term mainly in a foreign context to refer to “enemy propaganda.” However, a decade later, the term had turned into an stigmatizing propaganda slogan, one used to stir hatred against Jews and communists by the Nazi regime.
Within months of Hitler becoming chancellor, the Nazi regime then moved to destroy the country’s free press. It shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers and secretly took over established periodicals. Daily directives from the Propaganda Ministry’s Press Division dictated what could or what could not be published under punishment of reprimand, loss of position, or imprisonment. Oversight of radio, film, newsreels, theater, and music fell directly to the Propaganda Ministry, which used a combination of these media to sell Nazi ideology. The modern day equivelant to this propoganda machine? Breitbart news and InfoWars. Watch closely as this administration slowly turns on even Fox news — a heavy right leaning media giant — leaving their followers to find information through alternative means.
In addition to this, President Trump Bannon is instigating a broad review of the American Intelligence agencies and placing gag orders on agenencies that publish scientific fact, such as the EPA. Government websites are steadily losing the data they once had, leaving the American People with less access to scientific fact.
This is the first play in their play book. Destruction of the freedom of press and the disemeniation of false narratives from alternative sources. I am not being hyperbolic when I say this: This is a play straight from the Nazi regime. As we look further in to President Trump Bannon’s playbook, we see this theme continue, over and over again.
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” — Thomas Jefferson
Let’s look at the next play in use that ties in well with destroying factual information: lies. The bigger and bolder the better. No this isn’t an alternative fact. It’s not a massaging of the truth. It’s purpose is to confuse the public and allow the misinformation spread by the Propaganda Ministry to further sink it’s teeth in to the victims mind. The following is an excerpt from Mein Kamf:
All this was inspired by the principle — which is quite true within itself — that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.
It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
Hitler believed that the Jewish people were masterful of this, and used it as a way to commit his own big lies that led to the holocaust by maintaining that Germany was innocently defending itself. To sum up the idea, you might have heard it put simply, “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it”. As of the date of this article being written, Politfact notes Donald Trump has accumulated 354 less than true fact checks out of 369. 17% of which are labeled ‘Pants on fire’. Probably the most on the site. This is play number 2.
Play number 3. This weekend, Donald Trump will hold a campaign-style rally in Florida. It’s highly unusual to hold a campaign event four years before the next election. Unless we turn back to history and look at the Nuremberg Rally. Held once a year as a way to further spread proganada and rally the base of support for the Nazi Regime the rallies took place near the time of the Autumn equinox, under the title of “The German people’s National Party days”. This was intended to solidify the bonds of the German people and the Nazi Party. As time would go on, the size of these events surpassed over half a million from all sections of the party, army and state. We will see how these rallies go for the President and what comes of them. Suffice to say it’s at least mildly alarming. Watch this space.
There are more parralells to be made with the Nazi Regime, as well as Vladimir Lenin, and Mussolini too, maybe, but those are for another time. I want to be very clear — I am not saying that Trump is literally Hitler. That would be stupid, dangerous, and a lie. What I am saying is that it just so happens that Mein Kamf has a lot of good information on how to bend a populous to your wishes, and it would seem President Trump Bannon has been reading up on their world history quite well. Right now might be a good time to buff up on your history too if you want to follow the trail.
Update February 24th, 2017 — Originally posted February 17th, 2017
Exactly 7 days ago I wrote ‘This is the first play in their play book. Destruction of the freedom of press and the disemeniation of false narratives from alternative sources.’
Today the President took further action to pursue his efforts in curtailing the media and destroying the freedom of the press. You can read more about the disgraceful move here on CNN. I’ll continue to update as more information unfolds.
Update July 31st, 2017 — Originally posted February 17th, 2017
Trump has now created his own news broadcast titled ‘Real News’ that’s being hosted by his daughter in law. As we conitnue to follow the Trump Bannon playbook I’ll continue to update this post. Normally I would take this time to toot my horn at being right, but when the nature of these moves is so frightening it doesn’t quite seem fitting. You can read more below.
Additionally, let’s take a stab at Play 2 I listed above. It turns out he instructed his son to outright lie about the Russian meeting his son attended during the campaign season. The lie itself was the stupidest thing we have heard yet, but it is in line with making the claim big, and bold as I stated earlier. “But think of the children” is a natural go to response for when you are trying to hide your true motivations in government, but hopefully you will agree that in this case making the statement that they “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children” was maybe too bold of a lie.
