Unless you’ve been taking a break from social media since Election Day (which would be absolutely justified) you’ve probably heard something about a guy named Steve Bannon, who was named Counselor to the President for President-Elect Donald J. Trump. Bannon’s appointment has elicited rage from wide swaths of the American public, so its worth trying to understand why.
Who exactly is Steve Bannon? And why has his appointment infuriated so many people?
Stephen “Steve” Kevin Bannon, a soft spoken and unassuming ma of 62, is a graduate of Virginia Tech, Georgetown, and Harvard Business School. Prior to his media career he served in the US Navy and in the Pentagon. After leaving the military he worked for Goldman Sachs, before leaving to start his own investment firm, Bannon & Co. He later became an executive producer in Hollywood, working on several conservative documentaries.
During Bannon’s time in Hollywood he was introduced to Andrew Brietbart, the ccreater and head of Brietbart News, a right wing conservative online media outlet, soon becoming a board member. Upon Andrew Brietbart’s death he was elevated to the position to Executive Chairman.
It is Bannon’s time at Brietbart that has raised so many red flags. During his tenure as head of the network it evolved from a fairly standard right wing media outlet (described by Andrew Brietbart as “unapologetically pro-freedom and pro-Israel”) into the leading mainstream voice for the alt-right, white nationalists, anti-Semites, anti-BLM, anti-feminists, and so on.
In April of 2016 the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the leading anti-hate groups in the country, warned that Brietbart had “undergone a noticeable shift toward embracing ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right” becoming increasingly more racist, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and significantly more inflammatory.
Even former Brietbart employees noticed this, including former editor-at-large Ben Shapiro who wrote that Steve Bannon made Brietbart “the alt-right go-to website… pushing white ethno-nationalism as a legitimate response to political correctness, and the comment section turning into a cesspool for white supremacist mememakers.” Bannon himself described the site as “the platform for the lat-right.” The Anti-Defamation League described Brietbart as pandering and giving voice to white nationalists, anti-Semites, and overt racists.
During his tenure at Brietbart the organization has published countless inaccurate, inflammatory, racist, and just downright insane articles that have insulted just about every possible group of people (except for white males, their main reader base. The highlights include: “Would You Rather Your Daugher Had Feminism Or Cancer?” “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy” “1001 Reasons Why Global Warming Is So Totally Over in 2016” “Bill Kristol: Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew” “World Health Organization Report: Trannies 49 Xs Higher HIV Rate” “There’s No Hiring Bias Against Women In Tech, They Just Suck At Interviews” “Hoist It High and Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims a Glorious Heritage” and finally “Race Murder in Virginia: Black Reporter Suspected of Executing White Colleagues – On Live Television!”
He is enthusiastically supported by the Klu Klux Klan and other white supremacists, including the premiere white supremacist website, Stormfront, which praised his appointment in Trump’s White House, saying “it doesn’t get any better than this.” His appointment was seen as a sign that Donald Trump really meant many of the things that he said on the campaign trail and that he will actively work for the policies that they supported on the campaign trail, and that his rhetoric was more than just mere words.
Men like Steve Bannon have always existed on the fringe of American politics, far from the mainstream and from any real power. They have advocated hate, cruelty, and violence, but only from a distance. Bannon is now in a position not just to spread hate and intolerance online but to implement it in policy.
The outcry from across the political spectrum has been deafening. Elizabeth Warren, at an event in DC, said “this is a man who says, by his very presence, that this is a White House that will embrace bigotry.” Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid issued a statement saying that Bannon’s appointment ensures that “White Supremacists will be represented at the highest levels in Trump's White House," and that it is “easy to see why the KKK views Trump as their champion when Trump appoints one of the foremost peddlers of White Supremacist themes and rhetoric as his top aide."
Currently Democrats, Republicans, and a myriad of online petitioners have demanded that Trump rescind Bannon’s position and remove him from his inner circle of advisors. This seems unlikely to achieve any tangible results, but it is still worth noting that such a movement does exist.
One thing is certain: Bannon is now one of the most powerful men in the country, and his beliefs and actions will shape policy for years to come. Whether he will be as bad as so many Americans fear, or whether he will moderate his views once he gets into the White House is anybody’s guess.
