NYCweboy

Bad Milo. Bad, Naughty Milo.

Even his name - "Milo Yiannopolous" - is something of an alternative fact: he changed it from "Hanrahan" which was the name of his father, who left when he was six.Yiannopoplous comes from his maternal grandmother, who raised him.

There was never much reason to pay attention to Milo, a bratty British schoolboy eager to spread his opinions, calling it "journalism," in that way conservatives do, repeating twice told tales to justify their negative views of others. Being British, and snide, was about all that differentiated Yiannopolous from the other far right voices - slap a dress and a blonde wig on it and you've got Ann Coulter. Or Monica Crowley. Or Kellyanne Conway. Or...

He'd made himself something of an internet star, mouthing off about "Gamergate" - which boils down to teenage boys trying to put a "No girls allowed" sign on video game playing, with just the sort of especially ugly, hateful results one would expect. For no particular reason, he decided to turn his negative energy - and that of his teenboy fans - on Leslie Jones, resulting in that much more negative attention and a lifetime ban on Twitter.

As Andrew Sullivan noted, the kind of bratty conservatism espoused by Milo (and Sullivan, from much the same background) thrives and grows on the negative response. It's political theory as reaction formation, why I've been clear on what Coulter and Malkin et al actually are since college - what was "Dartmouth Review" but the "politically incorrect" screed of kids eager to express opposition to feel good slogans of liberal activism? And 30 years on that's what conservatives have to offer: not ideas, but something outrageous, designed to oppose perfectly reasonable proposals meant to help others. It's not what you're for, but what they're against.

Since the Jones imbroglio, Milo enjoyed a rapid rise to that curious kind of American stardom that only happens in the fevered circles of the angry right - he got a book deal, and speaking gigs... and last week, he popped up on Real Time with Bill Maher, and got announced for a speaker role at CPAC, where the show always needs the fresh ziz of the latest hateful thing.

If I'm surprised by the fall Milo has had in only 4 days, it's only that I figured he'd at least get to give that CPAC speech. As it was, the only thing that could embarrass CPAC (and it's leader, the smooth talking Trump supporter and Fox "contributor" Matt Schlapp) was new exposure to old interviews Milo had done, applying his bratty British humor to gay sexuality and the priest sex scandal. That was enough(!) to lose Milo the book deal, the speaking gigs, and his job as Associate Editor at Breitbart.com. Because, naturally, where else would Milo  be working, but Breitbart?

It's easy to get hung up on Milo's outrageous comments around sex - and it's not as if that particular element hadn't been swirling around him all along. Part of Milo's shtick was wearing his status as a young gay man on his sleeve, touting his (reductive, racially insensitive) love of black men and hinting at his own sexual prowess. (It's especially amusing, given CPAC's checkered past with gay conservatives, that they blustered into booking Milo anyway.) And it was, in fact, the cavalier way Yiannopolous described his own experiences of priest sex abuse that drove much of his downfall, given that, as even he admitted in his Tuesday press conference, that abuse goes a long way to explaining his bratty public persona since.

But let's not get too lost in focusing hard on Milo: the real lesson here is about conservatives, their role in propping up and pushing hateful rhetoric like Milo's, and the endless need to find fresh flavors of the month expressing all that hate. Let's remember CPAC played that role in launching Ann Coulter, and Michelle Malkin, and numerous others (hey, Ben Carson!) as well. Let's point out, as well, that this flameout illuminated yet more clearly all of what's wrong with "news outlets" like Breitbart, which never called Yiannopolous to account for many outlandish things he wrote and said - and indeed, never raised a peep about those sex comments at the time they were made, nor in context of his overall persona. One can only marvel out how dysfunctional a work environment could be that a "half dozen" staffers at Breitbart threatened to quit this week if Milo were allowed to stay on. This week!

Conservatives would like, of course, to isolate Milo now, now that the cat's out of the bag, that he's "gone too far" despite the reality that "too far" was an interview he gave last year, and ignores years (and years) of examples of Milo's excessive, hateful words and actions. It was too much for Twitter... but conservatives still clung to him (and arguably, too, Twitter's actions were years past due as well). Simon and Schuster lost authors over holding onto Milo's book... but still they held on. Until this week. Conservatism didn't become "like this" yesterday. And Milo is a symptom, not the disease. Removing him addresses neither cause, nor cure.

So CPAC will offer up "President Trump" and plenty of other familiar lines of conservative anger and hate... and pretend Milo was a bad dream that maybe never even happened. That's what they do, over and over, as these once hot flavors "go too far" or the lies catch up to them. And suddenly, there's no speaking space for Ann Coulter. Or Sarah Palin. What a shame Milo couldn't hold it together long enough to provide another Outrage Du Jour...

Because, of course, what passes for conservatism these days is so utterly bankrupt and bereft of intellectual heft and interesting ideas that it is simply beyond embarrassing.  Literally. Everything about Milo's rise, his career, his galloping leaps toward greater fame... all of it was an embarrassment, a waste, a pointless exercise in watching a bratty child act out for others' amusement. Watching Milo's smirky, childish appearance on Maher - what little I could take - I figured it was a matter of time before something would wipe that smirk off his face. Two days later, no smirk. And a month from now, or a year... it's just another chance for another flavor of the month to rise.

If any good can come of this, I'd like to hope it comes from Milo reckoning with his own demons, working out his issues, finding some measure of personal grace. I wouldn't even necessarily mind the "I was a bratty jerk, but now I've changed" book he'll be pushing in a year, or two, or five... if he comes about it honestly, and expressively. That would at least show that someone is capable of growth and change. Because Lord knows, growth and change isn't going to come to the Conservative movement. Just another naughty bad boy, or girl, looking for attention. And getting it.

Thine Enemy, Known

In the short (what is this, day 11?) run of the nascent Administration, this is clearly a team with a small group of central figures exerting enormous control and influence over both internal White House processes, and the larger federal government. In part, that's a side effect of the surprise election, lack of planning and poor execution of this inexperienced team. In part, it's a kind of paranoia and right wing driven authoritarianism not seen since the Nixon years.

And God knows, that went well, right?

In these moments, it becomes essential to try and figure out what we face by figuring out who we face; in Nixon's Washington, that meant people trying to figure out HR Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, Nixon's two top lieutenants, who served as the President's principal policy men, enforcers, and strategists. And similarly, we are starting to figure out this President's inner circle... with one rather glaring exception.

Let's dispense with the easy ones - no one should have trouble reading Reince Priebus or figuring out where he's coming from - this is the former head of the RNC, a loyalist to his friends (like Ryan and Walker) from Wisconsin, trying to regroup after the seismic shift brough about by Trump. Kellyanne Conway, while important, does not seem to have real power, and her main role seems to be the same "say anything" approach she used to put Trump over during the campaign, a role similarly true for Sean Spicer. And New York based journalists have been doing a yeoman's job digging into Jared Kushner, his family and his past to get a sense of where he's coming from as both adviser and family support.

And that just leaves Steve Bannon.

By both rumor and facts on the ground, it seems clear that Bannon is the central player in Trump's hierarchy - he's consolidated control, sidelined potential opponents, and made himself central to almost every aspect of Trump's affairs (at least the presidential ones). Everything, from the ham handed "travel ban" executive order, to the tetchy "inaugural crowd" nonsense, to his own "I'm in charge now" order injecting him into the inner workings of the NSC bears his fingerprints and the reinforces centrality of his role. It's also telling that he's already insulating and isolating himself from speaking directly to the media, except in carefully chosen and controlled limited settings.

While we have some sense of Bannon's background and interests, and some selected quotes that seem to suggest at least some opinions on the issues of the day... I don't think we have an answer to a really key question that's driving this Administration in its first steps: what does Bannon want? What is his ultimate goal? It's a key question that's been lost in the fog (and yes, flood) of fast moving events and what some say is deliberate spectacle. Indeed, one question hanging over Bannon most centrally is wondering just how carefully planned all this spectacle and noise actually is.

From what I can see, the determining of Bannon's motivations for now is largely speculation and guesswork, based largely on the slender collection of quotes and comments he made in the past, and third hand anecdotes (at best). He's opinionated and controlling, may or may not harbor sympathies for white supremacists (or share some of their views), believes in some right wing ideology or possibly in nothing at all. Anarchy, nihilism, fascism, or simply plain old Republicanism... who can tell?

In part, this vagueness is a good indication of where, just now, journalism is failing us - too much noise and heat and repetition of how Bannon is hated or feared, not enough clear facts or supportive detail. In part, I suspect, the real story here is that Bannon's "philosophy" is just what it appears - badly formed, incoherent, self contradictory and vague. But until we know what's real, and what isn't with Bannon, we don't in fact know what we're dealing with. And the reality is, for now, that many people are flying blind, guessing at his motives, with no real sense of where this is going or what's coming next.

In a sense, yes, the confusion only adds to Bannon's mystique and sense of power. He's on the inside, only he knows how this works, and he's not showing his cards. Perhaps. If that's his plan for holding onto power, though, my guess is it's not going to last long. At some point, Bannon will be knowable, his views apparent, his plans plain. And once we know what we're dealing with, well, then we can deal with it. And at that point, we'll know if the real threat Bannon poses is just how extreme his views and plans actually are... or if all this sound and fury signifies, my bet, very little and a lot less  than it seems right now (I often wonder, for instance, where we'd be had Andrew Breitbart had lived - and just what he'd make of this sudden rise to power of Bannon).

In a moment driven largely by fear and intimidation - even as simple as fear of the unknown and the intimidation of unpredictable behavior - I wish fewer people were reacting in predictable ways, even knowing that being afraid and intimidated are the natural, expected reactions. Building up Bannon's mystique (have you looked at the guy?) serves nothing and no one except the man's surely already well inflated ego. It seems more useful to keep in mind that he's human, that they're making mistakes and doing things wrong and much of what's happening now simply builds the bad feeling that will come to haunt this Administration down the road. What little we do know is that Bannon-driven exercises aren't especially interested in building bridges, finding new allies, or trusting anyone beyond a small coterie of loyalists. A good CEO - never mind a great one - would realize the destructiveness of such tendencies to the larger organization. Trump seems blind, if not ignorant, to such realities.

No one, though, can afford to wait much longer to get Bannon figured out. The damage he's doing, by leaps and bounds and the pressing of pen to executive orders, is breathtaking. The damage he could yet do, even with some sense of resistance starting to build, is immense. "Know thine enemy." We are nowhere near that moment. Not yet. Time is running out... and he's just getting started.