‘Evil takes no breaks’: Warnings as Steve Bannon vows to take over America’s entire ‘election apparatus’

Mr Bannon has been indicted on contempt charges for refusing to cooperate with Congress’s investigation into the Capitol riot

Former Donald Trump advisor and right wing extremist podcaster Steve Bannon has vowed that he will take over the entire "election apparatus" of the US.

Mr Bannon, who has been indicted on contempt charges for refusing to cooperate with the congressional investigation into the 6 January Capitol riot, made the comments on Monday.

He claimed that he and his cohort were going to get the 2020 election "decertified”, as he continues to push the incorrect and fraudulent narrative that Mr Trump actually won the election. The election cannot be decertified.

He said that he was happy Democrats were focused on the Omicron variant of the coronavirus and the Capitol riot, because "nobody cares”.

"We care because we care about the legitimacy of our process. We are a constitutional republic. And guess what, we are going to take over the election apparatus,” he said, further suggesting that "American citizens" would help him in his desire to derail US democracy.

“I understand you don’t think that’s democracy because the globalists have done the misdirection plays and had everyone looking the other way,” he said, apparently addressing MSNBC producers that he believes watch his podcast.

Naturally Mr Bannon’s words caused a stir on social media.

Mr Bannon has made numerous inflammatory statements on his podcast, such as saying he would put the head of Dr Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, on a pike outside the White House to deter those who considered standing against Mr Trump.

Part of Mr Bannon's plan to hijack America's democracy is by encouraging his listeners to sign up to serve as precinct committeemen, which are low-level positions in local political party governance. People in these positions often serve as election workers and are influential in selecting the individuals who serve on local elections boards.

"He's creating an army of duped people who will go into positions helping to run elections with the false understanding that the 2020 election was stolen. Who knows what such people are capable of doing when in charge of running polling places or counting votes," Rick Hasen, a law professor and the director of the Fair Elections and Free Speech Centre at the University of California, told CNN.

Though data does not exist to show what impact Mr Bannon's words have had directly, ProPublica did find that there has been a surge of right-wing interest in serving in these positions after Mr Bannon began encouraging people to sign up.

Similar instances of extremist right-wing individuals seeking local offices have has been noted at the school board level, as conservative parents who oppose mask mandates and who focus on culture war boogeymen like Critical Race Theory have joined school board races.

Mr Bannon has not just been accused of motivating conservatives to run for public positions in order to "take over" the election apparatus, but of being a mastermind of the 6 January attack on the Capitol as well.

Longtime Trump ally and political hatchet-man Rodger Stone recently posted on Telegram that Mr Bannon was the one who gave the order to "breach" the Capitol on 6 January.

"It is highly likely that Bannon really gave the order to breach the capital [sic] and maneuvered patriots into dangerous positions,” he wrote. “A neophyte Steve Bannon was willing to try crazy things like this to curry favor with Trump who had a [sic] no interest in Bannon’s bulls***.”

Mr Stone, who went to prison in part for lying to federal investigators, reportedly hates Mr Bannon, so his claims should be treated with extreme scepticism. During Mr Stone's trial, Mr Bannon testified that Mr Trump's campaign viewed Mr Stone as an "access point" to Wikileaks. Mr Stone said Mr Bannon had given false testimony against him during the trial.

In previous rants on right wing social media platform Gab, Mr Stone has publicly fantasised about seeing Mr Bannon and Chris Ruddy, the CEO of far-right TV channel Newsmax, naked, chained together, and forced to fight to the death.

Despite his grudge, there may be some truth to Mr Stone's words; during Mr Bannon's own show, former Trump official Peter Navarro said the podcaster was a "hero" for coming up with the "strategy to go up to Capitol Hill" on 6 January.

“So many people said, ‘Man, if I was in a revolution, I would be in Washington.’ Well, this is your time in history .... we’re on the point of attack tomorrow ... it’s game day,” Mr Bannon said on his show on 5 January.

Mr Bannon's alleged ties to the events of 6 January were further highlighted in the book "Peril," written by Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

“We are going to kill it in the crib, kill the Biden presidency in the crib,” Mr Bannon allegedly said.

“If Republicans could cast enough of a shadow on Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, Bannon said, it would be hard for Biden to govern. Millions of Americans would consider him illegitimate. They would ignore him,” the book said.

Mr Bannon is set to go to trial in his contempt case on 18 July.