Alert the MAGA media! On October 29, inmate No. 05635-509 is scheduled for release from a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut.
The inmate’s name is Stephen Bannon, and the four-month sentence he served for contempt of Congress ends precisely one week before Election Day.
For three years, Bannon, a controversial, pro-Trump warrior and a former White House adviser, waged a legal battle to avoid prison after refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas to testify about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, in which he had allegedly been a key player and provocateur.
Bannon's release, with its movie-like timing, will be a Hollywood ending to modern America’s wildest and contentious presidential campaign. In the last week, Bannon could motivate Trump’s base as a “poster child” for his well-versed judicial weaponization and retribution themes.
Furthermore, Bannon will likely juice Trump’s get-out-the-vote effort to “save America” from ruin. In the distorted MAGA mindset, that means only Trump can stop bloated, wasteful government, domestic fascism, economic collapse, the migrant invasion, wokeism and anti-Christianity. Only Trump can reduce inflation and the national debt, increase energy production and end foreign entanglements — with time left over each day for a few hours of Fox News watching, to monitor his loyal subjects.
Bannon, to his credit, is a renowned policy wonk. He speaks “fluent Trumpism” at levels far above the candidate — why Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) called Bannon “the intellectual ringleader of the MAGA circus” — and opponents consider him more dangerous than Trump.
Upon exiting the lockup, Bannon will........