“Cuck” is a derisive term that emerged from Steve Bannon’s “alt-right” universe to essentially describe someone who sacrificed their manhood. The word originally stems from a man who has let his wife have sex with another man, and the Bannon universe extrapolated it to mean anyone who isn’t sufficiently manly (read: racist and/or sexist). This is the main vector the Pepe le Fascists attack, and anyone who does not meet the standards of their white nationalist hellscape is defined to have been “cucked.” Well, if debasing your manhood to entirely serve another man is cucking, then Steve Bannon is now the term’s mascot. Per Axios:
Battered by the backlash from Michael Wolff’s book, Steve Bannon is trying to make amends with the Trump family, providing a statement to Axios that expresses “regret” to President Trump and praises his son, Donald Trump Jr.
The irony is that had the White House not said much about Fire and Fury, we would all be talking about its myriad problems, and how Wolff’s credibility is further strained by accounts that he admits were recreated and not recorded verbatim. On top of it, there are plenty of proven falsehoods or misstatements in the book already. Instead, the White House has released a full court press against the book’s allegations, which, in its own way, confirmed some of it to be true. Allowing Wolff to be hung by his own lack of credibility is the only rational play here, and yet:
Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! https://t.co/mEeUhk5ZV9
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018
In the book, Bannon allegedly called the infamous meeting at Trump Tower between Paul Manafort, Don Jr., Jared Kushner and the Russian lawyer “treasonous,” and “even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.” Bannon also supposedly said of the meeting: “the chance that Don Jr did not walk these jumos up to his father’s office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero.”
Interestingly enough, Bannon’s new statement does not push back against Wolff’s reporting—aside from saying that his “treasonous” comment was aimed at Paul Manafort. However, Bannon did not say a word about his reported mortal enemy in the White House: Jared Kushner. If Bannon was the shrewd political operator that our media has portrayed him as, I’m pretty sure that he would have remembered to apologize to both the president’s favored sons during his attempt to get back in to our commander-in-tweet’s good graces. Instead, he sent a groveling letter to Axios that only tried to clear Trump Jr. from wrong-doing, while seemingly confirming his “treasonous” line that now implicates the president’s son-in-law. This is the closest he gets to pushing back against his words in Fire and Fury:
“I regret that my delay in responding to the inaccurate reporting regarding Don Jr has diverted attention from the president’s historical accomplishments in the first year of his presidency.”
Wolff says he doesn’t want to put Bannon in any more hot water, but, responding to his statement, says, “It was not directed at Manafort, it was directed directly at Don Jr.”
— Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) January 8, 2018
The truth of the matter is that Steve Bannon is a charlatan with more money than sense. The man anointed by the mainstream media over the past year as a supposed political genius called two members of Trump’s family “treasonous,” and his apology is only pointed towards one of them—yet it does not push back on the characterization of the meeting—it only clarifies who was “treasonous” by taking the meeting. From a legal standpoint, Bannon’s apology creates more problems for Team Trump than it solves, and according to Politico, “it did nothing to quell Trump’s rage.”
Per the definition created by Bannon’s legion of losers, Steve Bannon cucked Steve Bannon. He completely debased himself, and sacrificed any measure of pride in order to curry favor with Dear Leader—only to have his pleas swatted away by a man without a fully-functioning brain—proving that Steve Bannon’s mental capacity is closer to your average YouTube commenter than a White House adviser. The fact that a “populist” whose only real successes have come via Hollywood, Goldman Sachs and centralizing the racist corners of the web was able to invade the Republican Party says all you need to know about the present state of the conservative movement. Bannon’s fraudulence is an ideal example for the inherent contradiction that is modern American conservatism.
In the span of a year, Steve Bannon has gone from supposed genius to groveling at the feet of America’s least respected citizen. He has tied his brand to that of the president’s, and Trump’s response to Bannon’s alleged words forces their racist followers to choose between two incompetent white nationalist demigods. Given that one is the most powerful person on Earth and the other just runs a website, it’s clear which side the deplorables will choose—leaving Bannon out in the cold. Steve Bannon let Trump take his money and his followers, all while publicly debasing himself in an apology that was not accepted by Trump. Bravo, Cuck Bannon.
Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling.