General Discussion

This is from Daily Kos this year, but I read about this about 2016, as the author at Kos also recalls. A number of references came up on my first google search, but this looks to be a fair overview.

There’s more. Bannon has not been shy about his opinions and sources. He fancies himself an intellectual, and has in the past rented a villa in Italy to hold retreats about overthrowing Western Civilization. (I’m a little hazy on the details from 9 years ago)

Bannon’s a fan of some big doorstopper of a book by a Russian who’s not Lenin — it was odd enough that I tossed it in my Amazon cart so I wouldn’t forget the author and title, something I do fairly often with no intention of buying, but it didn't show up the last time I culled my long list, so I must have deleted it at some point.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/29/2299416/--Deconstruction-of-the-administrative-state-the-Vladimir-Lenin-amp-Steve-Bannon-connection

As I’ve been reading the articles this week about the new administration I can’t help but think about what has been happening with the executive orders and other actions that they must be the thrilling highlight of Steve Bannon’s adult life. He’s long said that he wants to see the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” My recollection is that he talked about that as early as the 2016 election, but I couldn’t quickly find a record of that. He did, though, mention it at CPAC in February, 2017; and then there’s this...
In February, 2017, a Guardian columnist wrote about Bannon’s desire to emulate Lenin.

Quotes from Guardian follow, intermixed. “Lenin wanted to destroy the state and that’s my goal too,” replied Bannon. “I want to bring everything crashing down and destroy all of today’s establishment.”

Later in the column, the author describes Lenin’s style. How familiar does this sound?
But much of Lenin’s political style and strategy can be adapted to present conditions. He depended on constant conflict and drama. He deliberately used shock tactics. He was nearly always domineering, abusive and combative, and often downright vicious. He battered opponents into submission with the deliberate use of violent language, not because he was personally vicious – he wasn’t – but as a technique “calculated to evoke hatred, aversion, contempt … not to convince, not to correct the mistakes of the opponent but to destroy him, to wipe him and his organisation off the face of the earth”.

Steve Bannon has long been whispering in the felon’s ear. Leveraging his natural vindictive and petty behaviors into something much larger and far more dangerous.


more at link, including link to Guardian article