Bad man Steve Bannon steps down from bad website 'Breitbart'

There's nowhere to go, but further down, down, down.
 By 
Peter Allen Clark
 on 
Bad man Steve Bannon steps down from bad website 'Breitbart'
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

At least we'll always have American carnage.

Steven Bannon's tipsy fall from grace continued gaining terminal velocity Tuesday afternoon as Breitbart announced that President Trump's former chief strategist would step down as the executive chairman of the alt-right rag.

Things have been going from bad to worse for the former Goldman Sachs middle-level executive over the past couple weeks and much of the fallout has to do with the nation's best-selling book, Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Bannon was reportedly one of the main sources Wolff's scathing portrait of a highly-dysfunctional administration under the sloppy sway of a petulant, septuagenarian baby.

Though Bannon said many, many terrible things (I should know, I'm 80 percent done with the book), he committed a mortal sin in the eyes of Trump and went after one of the orange man's children. Bannon is quoted as saying that Donald Trump Jr.'s suspicious June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer was "treasonous" and "unpatriotic." According to him, even if you didn't think the meeting was one of those things, then you should "called the FBI immediately."

This was a bridge too far for Trump, who immediately bashed the book and gave Bannon his version of the ultimate humiliation: an insulting nickname.

Former hip hop musical-writer Bannon's position at the alt-right antagonistic seemed rock solid before the quotes surfaced. He returned to his old job immediately after leaving Trump's administration. He's held the position of executive editor since founder Andrew Breitbart died in 2012. He reportedly attained the job through his position on the board of Breitbart and his close association with the publication's owners, the intensely conservative billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah. See, I told you I've been reading the book.

“I’m proud of what the Breitbart team has accomplished in so short a period of time in building out a world-class news platform," Bannon said in a statement from the Breitbart team published Tuesday.

Former Seinfeld-producer Bannon stepped down from his role as chief strategist last August after months of infighting and high tensions between the administration's other centers of power, Javanka and the newly installed Chief of Staff General John Kelly.

After that, many outlets predicted that Bannon would actually have more influence over Trump outside of the White House and would pose a greater threat to all those who favored reasonable, considered government. But much of that hot air, fear mongering evaporated in earlier December with his full-jowled campaigning for Roy Moore in his bid to represent Alabama in the Senate.

Any illusion of Bannon's influence in shaking up the Republican establishment crumbled when the good people of Alabama decided to vote against the man who had been accused by multiple women of underage sexual assault.

It's probably only continually down from here, Steve.

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Peter Allen Clark

I have done neat stuff all over these United States from sailing lessons on the Puget Sound to motorcycle maintenance on the backroads of upstate New York. My professional experience extends from newspaper reporting in the mountains of Eastern Oregon to fixing espresso machines throughout Kentucky. I also have kept a cat alive for 10 years.

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