Bannon sells Trumpism in Europe
The Italian TV interview with Steve Bannon was going so well.
Sitting in a top-floor suite of his fivestar hotel looking out on an ancient church dome, the self-proclaimed populist hit his talking points: The global elite is brutalizing the little guy, European nations need to take back decision-making from an overbearing European Union government, and he and his new Brussels-based group, the Movement, are ready to provide polling, data analysis and messaging to help nationalist parties across Europe.
Then came an unwelcome question. “Do you actually believe in anti-fascism values?” the interviewer asked. Bannon’s eyes cooled. “Anti-fascism values?” he repeated slowly. He sighed, not hiding his annoyance. “We’re the anti-fascists,” he said, then proceeded to lecture the journalist, whose nation was ruled for 21 years by dictator Benito Mussolini and his National Fascist Party, on the definition of fascism.
“The problem is,” he said, “you deal in a world of no facts, OK, and all you are is spoon-fed: ‘Oh, these guys are fascists.’ ” He ripped “the opposition party media” and “people like yourself, sitting there sanctimoniously telling Trump voters: ‘Not only is Trump a racist, but you’re a racist. Not only is Trump a fascist, but you’re a fascist.’ ”
The interview ended, a little awkwardly. The camera shut down.
Then Bannon brightened immediately, shook the reporter’s hand and said, “Thanks, guys.” Someone on the TV crew said maybe next time he could come to their studio.
“Yeah, we can do that; I’d love to do that,” Bannon said, suddenly as shiny as the Roman sun beating down on his private terrace high above the Piazza del Popolo.
More than a year after being forced out as White House chief strategist, Bannon, the combative former Breitbart News chief who was a key architect of U.S. President Donald Trump’s America First doctrine, has now set his sights on igniting that brand of nationalism in the rest of the world.
He argues that nationalist and populist forces, in part inspired by Trump, are poised to claim political power in capitals from Pakistan to Japan to Australia, Brazil and Colombia, and he says he’s on the horn to all of them.
He says he’s going to Australia for five days in November, then Singapore over Thanksgiving, and he’s even had feelers from Israel and Egypt.
“We’re open for business,” Bannon says. “We’re a populist, nationalist NGO, and we’re global.”
But first, Europe, where Bannon started the week here in the Italian capital before heading to the Czech Republic, Hungary and beyond.
The globe-trotting role marks a bit of a reinvention for Bannon, who months after leaving the White House in 2017 was booted from Breitbart and lost the lucrative financial backing of the billionaire Mercer family in the wake of the publication of Fire and Fury, a book that painted a grim portrait of Trump, with Bannon as a key source.
At the center of Bannon’s global efforts is the Movement, which was formed last year by Belgian right-wing politician Mischael Modrikamen, and which Bannon formally joined this summer. Bannon, who earned many millions as a Goldman Sachs banker, said some of the group’s financing is coming from his own pocket — but that most of the funding will be from European donors he declines to identify.
In a series of interviews with the Washington Post, Bannon said he is trying to build the Movement into a “connective tissue” that offers nationalist and populist political parties across Europe a U.S. know-how in polling, messaging and “war-room” strategy for responding immediately to political attacks.
So far, the results have been mixed. Some on the European far right have expressed either indifference or no interest in Bannon and his cause, and many establishment Europeans dismiss him as a stubble-chinned huckster who is overstating the strength of the European right.
They say he is exaggerating his ability to translate his Trump experience to the world stage, especially in Europe, where Trump has disrupted long-standing alliances and is deeply unpopular.
Bannon’s European critics also say he is misjudging Europe’s appetite for an American offering advice to a diverse constellation of parties that have deep historical and political differences.
But Bannon has won high-profile endorsements from far-right political leaders — most notably Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
In Italy, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, the highest-profile politician in new left-right coalition government, has also pledged to support the Movement. Salvini is a hero to his followers for his aggressive crackdown on immigration, which his critics call needlessly brutal. Bannon has praised Salvini for being “Italy’s version of Trump.”
As he did in the Italian TV interview, Bannon has run up against questions about fascism in a nation with painful memories of it. The questions are mainly about whether nationalism and populism, if unchecked, can lead to authoritarianism and suppression of political opposition.
In one of Bannon’s many interviews here, Lucia Annunziata, executive editor of the Italian HuffPost, asked him whether Orban, who has been harshly criticized by European officials who say he is eroding judicial independence and free speech and growing corruption in Hungary, is a fascist.
“No, absolutely not,” Bannon said. “I think Orban represents what all of these parties represent: the defense of one’s own country. Orban is a man who loves his country, a patriot, a man who puts Hungary first.”
Bannon has also created a nonprofit agency, Citizens of the American Republic, to boost Republican candidates in the midterm elections in November. But after that, he says, he’ll spend most of his time in Europe until key European Parliament elections in May 2019.
Two months short of his 65th birthday, Bannon is evangelizing for his national- ist vision across Europe with ferocious energy, lots of espresso and little sleep.
He uses his big, unpredictable personality as a tool for showmanship and communication. He shifts his public persona dramatically — sometimes with jarring speed. He can be a genial and famously scruffy salesman, spinning folksy tales about how his dad and granddad were phone company linemen.
Then moments later he’s a dark doomsayer, telling millennials in a speech to ultraconservative activists here that they are “modern-day Russian serfs” who will always be “two paycheques away from absolute financial ruin,” and warning of elites with control of artificial intelligence and genetic engineering who will “redefine what a homo sapien is” and lead to the “ultimate destruction of the human race.”
He constantly trashes the media and accuses them of being part of the “Party of Davos,” his go-to shorthand for outof-touch global elites. But he cultivates media attention to spread his gospel of “economic nationalism.” He lines up interviews with journalists like bowling pins from morning until late at night. With reporters, he can be gracious, funny, self-deprecating and likable — until something sets him off.
Bannon’s European travels, which take place aboard a leased private plane, have the feel of a political campaign in the final weeks of an election.
He is surrounded at almost all times by an entourage of friends and aides: Modrikamen, the Belgian politician who founded the Movement last year; Raheem Kassam, the former head of Breitbart in London; Dan Fleuette, who has been Bannon’s friend and film producer for 15 years; Benjamin Harnwell, founder of the Institute for Human Dignity, a conservative advocacy group based in Rome; Federico Arata, a former CreditSuisse banker and writer with strong ties in Italian politics and business; Sean Bannon, the son of Bannon’s younger brother; and a stocky personal bodyguard who used to be in the British army. An independent documentary filmmaker also follows Bannon everywhere.
Last weekend, everyone piled into a black Mercedes van and sedan for the ride across town to Isola Tiberina, an island in the Tiber River, where an annual conference of Italian right-wing party activists was taking place next to the stone walls of a 10th-century basilica.
Bannon arrived like a right-wing rock star into a huge gaggle of jostling photographers. With police officers, private security guards and his own bodyguard leading the way, Bannon waded into the scrum carrying a can of Red Bull.
Bannon walked down a long flight of steps to the conference site and was led first into a small private tent for a meeting with Giorgia Meloni, leader of the right-wing Brothers of Italy party, which was hosting the event and has joined the Movement.
Later, in a tent filled to standing-room, several hundred people cheered as Bannon climbed to the stage and picked up a wireless microphone.
Jaw muscles clenched, he launched into a speech that sounded a lot like a Trump rally speech, tailored for an Italian audience.
He hammered all his favorite phrases and themes: Party of Davos. Corporatist elites. Central bankers. The people who preach that “You’re all racists and xenophobes and nativists.” The same ones who caused the 2008 financial crisis, then bailed themselves out at the expense of the working class. Big applause. “You are the backbone of society. You are the glue,” he told them.
“The scientific, managerial, engineering, financial, cultural elite detests you and everything you stand for,” he warned. “And they will stop at nothing, including targeting and destroying your leaders, and including coming after you.” The crowd loved it. Bannon took questions, then was whisked back into the security bubble to sit for another Italian TV interview, then another half-hour of questions from a couple of dozen English-language reporters.
“Let’s start with the haters!” Bannon said, with a big smile toward the CNN reporter. He was clearly making a joke. But moments later he was back to bashing the “opposition party media.”
Afterward, the police and security guards led Bannon and his crew back to the waiting Mercedes, still surrounded by cameras.
It was 8:30 p.m. Bannon had been on the go since before dawn.
Now he had three more media interviews scheduled back at the hotel.
Then the next morning, the Bannon entourage would head for the airport. On the schedule: a private jet to Prague for meetings, then on to Budapest for meetings over dinner, then back to Rome after midnight.