The Allies of Evil

The Allies of Evil

When Steve Bannon, chief white house strategist, spoke at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) earlier this year, he said he wanted the "...deconstruction of the administrative state."Most listeners, both liberal and conservative, interpreted that statement in different ways. For conservatives who have longed for the smaller government Ronald Reagan promised them, these words were the revelation they had been waiting for since Ronnie and Nancy flew off into sunset in 1989. Smaller government is the GOP Holy Grail the Bushes (I and II) couldn't give them. Liberals assumed Bannon, through his cipher, Donald Trump, meant he lusted for the destruction of the U.S. government for no other reason than to see it burn. But the truth is neither that rudimentary or cloistered; and once you realize what is at stake, all other answers seem naive.

Steven Bannon doesn't want to deconstruct all of the administrative state. He just wants to get rid of the parts he doesn't like and strengthen the parts that give him, and his ethno-nationalistic cronies, ultimate and complete power. Every since the South fell after the Civil War, many southern states have been pushing for States Rights—and make no mistake it may be centered in the south but many other states use it. The concept of States Rights has traditionally been used as a stand-in for state sanctioned discrimination. States Rights were used to keep the African slave in bondage. States Rights were used to keep Black Americans whipped under the lash of Jim Crow. States Rights are now being used to officially discriminate against trans-Americans. States Rights was a favorite of segregationist Democrats before it became the tool of modern Republicans. Since the late 1960s, the GOP has championed States Rights on everything from school integration, to voting rights, to marriage equality. Think of Ronald Reagan's thinly veiled racist speech he made during his 1980 presidential campaign where he introduced the Welfare Queen into modern political nomenclature. So it is not surprising that Bannon is also a champion of States Rights.

Put in simple terms, Bannon wants to ensure that groups he has deemed enemies of the state have no way of fighting the oppression he plans to bring to bear on them. The way he accomplishes this is two-fold:

First he must get rid of the regulatory agencies that help oppressed groups. So he crops budgets of Departments like Education and HHS (Health and Human Services). He gets rid of programs like Headstart, pre- and after-school, school lunch, et al. He guts NIH (National Institute of Health) funding for programs that are designed to help wellness is diverse communities. He wants to get rid of the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). His minions in the OBM (Office of Budget Management) advertises the party-line of cutting spending to save taxpayer's money, but the greater effect is to end helping Black, Brown, Muslim, LGBTQ and immigrants get a fair shot.

Second he must transform the judiciary. No other branch of government has been used to right the wrongs of racism, sexism, homophobia than the courts. Think of all the landmark decisions over school desegregation, abortion, equal marriage, voting rights that have been made in the last 60 years. Bannon knows if left up to the congress or state legislatures, very few of those governing bodies would have desegregated schools or given gays the right to marriage on their own. In actually, many of those governing bodies would have doubled-down on the discrimination without outside intervention. She North Carolina's ongoing fight over HB2 as an example of this. This judicial transformation starts at the the top. Trump's pick for Supreme Court justice is not just a conservative, he's a conservative who believes in State's Rights and has ruled in many cases, while simultaneously writing concurring rulings stating that laws should be changed so that police officers/ police forces can not be sued amongst other widely-derided decision. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has a 70-page exhaustive record of his over 900-decisions and they have concluded that his should not be on the Supreme Court. Now keep in mind there are over 100 empty federal judge positions open right now. Trump and Bannon can dramatically transform the judicial system to tilt away from rulings like the ones that have found Texas and North Carolina guilty of race-based gerrymandering and voter intimidation; or that found Stop & Frisk, a raced-based NYPD street tactic that Trump wants to export nationwide, unconstitutional.

So think about the world Steve Bannon wants to create. A world where groups he deems unAmerican or even criminal—like Mexican immigrants, Muslims, members of the Queer community and by extension Black Americans—are treated poorly. Are oppressed by their state governments with no recourse to fight that bad treatment using regulation or the court system. A country where white, Christian, cis-gender men rule everything and women and people of color shut up and do as they are told. If that idea seems far off and dystopian don't delude yourself, the framework is already in place. The indolent Republicans in congress are ready to green-light Bannon's master vision by repealing ObamaCare, placing all of his judge picks on the bench and slashing the power of the federal government giving more power to the states. This all under the cloak and dagger of the most unqualified president we've ever elected.

Catastrophe is closing that you think.