Politico reminds us that Donald Trump was not Stephen Bannon's first pick to destroy the country.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Steve Bannon thought he had found his perfect presidential candidate. This person was “an outsider,” someone who was “not part of the political establishment,” “not for sale,” with “an ‘America First’ foreign policy approach” and “a ‘Drain the Swamp’ mentality about Washington, DC.” What Bannon loved most was how this person seemed to “put the American worker—the little guy—first.” 

Except Bannon wasn’t thinking about Donald Trump. The dream candidate he had in mind? Sarah Palin.

Years before the partisan provocateur of the 2016 cycle hitched himself to the upstart populist billionaire from New York, Bannon openly fantasized about transforming the former governor of Alaska into the very kind of anti-politician who could humiliate the elites of both parties, the very kind of norm-defying outsider that Trump, with Bannon’s help, would ultimately prove to be. So he put all his energy into helping the self-described Mama Grizzly eat Washington’s lunch.

Politico then goes on to share with their readers information that is quite well known by those us here on IM.

In fact I wrote about that very fact way back in August when Bannon first jumped on board.

However Politco offers a little more information from behind the scenes:

This was back in 2011 and Bannon, a filmmaker whose credits at the time included an homage to Ronald Reagan and two films on the Tea Party movement, told the National Review that he saw “a direct lineage” between the Tea Party movement and the Reagan Revolution, and he was desperate to find a contemporary Reagan. For Bannon, the upcoming 2012 election was an opportunity to “fight for the soul of the Republican Party.” He told an audience in Chicago in July of that year, “If we want to get eviscerated and have another 2008, all we have to do is run an establishment Republican.” 

It was just a few months earlier that Rebecca Mansour, currently a writer at Breitbart and previously an aide and speechwriter to Sarah Palin, reached out to Bannon to ask if he would make some short videos for a potential Palin presidential campaign. Mansour told Politico recently that Bannon was enthusiastic about her boss’s potential candidacy; it was Bannon, she said, who identified Palin as an “outsider” with a “drain the swamp” mentality. Bannon saw in Palin someone who, in his own words, presented “an existential threat to not just the progressive left, but also to the entrenched country club Republican Party.”

Bannon as it turned out did not produce those short videos that Mansour requested, instead he produced "The Undefeated" which beatified, and white washed her faults, to the point that she no longer even resembled the person Alaskans knew her to be:

Appearing on The Palin Update, a radio show hosted by Sarah Palin obsessive Kevin Scholla on Scholla’s independent network Mama Grizzly Radio, in September 2011, Bannon remarked, “I couldn’t make this film about any other political leader in the country.” He added, “I love all things Palin…Whether she becomes a candidate or not for the presidency, I think these big broad themes of her life and her political life are going to play out on the national level over the next couple of years.” 

Despite the urging from Bannon Palin finally told her moronic followers that she was not going to run for president (You're welcome America.), but that did not stop Bannon from pining over her.

Which ultimately led to this:

On June 16, 2015, Trump announced his candidacy, and the very next day Sarah Palin heaped praise on the billionaire real estate mogul in a Facebook post, saying, “he’s doing something right.” 

Steve Bannon apparently took notice. On July 12, 2015, he penned another column for Breitbart, this one lauding Trump’s 2011 book Time to Get Tough: “Trump’s book clearly lays out serious policy solutions to vexing U.S. problems. Welfare reform, cyberwarfare, energy, illegal immigration and crime, taxes, healthcare, national defense—you name it, Trump offers his plans, often including specific bills and amendments. Best of all, Trump does it all in his refreshingly blunt and authentic voice—the very voice now resonating with a citizenry fed up with the Political Class and its conceits.” 

Then, two weeks later, Bannon made the Palin-Trump populist connection explicitly clear – with a dose of Reagan adulation for good measure. Trump appeared on The Palin Update hosted by Breitbart’s Scholla. During the show, Trump spoke of his admiration for Palin and drew comparisons between himself and the former Alaska governor, while Scholla added that Trump’s leadership style reminded him not only of Palin’s leadership but also of Reagan’s.

So as I have been saying sense the very beginning, without a Sarah Palin there would have been no president-elect Trump.

And now we have even clearer evidence as to how this all came to be.

• Bannon and the angry teabaggers love Sarah Palin.
• Sarah Palin decides not to run for president, but four years later endorses Donald Trump.
• Now Stephen Bannon and the angry teabaggerss, along with the neo-Nazis, racists, and uneducated simpletons love Donald Trump.
• They cannot have their dream of a Palin presidency, so they settle instead for helping (Along with Russia, the FBI, and Wikileaks of course.) this pussy grabbing megalomaniac win the White House instead. 

And now we all get to live in a country as imagined by the dumbest, most gullible, most easily manipulated Americans.

I feel like we're in one of those monster movies where the heroes band together to stop the creature only to learn afterwards that it laid an egg and now the creature 2.0 is descending on the town and they have no more resources to stop it.