Steve Bannon affirms: There is method to Trump's madness
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What a long, strange trip it's been – and we're only a month in.
Thursday marks one month since Donald J. Trump returned to office. A month dizzy with – bursting with – executive orders, proclamations and actions aimed at pulling the United States back from the edge of the abyss.
Americans on both sides of the Trump divide have watched in amazement as the President has torn through Washington, setting upon DC's Deep State web to fulfill his pledge to Make America Great Again.
Those of us, especially, who have been black-pilled by generations of political corruption, have watched, astonished, as history is being made – as Trump honors promise after promise after promise, doing exactly what he told us he was going to do.
As the MAGA Revolution – and it is indeed a revolution – has gotten underway, however, some casual observers, both inside the United States and beyond, have voiced confusion – even dismay – at some aspects of Trump's maneuvering, internationally.
His hardline approach toward Panama, Greenland and Canada, for instance, have prompted some MAGA supporters to question just how committed Trump is to 'America First'.
"We've got a country to fix," they say. "What in the world is Trump doing worrying about some ice-covered outpost in the Arctic? How is that 'America First'?"
Recently, MAGA champion Steve Bannon, has begun to offer answers to such questions, providing insights into the President's strategy and reaffirming that Trump and his methods are indeed aimed at putting – and keeping – 'America First'.
PLAYING THE LONG GAME
In an interview this week with Canadian journalist Brian Lilley, Bannon suggested that President Trump is not, in fact, merely "trolling" Panama, Greenland or Canada. Instead, Bannon explained, Trump is essentially pursuing what amounts to a 21st Century reimagining of the Monroe Doctrine.
In short, to ready the nation for the challenges posed by an increasingly multipolar world, the President is beginning to reposition the United States – moving away from neocon visions of Empire while laying the foundation for a hemispheric stronghold against adversaries like Communist China and Russia.
"What is the motivation behind all of these different actions that Donald Trump is taking, whether it's Canada or Panama or Greenland?" Lilley, a political columnist with the Toronto Sun, asked. "I don't get the Canadian angle yet – maybe you can explain it to me – but I get a lot of the other angles because I look at it and I see he's trying to combat China."
"Don't look at Canada separate from Greenland and from Panama, because it's of a whole piece – hemispheric defense," Bannon replied.
To defend US geo-security and geo-economic interests, he explained, Trump will be focusing on "taking back the Panama Canal to ensure the Chinese Navy and the Russian Navy can never hook up in the Caribbean ...."
The President's buttressing of America against adversarial incursion will extend "all the way up to Greenland," Bannon continued, noting that the US military maintained control of Greenland during the Second World War.
"There, it was to keep the sea lanes open," he explained. "Here, it's to close the sea lanes against Russian fast-attack and ballistic missile submarines coming out of the Arctic, out of both Murmansk and Archangel."
"If you control that sea lane between Greenland and Iceland – which the United States will do – and not just have tracking sonar buoys, but actually control the naval forces, and you control the Panama Canal, you've essentially hermetically sealed the United States from attack by the Russians."
Bannon went on to explain the essential role Canada will play, according to Trump's vision, in North American defense.
"Remember, the greatest vulnerability we have now is the Arctic. That's where it all comes together – it's a Great Power struggle. And President Trump is bound and determined to secure the United States from that, and that's why, I think, Canada's a central part."
"If you go back and look at the economics of both us as a unified market, geo-economically; if you look at the logic of us united, geo-strategically, in a hemispheric defense, the logic speaks for itself," Bannon said.
"It's now time for the Canadian people to start to really think through the 21st Century, because if you look at Canadian politics, it's been so much "small ball" over the last couple of decades. Now, huge questions about the future of the country and the future of the 21st Century are before you."
Lilley noted that many of his countrymen don't understand the threat posed by China: "A lot of Canadians would be scratching their heads ... saying, 'Well, that doesn't make any sense. There's no aggressive war with China. There's nothing with Russia. We don't have to be worried. We're past the point of needing to be worried about defense.'"
"Anybody that thinks that is sound asleep, and let me wake them up," Bannon retorted,
He said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been at war with the United States for years. "They're doing it through cyber; they're doing it through political warfare; they're doing it through information warfare." And, as badly as the United States has been infiltrated by the CCP, Bannon warned, "Canada's actually worse, and [Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has] exacerbated this."
"This is something the Canadian people have got to wake up to," he added. "You're losing your sovereignty."
"Remember, in Chinese Communist Party doctrine ... they don't want to take on the foreign devils, because the foreign devils know how to man up and know how to fight. What they want to do is unrestricted warfare ... defeat the West, even before any guns are fired, and they're quite far advanced in the United States and, I would argue, they're farther advanced in Canada."
Bannon went on to compare those who deny the threat posed by China to the "people in Europe in the summer of 1939 sitting there going, 'You know, we're actually not at war – it's a beautiful summer here,' and the clouds of war were all over them, they just couldn't see over the horizon."
Writer, editor and producer Stephen Wynne has spent the past seven years covering, from a Catholic perspective, the latest developments in the Church, the nation and the world. Prior to his work in journalism, he spent eight years co-authoring “Repairing the Breach,” a book examining the war of worldviews between Christianity and Darwinism. A Show-Me State native, he holds a BA in Creative Writing from Pepperdine University and an Executive MBA from the Bloch School of Business at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
HOW SOULS AND LIBERTY WILL MOVE FORWARD THE NEXT FOUR YEARS
There can be no doubt we have witnessed an extraordinary moment in the history of the United States and the world. The election of Donald Trump to a second Presidential term is a great victory for Christian patriots, but it is not a complete or final victory. Rather, it is a reprieve from the ceaseless assaults on life, liberty and faith we have had to endure for four years.
Donald Trump is president again! His decisions, Cabinet selections, and force of personality are shaping the United States and the world in ways we could only dream of.
We have a Heaven-sent opportunity to step up and ensure this victory is not merely a one-off, but the first of many and the foundation of a lasting legacy of patriotic, Christian, pro-family policies.
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Stephen Wynne
Editor-in-Chief, Souls and Liberty