Because the wheels of justice turn exceedingly slow — and with a wobble — Steve Bannon is still a free man.
Back in July 2022, the former White House aide was convicted of two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena in its investigation of the Capitol riot. The day before the insurrection, Bannon declared that “all hell is going to break loose.” House investigators wanted to know what he knew, what he meant, and whether he was in communication with Donald Trump that day. But Bannon flatly refused to comply with the subpoena and then offered no defense at his trial. Although he was sentenced to four months in jail, Bannon remains free while he appeals. (His ex-attorneys are meanwhile suing Bannon for $480,000 in unpaid legal bills.)
This is not Bannon’s only legal problem, however.
Like his benefactor Trump, Bannon’s legal problems have only enhanced his clout.
Two years earlier, in 2020, Bannon was arrested on the yacht of a Chinese billionaire and charged with defrauding donors to a “We Build the Wall” project that had promised a privately funded but, alas, fictional border wall. He slipped out of those federal charges after he was pardoned by Trump. But he will go on trial in May after New York state took up the case, charging him with money laundering, criminal conspiracy and a “scheme to defraud” related to the alleged scam. (Bannon has pleaded not guilty.)
But in MAGA world, none of this matters. Like his benefactor Trump, Bannon’s legal problems have only enhanced his clout.
In 2022, Axios named him one of the GOP’s new kingmakers. His podcast, “The War Room” had become a go-to “audition stage” for Republican wannabes and “a gold mine” for grassroots fundraising. Other Republicans bend the knee out of sheer terror of Bannon’s wrath.
Bannon’s new ascendancy was on vivid display recently at the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference. Trump was the main speaker, but Bannon “hosted the only party that mattered,” according to The New York Times.
And onstage, Bannon embodied the id of the American right in all of its ranting, bombastic, paranoid rage. “There is no longer a gathering storm,” he declared, echoing the slogan from the QAnon conspiracy theory movement. “The storm is here!”
Rumpled and bilious, Bannon painted an apocalyptic vision of a nation facing ruin and chaos unless Trump is re-elected. And he leaned heavily into the “big lie.”
Echoing Trump’s own claim that he is a “dissident” like Russia’s late Alexei Navalny, Bannon declared that Trump “gave us three years of peace and prosperity before he was hit with a Chinese bioweapon and they stole the 2020 election.” Then he pushed the lie a step further. Biden, he insisted, was “a usurper” in the White House.
“Media, I want you to suck on this, I want the White House to suck on this: You lost in 2020!” he shouted. “Donald Trump is the legitimate president of the United States!”
“Trump won!” he barked as the crowd chanted along with him. “Trump won!”
Later, Bannon introduced one of his regular “War Room” guests, Jack Posobiec (who has his own long and wooly history of conspiracymongering and far-right trolling). “Welcome to the end of democracy!” Posobiec told the CPAC crowd. “We’re here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here,” he said, raising his fist into the air. “That’s right, because all glory is not to government, all glory to God.”
This is every single day on his podcast, where he bullies and threatens Republicans he considers insufficiently radicalized or loyal.
CPAC was not an outlier. This is every single day on his podcast, where he bullies and threatens Republicans he considers insufficiently radicalized or loyal.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley was described by one of Bannon’s guests last month as a “neocon mind virus of the Republican Party” and “the herpes on the lip of MAGA.” On a daily basis, Bannon prods right-wing dissidents in Congress to refuse to compromise. Of late, one of his favorite targets is House Speaker Mike Johnson, whom he denounces for refusing to shut down the government, and for allowing the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, which Bannon described to his audience as filled with “demonic trash.” “I don’t want to hear you’re a Christian,” Bannon jeered. “Don’t wear your faith, don’t give me the Bible.” Bannon relishes the blood sport. He pushed to oust Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, declaring, “I would like that settled today or tomorrow. She’s got to go.” Within days, she went, clearing the way for Trump loyalists. As I told The Guardian last week, “Trump does not look at Steve Bannon and think this guy is unhinged; he’s looking at Steve Bannon and saying this is exactly what I want to hear from my supporters. Steve Bannon knows what he’s doing and he will act as a gravitational pull on the rest of the right because they have to match him.” The man The Atlantic once dubbed “The American Rasputin” has turned “The War Room” into the epicenter of what he calls his “precinct strategy” for taking back the government. From his online bully pulpit, Bannon pushes MAGA activists to sign up to work on elections, run for school boards, and take over the GOP from the precinct level up. Bannon also frequently highlights the “2025 Project,” the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a Trump 2.0 presidency stocked with the sort of folks who listen to Steve Bannon. “This is where the work gets done,” he explained. “Mass deportations are going to start. If you don’t like that, then don’t vote for Trump.” He has also become a toxic vector for all manner of conspiracy theories about everything from secret U.S.-funded Ukrainian bioweapons to dangerous vaccines and of course the “stolen” 2020 election. Some in Trump’s orbit are skeptical that Bannon believes much of what he says. “Steve was in on the joke,” former Trump aide Sam Nunberg told The Atlantic’s Jennifer Senior. “He never believed that the election would be overturned.” But, again, none of that matters now. MAGA is mainlining what Bannon is selling. If you want to know where the American right is headed, all you have to do is tune in.
Charlie Sykes is an MS NOW contributor and the author of the newsletter "To the Contrary." 
