Steve bannon

Can nationalists of the world unite?

Want to lecture people about the anti-globalism trend that is supposedly sweeping the West? It goes without saying that you must refer to Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, followed by mentioning the right-wing (‘nationalist,’ ‘populist’ or ‘illiberal’ or ‘far-right’ could substitute as adjectives) political parties that rule Hungary, Poland, and more recently, Italy. After all, they want to Make Poland/ Hungary/Italy Great Again!

steve bannon nationalism

Who’s afraid of Steve Bannon?

The New Yorker’s cancellation of Steve Bannon’s appearance at the New Yorker Ideas Festival shows that the New Yorker has no idea what it is doing. Not because it invited Bannon to be interviewed on stage by New Yorker editor David Remnick, but because Remnick reneged on the invitation only eight hours later, and because the reneging was so hasty that it cannot be presented as a thoughtful statement of journalistic principle. It looks more like the result of panic and fear, the emotions that Steve Bannon, by his own admission, exploited so successfully in 2016. https://twitter.com/JuddApatow/status/1036732535957422080 The New Yorker in turn attempted to exploit Bannon’s whiff of sulphur.

Don’t call it a comeback: The resurfacing of Steve Bannon

Steve Bannon is planning his political comeback. But don’t tell him that; in Bannon’s eyes, he never really stopped being a combatant in the war against the elitist cabal. A few years ago, Bannon was a figure on the fringe of the American political spectrum. He may have commanded a loyal group of readers from his chair at Breitbart, but Steve Bannon only became a household name in America when then-candidate Donald Trump hired him in August 2016 to turn around a flailing and chaotic campaign. Trump was mocked as a laughing stock when Bannon came onboard.

steve bannon

What happens when you give Steve Bannon a platform? Fascinating television, apparently

If the BBC really is, as Steve Bannon says, a communications department of the global elite, they messed up badly last night. Emily Maitlis’s 20-minute long interview with Bannon on Newsnight was mesmerising television — even, or especially, if you can’t bear the subject. It was also the longest advertisement for economic nationalism yet delivered to British viewers. No doubt Raheem Kassam, the close Bannon associate who’s just left Breitbart and has been on Newsnight a few times himself, had something to do with it.By airing the discussion, the Beeb disproves the Bannonite idea that it is part of an elite conspiracy to silence populist points of view on immigration.

‘I’m fascinated by Mussolini’

We are in a hotel suite at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Zurich when Stephen K. Bannon tells me he adores the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. But let’s be clear. Bannon — as far as I can tell — is not a fascist. He is, however, fascinated by fascism, which is understandable, as its founder Benito Mussolini, a revolutionary socialist, was the first populist of the modern era and the first tabloid newspaper journalist. Il Duce, realising that people are more loyal to country than class, invented fascism, which replaced International Socialism with National Socialism. He was thus able to ‘weaponise’ — to use a favourite Bannon word — what the people wanted. Bannon is now touring Europe to weaponise what lots of European people seem to want, which is national populism.

What becomes of Breitbart without Steve Bannon?

How quickly Steve Bannon's dark star has collapsed. Not so long ago, friends and enemies talked him up as a media genius. He was a political guerrilla operative you underrated at your peril. He was ‘Trump's Rasputin’, or ‘President Bannon’, the man who really controlled the White House. Then he lost his job in said White House, fell out with Donald J Trump, and now, a few days after the publication of his comments in Michael Wolff's book, he has stood down as head of Breitbart news. The power that Bannon represented turned out to have been the Mercer family, who had bankrolled Bannon, Breitbart and Trump's campaign.

Steve Bannon’s thirst for revenge is a big worry for Trump

Donald Trump is becoming increasingly unbuttoned. Last night, he tweeted referring to Kim Jong–un that: 'I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my button works!’ To Trump, size matters. Yesterday was a big—or bigly—day for Trump. He started it off by taking a swipe at Hillary Clinton’s former aide Huma Abedin, declaring that she should be locked up for email malfeasance, an old charge that he periodically resuscitates. For good measure, he fulminated about the 'Deep State' at the Justice Department that be believes, or purports to believe, is conniving to shield Hillary Clinton from prosecution and to undermine him.