But Bannon said he’s not whining; he’s ebullient at the imminent victory at the polls: “All the Democrats talk about is democracy, democracy, democracy. We’re about to give them a democracy suppository on Tuesday [election day in America; Wednesday, Australian time].”
Loading
He said the Trump campaign had persuaded all the voters it needed; now it needed only to make sure they turned out to vote: “All we need to do is execute.”
By contrast, Bannon said, Kamala Harris was “still flying around, going to black barber shops in Philadelphia, she’s still trying to persuade suburban women and college-educated women to support her”.
Four weeks ago, he said, Harris had multiple “pathways” to accrue victory in enough states to win the necessary 270 electoral college votes to clinch the presidency. “We’ve narrowed that down and now she’s only got one pathway, through the Blue Wall [states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan]. We’ve got her cornered. This is what we wanted.”
Polling in those three states shows support for each candidate within the margin of error at 50:50. Turnout will decide the victor. And if Harris is declared the winner next week, will Bannon accept the result and concede defeat?
“I think, just because you’re ahead on votes on this, like I keep telling Trump, that has no legal standing, no legal status. There’s an entire process to get to January 6.” I think that counts as a “No”, consistent with Trump’s position.
Bannon continued: “On January 6, the Electoral College really comes together. Because until January 6, until the votes are actually certified by the House and the Senate, you can have a contingent election.”
The Constitution provides that, if the two candidates are tied in the Electoral College, the first election is set aside and a contingent election is decided by the House and the Senate. The odds of a 269-269 tie are low, but it’s possible and there is a precedent – just one, in 1800, when Thomas Jefferson won.
Are there any circumstances where violence can be justified, I ask Bannon? He replies that an “overwhelming vote plus tough legal effort stops them” from using violence. That’s the Democrats he’s talking about.
Loading
But what about the avid Trump supporters? “Trump’s most avid supporters are the most peaceful.”
It’s true that Trump was the intended target for the only publicly known assassination attempts of this campaign. But it’s also true that Trump incited his followers to “fight like hell” before they marched on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, assaulting the police and looking to hang anyone in Trump’s way.
Bannon is clear that he’s prepared to take the US to new levels of hostility. “If people think American politics has been divisive before, you haven’t seen anything,” he told The New York Times this week.
Or, as he put it to me, if the Democrats try to “steal” the election, “it will be Stalingrad every day”. That was a horrifically violent battle, I point out. “A political Stalingrad,” he rejoins.
Like Trump himself, Bannon is adept at deploying metaphors of violence while preserving plausible deniability against the charge of inciting it.
Then again, in this cause, every supporter has to be prepared to go to prison, apparently. It’s a hell of a way to run a democracy.
Peter Hartcher is international editor.
Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.