Prepare yourself for the next round of “Steve Bannon is actually winning”

For weeks, numerous liberal political pundits bent over backward to portray Steve Bannon as “winning.” He wasn’t being indicted fast enough so he was going to get away with it all, or he was never going to be indicted, or something. This allowed these pundits to scare everyone into paying attention to them, while also portraying themselves as more aggressive than the Department of Justice. This kind of punditry is nothing new, and has long dominated the industry. But now that Bannon has been indicted, you’d think the pundits would at least back off from the “Bannon is winning” narrative. They won’t.

Here’s what we’ll see next. There’s a good chance Bannon will end up released on bail or placed under house arrest. It’s rare for people charged with this kind of crime to be kept in jail while awaiting trial, unless they’re specifically seen as a flight risk, which Bannon isn’t – in spite of all the doomsday narratives out there about how he’s going to magically flee the country before Monday.

Once this happens, the pundits will come out of the woodwork to portray Bannon’s bail or house arrest as a victory for him. They’ll insist that it’ll only serve to “embolden” him (“embolden” being a favorite scare word dusted off from the Trump era). They’ll insist Bannon wanted to be indicted and arrested so he can use it to raise money (nevermind that his legal defense costs will far outweigh any money he can raise).

All that matters is portraying Bannon as winning, because that’s how punditry works. In fact the pundits will beat up on the Department of Justice for not pushing harder for pretrial incarceration, because this will allow the pundits to once again declare Merrick Garland to be “weak” (part of being a successful pundit is painting yourself as more aggressive and competent than the “good guys” who are in charge).

Meanwhile back in the real world, that’s not how anything works. The Feds often want a habitual criminal like Bannon to get bail or house arrest, so it can monitor his communications, knowing that before long they’ll catch him trying to tamper with a witness or trying to raise dirty money to pay for his legal costs. Then the Feds can indict him for that as well. And those kinds of charges end up being slam dunk convictions. So the Feds can then push Bannon to simply cut a plea deal against bigger fish.

But while a few brave pundits will spell out all of the above, most pundits will simply go for the low hanging fruit by painting Steve Bannon as still somehow winning (even though his life is shattered and he’s on his way to prison), and by painting Garland and the DOJ as inept and weak.

We’re already seeing multiple pundits declare that Steve Bannon wanted to get indicted and arrested, because it’s all part of his secret evil genius master plan to take over. So if you think the pundits won’t spend Monday spinning Bannon’s arrest as a win for him, you’re forgetting just how absurd this has already gotten.

So prepare yourself for more doomsday punditry on Monday, even as the DOJ does to Steve Bannon exactly what the doomsday pundits were demanding that the DOJ do to Steve Bannon. It’s just how the game works. If you find this kind of defeatism exhausting, this is a timely reminder that you can in fact just tune the doomsday pundits out. Or better yet, you can let them know that you’re just not falling for it anymore, and maybe they’ll change their tune.