In his first two week as president, Donald Trump has faced no shortage of resistance and outcry. From the Women’s March, to protests regarding his ban on immigrants from certain countries, President Trump has definitely had his hands full. While Trump has been receiving the lion’s share of the blame, many of those protesting Trump seem to be neglecting a more dangerous character lurking in the background: Steve Bannon. If you watch the signings of executives orders, he’ll be there, standing on the edges of frames and out of the sight of many cameras. But while the cameras show him on the sidelines, he is center stage in Trump’s frame of mind.
For those who don’t know who Mr. Bannon is or what he stands for, I encourage you to read Tess Halpern’s article, “Use Words to Describe, Not Diminish,” for an in-depth look. Steve Bannon is a founder of the right-wing news organization Breitbart News, a safe haven for the so called alt-right, and has served as the executive chair of the website. A former Breitbart editor-at-large describes him as “A vindictive, nasty figure, infamous for verbally abusing supposed friends and threatening enemies,” who changed the course of Breitbart News to “Openly embrace the white supremacist alt-right,” or a mix of racism, white nationalism and old-fashion populism. As you can imagine, when word broke that he would serve as the chief strategist to the president, fear grew.
It recently came to light that Mr. Bannon and senior advisor Stephen Miller, an equally chilling figure, wrote President Trump’s inaugural address, despite the president’s claims that he wrote it himself. With this recent news, it is quite concerning to think about what exactly the phrase “America first” means. Some argue it’s nothing more than a call to become more realist in the field of international politics. But given Mr. Bannon and Mr. Miller’s past, it is far more likely that this may be a dog whistle for white nationalists.
Digging further into Mr. Bannon’s past reveals a trail of concerning quotes, such as this 2013 quip from an interview with the Daily Beast. “I’m a Leninist,” he said. “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal, too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”
And in a more disturbing interview on Nov. 18, he told the Hollywood Reporter, “Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when they [liberals] get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing.” I hope I can speak for everyone in saying that anyone whose goal is to bring down the state and whose role models are Darth Vader and the Devil is not someone who should be two states near the president, much less two doors down in the White House.
This past week Mr. Bannon has been at the forefront of the Trump Administration, sharing their desire to quiet the media, and even went so far as to suggest that the media should “keep its mouth shut.” It appears as if Bannon hates the negative press toward the new administration, despite his own history as a member of the media.
On Jan. 29, the White House announced in a shocking press release that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence will no longer be regular members of the National Security Council and will be replaced by Bannon. The nation’s top soldier and spy have been replaced by a man who relishes the idea of power and wants to destroy the establishment. From now on, the two displaced members will only be on the council when their expertise is needed. Which, one would think, would be every meeting.
In one week, President Trump has created a great deal of divide in the country with controversial executive orders, and yet many seem to forget the seeming mastermind behind it. I suspect that despite Mr. Bannon’s attempt to evade media attention, the cameras will still be able to capture him influencing the most powerful man in the world. Bannon, the man who transformed Breitbart News into a xenophobic, misogynistic propaganda site is now one of the most powerful policy influencers in the United States.
Jeffrey Ayers is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at [email protected].
![By freestocks.org [Creative Commons Zero], via Wikimedia Commons](https://dailycollegian.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Picture1-1.png)
David Hunt 1990 • Feb 11, 2017 at 8:40 am
@David Fitzgerald:
They won’t check it out for themselves.
To do so would require that they risk exposure to information and argumentation that doesn’t match what they’ve already been assured is true.
It was the same way for me and Rush Limbaugh. I’d heard for years that he was a racist, misogynist, etc., etc., etc. Even though I was moving Rightward viewpoint-wise, I knew I didn’t want to take that step.
One day while driving I channel-surfed and came upon this guy talking; didn’t know who he was but he spoke well, was cogent, and made sense. 20-odd minutes into nodding my head and saying “I like this guy!” I found out it was Rush. What a shock, for two reasons.
First, that I was agreeing with this man whom I’d been assured was one sliver away from Satan himself. But the second? That I’d been outright lied to about the nature of his program. I found his first book, “The Way Things Ought To Be” at a used book store, bought it for a buck, and read it – and agreed with virtually every word. WOW.
But I understood that I had been told all these lies about him for one reason: to make me NOT listen to him.
The same here with Breitbart, Fox News, etc.
Zero G • Feb 10, 2017 at 10:18 am
Given that Drudge and Breitbart are essentially news aggregation sites, it is astonishing how they are labled by people who never read them. For me, those websites are an amazing amalgamation of news from around the world that mainstream media just won’t address. On many occasions, Drudge links to CNN or NYT stories. Some of their headlines are shamelessly propagandist, but sometimes they highlight important parts of stories that the NYT ignores even when it reports on a topic. In this age of shout-down liberal activism and intolerance, the Drudge and Breitbart sites in particular serve a valuable civic function on telling the other side of many stories that otherwise would go unheard. Sort of like a conservative ACLU but with much broader reach.
David Fitzgerald • Feb 9, 2017 at 4:10 pm
“Bannon, the man who transformed Breitbart News into a xenophobic, misogynistic propaganda site is now one of the most powerful policy influencers in the United States.”
I think the Breitbart site is pro-American, pro-LGBTQ, anti-xenophobia, anti-misogyny and anti-“fake news”
how can a person know if this is true or not?
why, they will have to read it for themselves and decide
David Hunt 1990 • Feb 9, 2017 at 12:22 pm
I do have to applaud, though. “Pick a target, freeze it, polarize it.”
The Socialist and traitor, Saul Alinsky, has taught you well – just like he taught Hilliary Clinton and Imperious Barackus Rex.
So you are in good – albeit treasonous – company.
David Hunt 1990 • Feb 9, 2017 at 8:24 am
So, where was your concern that an Iranian-born, prio-Iran woman, corrupt, a slum lord, was Obama’s “Rasputin”?
Oh, wait, that would mean intellectual consistency. You’re a liberal, I forgot.