(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
"Elections have consequences, and after all, it was me who won." That's what then-elected President Obama told Eric Cantor in the first days of the presidency, during debates over the stimulus package Democrats hoped would reverse the financial crisis. It is also, albeit in a completely different way, the reason for Errol Morris' new documentary American Dharma, about the former head of Breitbart; Trump strategist and populist crusader Steve Bannon. Whatever you think of him – and if you read this, I think I know exactly what you think of him, and probably what you think Morris gives him a platform – the fact is that he won, in a sense, to and with more than Trump did, and that matters. We should all try to find out exactly what that meaning is.
Revolution
Many have pointed out that American Dharma joins nicely next to Morris' portraits of Robert S. McNamara in The Fog of War (2003) and Donald Rumsfeld i The Unknown Known (2013), forming a kind of trilogy over a peculiar American evil of banality. One could also bring Standard Domestic Procedure (2008) and Mr. Death (1999), although the film is stylistically at a level much closer to last year's Netflix docudrama Wormwood.
Unfortunately, the film greatly diminishes the impression of extensive investigative work; In important places, Bannon simply takes the turn for Morris. As a character of the time, Morris meets the wall when he rarely gets the opportunity to try to grill Bannon, who – as I see it, at least – imitates Mitch McConnell, who stubbornly refused to answer questions he didn't like, and in addition, use the Internet trolls tactics; to deny truths. Morris ends up filling the silence himself, putting forth something that Bannon can turn back to his own points instead of letting the tension quake.
Morris fails to reveal Bannon's trick.
Morris is better at getting Bannon to talk long and long about his favorite movies – that is American Dharmas gimmick – which includes My Darling Clementine, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Twelve O'Clock High og Chimes at Midnight, and the idea of "dharma" [greatly simplified: a law or principle governing the world, overs. notes] that Bannon finds in them. By uncovering the melodramatic inner forces of Bannon's psyche, this approach has some value. The problem is that Bannon is too important to let this happen; he was the brain behind what was actually a revolution, if not in the name. He must be taken seriously, not just as a person, but as a political force.
Stikk
To a certain point, Bannon's audience of audience is pretty insightful – he won, after all, despite the fact that no one thought he could or would not. As long as he talks about how the political and financial establishment is out of touch with the people, about how people are alienated and impoverished and angry, and talks about the new roles media and technology play in people's lives, I follow him. Bernie Sanders could have said the same things. But when Bannon denies the obvious racist and xenophobic roots of his political stances, and refuses to realize the extent to which he, Trump, and all their cronies er precisely the establishment they are raging against, yes he will lose me. Although he tries, Morris fails to reveal Bannon's trick; the strange alchemy that transforms a fundamental leftist critique of power and government into an outer right ideology.
A leftist criticism of power is transformed into an outer right ideology.
It's too wrong, because there's no doubt that Bannon is no fool – a cynical nihilist who only believes in power, yes, but no fool. I am genuinely curious about the way Bannon and his like-minded rationalize their ideology, because it does not in any way follow their reasoning. He really should have been a revolutionary socialist – he apparently considered himself a Leninist. Morris has said that he has no hope of breaking Bannon or admitting mistakes, but that is not what is missing here. It is an intellectual question.
