1) So, lets do a thought experiment on Fire and Fury, and I guess Bannon. Let me lay out the core assumptions first.
2) We're probably never going to know the full behind the scenes story of any of this. Really. This is all conjecture based on open sources.
3) We assume Trump is smart. Competent. You don't run a company that grows if you're not. You don't win the Presidency against someone who outspent you 2:1 if you're not.
4) We're not going to presume thoughts. We're not mind readers. I will not ascribe ego to Bannon or outright bias to Wolff. If we make those assumptions, we may miss something important.
5) So, assumptions/ground rules laid out and I presume accepted, if you're still reading. You might not be, who the fuck knows, hit like anyways you mindless fucking zombie.
6) Wolff writes a book. He can do two things with it. Pro Trump or Anti Trump. Straddling the fence will drive down sales, and writers want their books to be profit-maximizing endeavors. Why else write books if not to sell them?
7) The pro-Trump narrative is one of success, efficiency, effectiveness. The anti-Trump narrative is one of sheer bloody fucking chaos, aka the one the liberal media is selling, we dont see the pro-Trump narrative a lot.
8) So he writes to the larger audience. Anti-Trump hysteria.
9) Lets look at Trump. The transition process was a nightmare as it was very much a hostile takeover of a rival company. He's got open insurgency. Flynn got knocked out of the nomination HARD.
10) All eyes are on him and his team. His opposition knows they need to knock out team members to render him toothless. Its a good strategy, a full court press.
11) He needs chaos. He needs to protect his team by obfucsating everything. Who's important, who's influencing policy, policy goals, he needs to protect it all. So first, low level staffers make a game of leaking false shit to the press to see what they'll buy.
12) Then Bannon keeps walking Wolff around. He keeps him at arms length. See, here's where no one is lying.
13) Dafuq? I know. But thought experiment, roll with me. What if no one is lying, their truths just don't contradict each other. Trump in office didn't meet with Wolff and didn't let him into any meetings.
14) Best Sanders isn't lying when she said requests for additional access were denied. Bannon did keep letting Wolff hang around in the hallways. Chris Wallace is telling the truth that senior officials were told to talk to Wolff.
15) From couches in various hallways, Wolff thought he really did have an inside scoop, a fly on the wall perspective. And he was fed bullshit. He didnt see how meeting actually went, everything was second hand.
16) He's left with so little he HAS to embellish to or beyond his usual degree.
17) Does that square what we know? Trump sold the spy inside his White House misinformation, a story of chaos.
18) Sun Tzu said something about feeding known spies disinformation. @ThomasWictor can quote him. But for someone smart who lives by Sun Tzu, the concept makes sense.
19) So, Bannon. This is the enigma. He is losing EVERYTHING. His company, his funding, his allies, his credibility, his base, his very dignity (Sloppy Steve). He hasnt even defended himself yet.
20) Mr Fire and Brimstone fuck 'em all to death MAGA populist extraordinare isnt putting up a fight. Why?
21) Lets follow two paths. One, his ego got the best of him and he crashed and burned. As in this is all real.
22) Sloppy Steve is his forever name. Scaramucci and Donald Trump Jr's tag teaming on twitter was meant to wreck him. Trump went full scorched Earth.
23) Machiavelli says when you destroy an enemy, you destroy him so thoroughly he serves as an example to your other enemies. This looks like what is happening to him right now.
24) Sloppy Steve is making the ultimate sacrifice play, letting his destruction and the attack on Wolff's book cement the Trump Chaos narrative for the next few YEARS.
25) So, winning conditions. The desired achieved scenario.
26) Wolff wants to sell a shit ton of books. This mess is a win for him. Trump wants to continue to hide behind the Trump Chaos illusion. This controversy serves that purpose.
27) But what is BANNON after? What does he get working with Wolff's book? Solve this, and we solve everything about this situation.
28) Did his ego go ouf of control to the point that he bought into his own lies about Trumo Russia?
Did he do this specifically to create the perfect cover of incompetence for the Trump administration?
30) I don't know. Maybe I'm looking at the building blocks the wrong way. Maybe I need to stop worrying about it and just watch. Thats what I'm leaning towards
/end
