Breitbart's Stephen Bannon As White House Strategist Widely Condemned
/Steve Bannon's Dream: A Worldwide Ultra-Right The Daily Beast
Steve Bannon was officially named Donald Trump's chief strategist today. A new position??? It seems that he has made his first move to bring alt-right nationalist groups to power worldwide.
Marion Le Pen, daughter of Marine Le Pen's French Nationalist party and presidential candidate, confirmed today that Steve Bannon reached out to her about the Trump organization working with her for a French nationalist victory.
Paris-based Christopher Dickey writes that speculation is running wild that Trump and Bannon may be interested in taking down Theresa May, Britain's new prime minister. While May is proceeding with honoring and executing the Brexit vote, our American boys think she's wasn't positive enough -- in fact she voted against Brexit -- and should probably be dispensed with.
"Bannon's support for European far-right parties runs far deeper than his interest in Marion Maréchal-Le Pen or the National Front. He brags about his international Breitbart operation as “the platform” for the American alt-right, and has for years been thinking globally, with an affinity for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), Alternative for Germany (AfD), and the Freedom Party in the Netherlands (PVV), all of which have earned glowing coverage on the pages of Breitbart.
But the election of Bannon’s man Donald Trump as president of the United States has made the globalization of Breitbart and its message infinitely more plausible than it ever was before, and politicians once considered Europe’s deplorables are now rushing to bask in the gilded glow of Trump and Bannon.
On Saturday, Britain’s Nigel Farage, whose blatant and acknowledged lies helped convince his countrymen to opt out of the European Union in the Brexit vote, visited the president-elect in his eponymous 5th Avenue tower.
Farage emerged from the meeting looking like he’d just won the jackpot at one of the pre-bankruptcy Trump casinos, suggesting that the new president’s “inner team” was not too happy with Tory Prime Minister Theresa May, since she’d been skeptical of Brexit before the vote. Would that “inner team” be Bannon? In our post-factual world, maybe we can say, “People say …”
Breitbart, which currently runs an office in London, certainly has plans to expand in France and Germany with new bureaus to cultivate and promote the populist-nationalist lines there."
Critics See Stephen Bannon, Trump's Pick for Strategist, as Voice of Racism The New York Times
Contressional Republicans are largely silent on the decision of president-elect Trump to appoint Stephen Bannon as his chief scientist. Civil rights groups, Democrats and select Republican Party strategists denounced the decision.
Trump adviser and campaign manager Kellyanne Conway defended Bannon, calling him the "general of this campaign" and suggesting that "people should look at the full résumé".
In a bit of a mind twister, Conway rejected criticism that Bannon has a connection to right-wing, nationalist views or that he would advise from this perspective in the White House. This makes no sense, given Sunday's announcement that Bannon & Trump had already reached out to offer support to French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.
Pelosi says Trump's chief strategist is a 'white nationalist' Politico
Nancy Pelosi condemned Steve Bannon's appointment as chief strategist in the incoming Trump administration, calling him a "white nationalist" and arguing that his promotion suggested Trump would continue "the divisive vision that defined his campaign."
“Bringing Steve Bannon into the White House is an alarming signal that President-elect Trump remains committed to the hateful and divisive vision that defined his campaign,” the California Democrat and House minority leader said in a Monday statement.
3 Thoughts On Steve Bannon As White House 'Chief Strategist' Daily Wire
When I left Breitbart back in March, I accused Bannon of turning Breitbart News into Trump Pravda; as I wrote, “Indeed, Breitbart News, under the chairmanship of Steve Bannon, has put a stake through the heart of Andrew’s legacy. In my opinion, Steve Bannon is a bully, and has sold out Andrew’s mission in order to back another bully, Donald Trump; he has shaped the company into Trump’s personal Pravda, to the extent that he abandoned and undercut his own reporter.”
That decision paid off for Bannon – in August, he became Trump’s campaign “CEO.” At that point, I wrote this piece describing who Bannon was, and this one for The Washington Post describing his probable impact on the campaign.
With Bannon’s accession to a top White House role, it’s time to answer some brief questions about the man and what he’s likely to do.
White Nationalism in the White House by Jamelle Bouie Slate
Breitbart’s most prominent columnist, Milo Yiannopoulos, is an ambassador of sorts for the movement, traveling to college campuses with a message that blends virulent, old-fashioned racism with a flamboyant persona and a nominal commitment to “free speech.” Breitbart has a simple message: that Muslims and Hispanics are infiltrating America and robbing it of its cultural heritage; that blacks are responsible for most crime and disorder; that feminists have established a near-matriarchy that has disadvantaged men; that “globalists”—embodied by George Soros—are erasing national borders and sapping prosperity from the United States (a classic anti-Semitic smear that eventually surfaced in Trump’s rhetoric).
There’s evidence Bannon shares these views. In a 2007 court document, Bannon’s ex-wife Mary Louise Piccard accused him of anti-Semitism, saying he didn’t want their daughters attending the elite Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles because of its high Jewish enrollment. “The biggest problem he had with Archer is the number of Jews that attend,” Piccard said in a statement signed June 27, 2007, where she also alleged domestic violence from Bannon. According to conservative writer Ben Shapiro, who worked as “editor-at-large” of Breitbart for four years before his anti-Trump views brought waves of anti-Semitic harassment, Bannon “openly embraced the white supremacist alt-right,” strategically pushing “white ethno-nationalism as a legitimate response to political correctness.”
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