Opinion | Steve Bannon’s still pushing Trump’s ‘election integrity’ agenda – By Zeeshan Aleem (MSNBC) / Sept 30, 2022
How grassroots right-wing activists focused on “election integrity” are channeling Steve Bannon’s ethos.
Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon once proclaimed that his approach to fighting Democrats was to aggressively game media narratives — specifically to “flood the zone with s—.” The idea, typified by Trump’s political campaigns and extremist right-wing media outlets like Breitbart, was to tar one’s opponents using a firehose of misinformation and disinformation. The effect was to disorient the public and generate suspicion among not just Republicans but also independents and even some Democrats.
Today grassroots right-wing activists focused on “election integrity” are channeling Bannon’s “flood the zone” ethos themselves. Normal people may not be able to leak influential half-truths and disinformation to reporters the way influential politicos like Bannon can, but they can generate controversy and a false aura of scandal through organized stunts.
An unsettling example can be found in a recent New York Times report that identified a “loosely coordinated campaign” ahead of the midterm elections to toss out tens of thousands of ballots and voter registrations in a number of states:
“Groups in Georgia have challenged at least 65,000 voter registrations across eight counties, claiming to have evidence that voters’ addresses were incorrect. In Michigan, an activist group tried to challenge 22,000 ballots from voters who had requested absentee ballots for the state’s August primary. And in Texas, residents sent in 116 affidavits challenging the eligibility of more than 6,000 voters in Harris County, which is home to Houston and is the state’s largest county.”
