What the Bannon factor tells us about Trump

[jayjay]

@elucidator

Drastic medicine, but the situation calls for it. Go to their site. Scan headlines, click on anything that looks like it might reflect on race or ethnicity. Read the comments. Good God, not all of them! Just enough to get the tone of it. Check back with us so we know you’re OK.

When they AGREE with his positions, they won’t see them as racist/sexist/xenophobic, because OF COURSE THEY can’t be racist/sexist/xenophobic…

[jayjay]

On the other hand, some of us can differentiate. Milo Yiannopolous is openly gay. So am I. But I think he’s a racist/sexist/self-hating vile asshole and can differentiate between that and myself.

[elucidator]

Well, take LBJ. I’ve long been interested in him as an historical figure, the man was a tornado of contradictions. But what I think is that he was a racist to his bones, born and bred. And he knew it. And he knew it was wrong. He was never really comfortable with black people, he was awkward.

Nonetheless, he worked hard to support the principles he believed in. He knew he was handing the South to the Republicans, he did it anyway. Did it Texas style, politicking, brow beating, arm twisting and double dealing.

I admire someone who wrestles with his failings, and works to not inflict them on others. People who never had such failings to begin with? Better, worse? Way over my pay grade, that judgement must be left to Whomsoever.

[HurricaneDitka]

@elucidator

Drastic medicine, but the situation calls for it. Go to their site. Scan headlines, click on anything that looks like it might reflect on race or ethnicity. Read the comments. Good God, not all of them! Just enough to get the tone of it. Check back with us so we know you’re OK.

Is Bannon making the comments? If not, why would reading them inform me about his ideology?

[ganthet]

@weird_al_einstein

yes, i saw them. Which of these is supposed to support this “hateful neo-nazi white nationalist” thesis, and why?

Steven Bannon told Mother Jones back in July that “we’re the platform for the alt-right.” He was presumably talking about the Trump campaign since he had previously stepped away from Breitbart when he took the campaign job. But, it’s probably fair to say that Breitbart is equally if not more associated with the alt-right than the Trump campaign.

These stories are pretty good indicators of what the underlying ethnic core message of the alt-right might be:

@breitbart's "Why white people seek black privilege"

The imprimatur of black victimhood allows defense of the indefensible, as the black lives matter movement has demonstrated. Michael brown attacked a police officer and tried to grab his gun, then charged him before he was shot. Brown was black; the officer was white. Naturally, brown’s name is now a synonym for heroic sainthood in the name of black martyrdom. That’s because, as one black lives matter protester told hillary clinton, “this is and has always been a white problem of violence. There’s not much that we can do [as black people] to stop the violence against us.”

Americans across the political spectrum embrace the myth that blacks are treated unfairly disproportionately in the justice system and are largely victims of white violence. It isn’t true.

or

@breitbart's "Federal Reserve: Illegal immigrants take teenagers' summer jobs"

Native-born american teenagers are as much in need of gaining valuable life lessons about earning money and taking responsibility as their parents and grand-parents were. It is not their lack of ambition, but rather politicians’ unwillingness to secure the borders and police hiring of illegal aliens that are causing young people real harm.

or

@breitbart's "An establishment conservatives' guide to the alt-right"

The really interesting members of the alt-right though, and the most numerous, are the natural conservatives… They want to build their homogeneous communities, sure — but they don’t want to commit any pogroms along the way. Indeed, they would prefer non-violent solutions.

…

Natural conservatives know that a zero-sum battle with this group would end in stalemate or defeat. Their goal is a new consensus, where liberals compromise or at least allow conservative areas of their countries to reject the status quo on race, immigration and gender. Others, especially neoreactionaries, seek exit: A peaceful separation from liberal cultures.

In short, they want what every people fighting for self-determination in history have ever wanted, and what progressives are always telling us people should be allowed — unless those people are white. This hypocrisy is what has led so many trump voters — groups who have in many cases not voted since the 1970s or 80s — to come out of the woodwork and stand up for their values and culture.

[ganthet]

@HurricaneDitka

Is Bannon making the comments? If not, why would reading them inform me about his ideology?

Bannon became executive chairman of Breitbart in March 2012 and has been in this role until July/August 2016. All of the articles cited so far that I am aware of were published in this window. He guided Breitbart into its more alt-right direction, though Andrew Breitbart himself was at least borderline alt-right. If Bannon disagreed or had any particular objection to an article, his position gave him complete power to change or deep-six it.

Just as it’s fair to attribute overall opinions of the Washington Post editorial staff to its publisher and CEO (Fred Ryan), so too is it fair to attribute the overall opinions of Breitbart from March 2012 to July/August 2016 to Bannon. Especially since many of Breitbart’s articles are essentially editorials that freely mix fact, opinion, and subjective conclusion.

[HurricaneDitka]

I think you are grasping at straws here. To make things simple: what is the single most racist thing Bannon has ever said or done?

[marshmallow]

Come on guys, this liberal elitism and rush to judgment is why Trump won. Bannon is suffering from economic anxiety. You have to listen and understand or Alex Jones will be America’s next president.

[elucidator]

…They want to build their homogeneous communities, sure — but they don’t want to commit any pogroms along the way. Indeed, they would prefer non-violent solutions…

Damned white of them!

[Little_Nemo]

@HurricaneDitka

Maybe Democrats should lay off the doomsday language the next time Republicans run a McCain or a Romney. Now they just look like the boy who cried “wolf”

As I recall, the main accusation against McCain was that he was pandering too much to the right wing by naming an unqualified Sarah Palin as his running mate. The main accusation against Romney was that he was a privileged insider who would steer government policy towards other privileged insiders. And, as a bonus, the main accusation against George W. Bush was that he made bad decisions because he didn’t get enough information. Which of these are you going to dispute?

Maybe you need to start listening to the Democrats when they’re warning you you’re making a mistake.

[jayjay]

@Little_Nemo

Maybe you need to start listening to the Democrats when they’re warning you you’re making a mistake.

And just because Trump won doesn’t mean it wasn’t a mistake that you’ll regret eventually.

[OriginalGangster]

Bannon pick could mean a few things.

He knows he won’t actually be president (or doesn’t want to be), so the Bannon pick is just trolling.

Second possibility, there is no better way to appease the white trash, or “alt-right” than the Bannon pick.

[BigT]

@HurricaneDitka

I think you are grasping at straws here. To make things simple: what is the single most racist thing Bannon has ever said or done?

We already pointed out that he is the head of the alt-right news website. We’ve shown you the blatantly racist articles that have gone out since he made it an alt-right website. We’ve shown you what the alt-right is, so you know it’s white nationalism.

Pointing out that he is one of the heads of a racist political movement is “grasping at straws” to you. How can we work together with you when you deny blatant racism staring you in the face?

Racism is not special. Where there is smoke, there is fire. That you have to move the goalposts to defend the guy should tell you that you’ve already lost.

[HurricaneDitka]

I haven’t moved any goalposts. I’ve been told that Bannon is an evil racist. I’m wondering if it’s true. It doesn’t appear that he personally has ever said or written anything overtly racist. This seems more like liberals jumping at shadows and defaulting to their “everybody is racist” position. It’s not convincing.

[Bridget_Burke]

From the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Bannon has a long history of bigotry. Breitbart’s publishing strategy made it the media arm of the racist Alternative-Right movement, publishing articles promoting popular white nationalist tropes such as “black on white crime” and that “rape culture” is inherent in Islam.

Some of the key players in the Alt-Right movement, along with other well-established platforms for white nationalists have rejoiced in Trump’s appointment of Bannon to a key role…

Ken Reed, the national director of the neo-Nazi group Aryan Renaissance Society, posted a news story about the Bannon appointment to a Facebook group with the comment, “Can you say WINNING boys and girls???” and followed with the hashtags #WhiteLivesMatter and #AltRight.

The article is chock-full of elation from the worst of the worst. It could be that Bannon has been guiding Breitbart for money & power–and he does not hold all those loathsome ideas. That is, he’s more of a pimp than a whore.

Although I always heard pimps dressed sharply. He’s proof that men of a certain age & portliness* really* need to adopt good grooming.

For those who find the SPL too pinko, let’s hear from that radical rag–Esquire.

It’s a sad moment for this country when the best hope you have for an incoming administration is that it will be able to jettison the racism and xenophobia that was its primary fuel while fulfilling the impossible economic promises that it has made. If that doesn’t happen, and the impossible economic promises do not come to pass, only the racism and xenophobia will be all that’s left and over the weekend, we learned that they will have a friend at the apex of our government to keep them warm.

[HurricaneDitka]

For someone with “a long history of bigotry” is it really too much to expect just one fucking direct quote of him saying something racist? I’d even settle for an off-color joke at this point. Sheesh.

[Nametag]

He’s an editor – he doesn’t say things. He makes the things other people say - better*.

• For negative values of “better”

With apologies to BASF

[Frankenstein_Monster]

@HurricaneDitka

I read the New Yorker article, and couldn’t find much evidence of him being an evil racist. What did I miss?

@Weird_AL_Einstein

Ok, I waded through all three of those articles, and I didn’t see a particle of support for this “hateful neo-Nazi white nationalist” business.

Me three!

I found a good article about Bannon from last year:

This Man Is the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America

He definitely attracts racist and misogynist and Nazi figures as readers and contributors but I can’t see how he’s one himself. (Except perhaps by not caring.)

Interestingly, I can see how Donald Trump is attracted to him. He’s a winner. He’s exceedingly good at what he does, and does something Donald agrees with. (Anti-establishment agitation.)

Here is another good article about Donald Trump’s alleged racism, from a non-crazy Trump non-supporter:

You are still crying wolf

I am a leftist somewhat to the left of Marx but the “racism” accusations of the so called American Left are truly overdone.

[Frankenstein_Monster]

National Review seems to hit a good balance:

Steve Bannon Is Not a Nazi—But Let’s Be Honest about What He Represents

About Bannon’s personal attitudes, this is hyperbole. Julia Jones, Bannon’s screenwriting partner in Hollywood for nearly two decades, told the Daily Beast in August, “I never knew the ‘racist Steve’ that’s being reported now. I never heard him make any racist jokes, and his best friend was an African-American who went to [college] with him. . . . I never saw even a hint of racism.” Others have reported the same. Ben Shapiro, who worked under Bannon at his website, Breitbart, until departing earlier this year, wrote on his own site, “I have no evidence that Bannon’s a racist or that he’s an anti-Semite.”

But under Bannon’s aegis, something ugly has taken hold of the Right.

…the problem is not whether Bannon himself subscribes to a noxious strain of political nuttery; it’s that his de facto endorsement of it enables it to spread and to claim legitimacy, and that what is now a vicious fringe could, over time, become mainstream. (…) Principled conservatives, especially those in leadership positions, have a political and moral duty to condemn, and to work to eradicate, the animus that is the alt-right’s raison d’être, and to uphold the pillars of the American project.

Both Trump and Bannon would do well to start cutting back on their “de facto endorsement” of the real Nazis.

[ganthet]

@HurricaneDitka

I haven’t moved any goalposts. I’ve been told that Bannon is an evil racist. I’m wondering if it’s true. It doesn’t appear that he personally has ever said or written anything overtly racist. This seems more like liberals jumping at shadows and defaulting to their “everybody is racist” position. It’s not convincing.

Really? Someone who is in charge of a publishing website that posts race-baiting articles that openly use fear-mongering “stories” about immigrants and refugees, mocks and slut-shames women, and provides sympathetic coverage about how the alt-right can come together as a cohesive, white force for protecting conservative values should be given the benefit of the doubt as to whether or not he believes any of the things the organization he runs publishes? And anyone questioning this is “jumping at shadows” calling everyone racist?

As for comments that Bannon has made himself, his ex-wife has offered some anti-semitic anecdotes:

The court declaration from the ex-wife outlined three separate anti-Semitic remarks that Bannon allegedly made as she toured some of the most elite private schools in the Los Angeles area for their daughters.

At one, Westland School, Bannon’s ex-wife said he “asked the director why there were so many Chanukah books in the library.” Then after the couple toured Willows Community School, she said he “asked me if it bothered me that the school used to be in a Temple. I said no and asked why he asked . . . he did not respond.”

Regarding another academy, The Archer School for Girls, the ex-wife claimed Bannon “went on to say the biggest problem he had with Archer is the number of Jews that attend. He said that he doesn’t like Jews and that he doesn’t like the way they raise their kids to be ‘whiney brats’ and that he didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews.”

But you will likely dismiss these pretty specific incidents and comments offered by his ex-wife as unreliable since they came about in the midst of divorce proceedings.

Here’s what Ben Shapiro, former editor at Breitbart, recently wrote about Bannon:

@Ben Shapiro

Is Bannon Anti-Semitic And Racist? I have no evidence that Bannon’s a racist or that he’s an anti-Semite; the Huffington Post’s blaring headline “WHITE NATIONALIST IN THE WHITE HOUSE” is overstated, at the very least. With that said, as I wrote at The Washington Post in August, Bannon has openly embraced the racist and anti-Semitic alt-right – he called his Breitbart “the platform of the alt-right.” Milo Yiannopoulos, the star writer at the site, is an alt-right popularizer, even as he continuously declares with a wink that he’s not a member.
…
The alt-right, in a nutshell, believes that Western culture is inseparable from European ethnicity. I have no evidence Bannon believes that personally. But he’s happy to pander to those people and make common cause with them in order to transform conservatism into European far-right nationalist populism.