The Washington Post has a great opinion piece referencing that very article … these are a few snippets: Give Steve Bannon a chance. It’s not like he’s literally Joseph Goebbels.
Listen, what proof do you have that this dead lizard wrapped in the Confederate flag will not make an excellent chief strategist and senior counselor to the president of the United States?
… Yes, okay, this rabid opossum bit me on the ankle, then handed me an Islamophobic pamphlet, but we have no proof it wrote the pamphlet … You say, “potato enthusiastically supported by the Ku Klux Klan’s David Duke”; I say, “controversial potato.”
Just because something attracts anti-Semites and racists doesn’t mean that it, itself, is either of those things. It doesn’t mean that it supports their views. Who knows why anyone is attracted to anything? Weird coincidences happen all the time.
… I have no doubt that a real racist sexist chauvinist white supremacist will be easy to spot. “I am coming for minorities now,” he will say. “I am an actual racist. I am, literally, Hitler, or at the very least Goebbels.”
Well, just because the National Review provides a platform of conservative views doesn’t necessarily mean that they are, themselves, conservatives! They are simply providing the platform, in the service of a brisk and open-minded debate! Nobody objects to that, unless they are totally in the thrall of the lefty hive mind echo chamber!
“Alt-Right” merely means that the editorial slant of the publication is a bit more conservative than the ordinary, un-alt, right. It only means a viewpoint just to the right of Calvin Coolidge, but not quite Czar Nicolas II. How very reassuring!
By comparison, God alone knows how many tighty-righty sources have identified Obama as being “extreme left”. (Does that make Bernie the “alt-left”?)
Anyway, this is all very reassuring! Especially given that Breitbart provides support for such bold investigative reporters as James O’Keefe, who bravely tore the mask off the radical Trotskyists of ACORN. A proud tradition for “providing a platform” for news that is unhindered, open, and untainted by facts. Not that he believes any of that, mind you! He is only “providing a platform”.
I think some people are misled by Bannon’s unpolished appearance; in reality he is a sophisticated guy with degrees from Georgetown and Harvard and a career as an investment banker and Hollywood producer. Of course he is not going to say explicitly racist things in public. However one can make a judgment from the kind of writing he promoted through Breitbart and the kind of politicians he praises, e.g. Marine Le Pen.
As for things he has said we do have this from the Wapo:
How is this not racist/xenophobic ? First, he is greatly exaggerating the proportion of Asian CEO’s in Silicon Valley which itself is a warning sign but more importantly he seems to be objecting to their Asianness per se and suggesting that this means they can’t be part of the “civic society” whatever that means.
Ok, first of all, you want me to judge the man by the comments section of his website? I don’t think that’s a good standard.
Second, you’re asking me to do your research for you. You are the one who’s made the accusation, you find evidence. I’m not going to try to prove a negative.
ganthet: There was some interesting stuff in your posts, but no links. And of course nested quotes vanish when I quote you. But I saw nothing that makes a prima facie case for racism. Controversial, yes. But I would find suspect anyone reflexively calling that stuff racist.
A lot of accusations, no evidence.
Well…I consider it highly suspect, given the circumstances. Shouldn’t I?
Read the article. I have been a fan of NR in the past, but this appears to be more of the same accusations without evidence. I excerpt the strongest bit here:
“[R]eporting as “100% vindicated” Trump’s claim that “thousands” of people in New Jersey celebrated the September 11 attacks” - No link.
“In May, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol was labeled a “Renegade Jew.”” Use of the passive voice set off my BS detector. I googled.
So he has the “n-word privilege”.
“In September, an article about Trump’s “birther” press conference was accompanied by a picture of Harambe, the gorilla shot dead at the Cincinnati Zoo earlier this year.” - No link again, but again I googled. The fact they are associating a gorilla with President Obama, however tenuously, is grounds for suspicion. But it seems they were trying to invoke some kind of meme, though I’m not familiar with it. I’d be willing to call this “racially insensitive”, but “racist” is still an overreaction.
“Bannon cheerfully informed Mother Jones that Breitbart News had become “the platform for the alt-Right”" Heard that one here too. Again no link, again more googling. The only source appears to be Mother Jones itself, which is, how to put it? Not entirely without a bias. In the sense that the ocean is not entirely without water.
Saying Brannon is a “neo-nazi white supremecist” is hyperbole without a smoking gun comment but if you can’t see that the website he runs contains a lot of race-baiting propoganda I can’t see how you’ll be convinced of anything.
Whether or not Bannon is an actual racist himself, he pushes forward racist view points and courts racist readers and to the racist vote. It is entirely possible that Bannon doesn’t actually have anything against black people but just cynically sees an opportunity in appealing to racists. But if so that is irrelevant.
Whether you work to turn back decades of work towards civil rights because you think non-whites are inferior, or do so because you see political opportunity in pandering to those who think non-whites are inferior the results are the same.
Well now. That was a fascinating article, and I thank you for linking to it. It especially stands out in this thread, where links are rare.
But…what was it supposed to persuade me of? That they are glossing over the evil, evil nature of the alt-right? It doesn’t seem so:
Or is it that the alt-right is pure, unadulterated Evil such that the above is still a gloss? I gotta say, I was three-quarters convinced of just that until I read that article. Now, not so much, you have set back your own cause.
NB: I remember checking that site semi-regularly back when the founder was still alive. I have avoided it more recently, not because I thought it turned to the Dark Side, but because it has become top-heavy with click-bait ads and pop-ups and other detritus, slow-loading and clunky.
(So actually, it kinda did turn to the dark side. So if the argument had been that this Bannon guy is amoral, out to make a buck pandering to some unsavory types, I might have just accepted it. But people had to insist that he stands in front of the mirror every night practicing the Heil Hitler salute. That does not have the ring of truth.)
However: I went to the site at 2:00 PM EST, 11-18-2016, and scrolled down the (very long) front page, despite my dtermination not to get sucked into trying to prove a negative. And I did not see a single headline that could be construed as racist.
Eh, what? No, I see no evidence he is either of those things. I dislike what he did to that website for the reasons I laid out, but that doesn’t make him evil.
But you’re not really saying anything, you are quibbling over the semantics to complain about what other people say.
It appears that there are a whole bunch of people who don’t like or trust Trump, but hate the liberal/left, so they don’t exactly defend Trump but react to any criticism of him by deflecting the issue back. The Right is seizing power with both hands, as if they had won the Presidency with a massive popular landslide. Have you heard even one of them make note of that? As in, it just ain’t so?
Take football. Got a home team here, sort of a team, anyway. And I’ve lived among these people for quite some time, off and on. So, if our kicker missed the uprights by about fifty feet, but somebody dug out a rulebook and we win…they’d be pleased, sure. But they would have that slightly icky feeling good people have when they get something sweet that they don’t actually deserve. (I’m assuming you know what I’m talking about, I can stone guarantee you Trump hasn’t the foggiest.)
See anything remotely similar coming from the Pubbie side?
What are you talking about? Trump’s not even taken office yet. What, precisely have they done that you consider “seizing power with both hands”? Or has it all just been comments, with no actual actions, that has leftists jumping at shadows?
I really can’t follow this post. If it was supposed to be an answer to my question (“What, precisely have they done that you consider “seizing power with both hands”?”), then it’s a failure. It wasn’t precise, and it wasn’t an answer. Please try again.
Okay, put it this way, they are reaching out, with both hands, to seize power.
They not only show this with their actions, they admit this with their words.
Does fact that they cannot actually finally grasp that power until January give you reason to believe that this will all just be a big psych out by then?
What’s he doing though? So far is all I’ve really heard Trump say is that he’s considering people, or named a few, for cabinet positions. is the scary power grab coming from something Trump himself said, or some tertiary figure in Trump’s orbit?
I already thought that the stories about Trump’s “disarray” were greatly overdone (again)… see this article for a counter view.
Jeff Sessions was dismissed in the liberal news today as another racist (again)… I must’ve read at least ten times that he once was denied a judgeship for racism. But I had to go to Wikipedia for myself to see that he was elected to the US Senate 4 times, with ever growing majorities, most recently even running unopposed. Why didn’t they write that he is popular and powerful Senator and probably will be effective (alas)?