War Room host and former Trump strategist Steve Bannon spoke without notes for nearly forty minutes on Monday night to a crowd of several hundred GOP delegates and visitors at the bi-annual convention of the Greenville County Republican Party.
Bannon, who received two standing ovations, was the evening's keynote speaker and was preceded at the podium by South Carolina Congresswoman and potential gubernatorial candidate Nancy Mace and embattled state treasurer Curtis Loftis, who said that he was not giving up and was running for another term, despite opposition from members of the state Senate.
Bannon spoke out against the 'Deep State' and the RINO's (Republicans in Name Only) and praised the members of the audience for taking power “back from the establishment.”
Several times Bannon linked the current MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement with the patriots who fought the British redcoats at the battle of Lexington and Concord, which is a timely reference since, as he noted, this Saturday is the 250th anniversary of the 'shot heard 'round the world.'
Bannon asserted that there was no more powerful political convention this year than the one in Greenville. Why? “You are ordinary Americans with no money and you grabbed power from the establishment. . . As working-class and middle-class people you used your agency. That's what they hate most about what you are doing.”
Bannon continued, “They want you sitting on the sofa, they want you watching Netflix and just sitting there, not doing what the patriots at Lexington and Concord did, which is get up and fight to take your country back. There is an unbroken chain from Lexington and Concord right here in this convention hall. Everyone of you are exactly like those patriots. . . They fear a free people coming together.”
Bannon continued to exhort the members of the MAGA crowd, “We have to get engaged. The Rep Party is not going to save us. Fox News is not going to save us. We have to save ourselves.”
Despite a break with Donald Trump during Trump's first administration, the former Trump strategist had a lot of praise for the crowd's hero.
In fact, Bannon put Trump on a pedestal with Presidents Washington and Lincoln, connecting the three with pivotal points in American history – Washington at the birth of the nation, Lincoln at the rebirth of the nation and Trump at the rejuvenation of the nation.
Bannon praised Trump's decision to reenter the political fray instead of just simply retiring to his home at Maralago. “It could be an easy life, but he didn't choose that path. He made a conscious decision with intention.”
Trump, according to Bannon, has not only had to fight the Democrats, but also the RINO's, whom he unmasked, as well as the “sociopathic overlords of Wall Street, global corporatists, the apartheid state oligarchs and Silicon Valley.”
Bannon praised Trump for standing up for the working man and working woman and also praised his audience, telling them that they had Trump's back and that that is why they got their country back.
Trump is working hard to “deconstruct the administrative state and destroy the deep state” said Bannon. “No country on earth has been betrayed by the elites of their nation like the United States of America in the 21st Century.” He said that they did it for money, not ideology. He said that Trump and the MAGA movement stand in their way.
Bannon concluded with a warning, “We are in a far greater danger than the patriots of 1775 and 1776, greater than even the Civil War, greater than World War II and the lead up to it. This is the greatest peril this nation's ever had because the forces lined up against us are not only international forces but the traitors on Wall Street and corporate America and Silicon Valley. The only thing that stands between it is Trump and you.”
After Bannon left the stage, the business portion of the convention began. Unlike 2023's convention, in which two almost evenly divided factions vied for control of the party, Monday's proceedings were an unchallenged cake walk for Jeff Davis, who was voted in as chairman, a position he held from 2021-2023.
Davis was nominated by his wife, Olga Lisinska, who described her husband as “hardworking and uncompromised.”
Yvonne Julian, the retiring chairman, was voted in as executive committeeman. She will represent the county at the state executive committee level. Mike Voaden was chosen as vice-chairman. Since there were no challengers, all three were voted on by acclimation, although Davis received three or four 'No' votes.
Several hundred former members of the party who were opposed to the Davis/Julian slate in 2023 declined to take part this time around. This 'boycott' was a strategy to withhold thousands of dollars of convention fees from going into the hands of a party with whose leadership they disagree.
562 credentialed delegates attended the convention, a smaller number than attended recent conventions. The convention in 2023 was attended by 891 delegates. 1,286 is the number provided for having 'attended' the 2021 'convention,' which was held remotely at the height of the COVID.
Ron White attended Monday night's convention but was disappointed when he found out that he would not be allowed to serve as a delegate because of some confusion at reorg, which took place in March.
Reorg is a process that occurs every two years when, by law, the precincts are reorganized. Two different locations were given as to where his precinct was to meet. He attended the one that was not recognized by the party, thus his name was not on the official delegate list at the credentialing table.
351 names were on the ballot to be selected as delegates to the South Carolina state convention, which will be held in early May. Greenville, the largest of the county delegations in the state, has been allotted 90 seats.
A 'GCRP America First MAGA Caucus' list of 180 recommended candidates was given out to delegates. For those attendees who did not wish to peruse the ballot and mark names individually, a box was provided at the top of the ballot followed by the wording “I vote for the America First list of recommended candidates to go to our state convention on May 3.”
A few hundred non-credentialed visitors also attended the convention. Before the convention, about 20 or so sign-holding protesters stood on the sidewalk at the entrance of the convention center as conventioneers drove in.
