DEVIL’S BARGAIN

by Joshua Green

Steve Bannon is described as brilliant, charismatic, “brimming with vigor” in Devil’s Bargain, journalist Joshua Green’s book about how Donald Trump won the US presidential election and caused “the greatest political upset in modern American history”. Bannon is also a “populist-nationalist” who runs the far-right website Breitbart, and has been accused of racism and xenophobia. He managed Trump’s presidential campaign and later became his chief strategist at the White House before being sacked in August.

Bannon’s campaign strategy did not “make” Trump president, but he let “Trump be Trump”. Trump once said he doesn’t read books. Bannon, in contrast, is a “voracious autodidact” who is wellversed in obscure philosophers, Buddhism and the Hindu concept of Kali Yuga. How did these two men who are so different come together? Shared ideology or world view, Green writes.

According to Green, Bannon’s “response to the rise of modernity was to set populist, right-wing nationalism against it”. Enter Trump, with “his willingness to flout any norms”, his “Make America Great Again” slogan, his loud and clear opposition to immigrants, Islam and liberalism. “America First” united the two men and though they have fallen apart they keep promoting their ideology: Trump with his tweets and Bannon with his website. Green’s book is racy and detailed, but it fails to explain one question: how is a brilliant and talented man like Bannon a xenophobe and believer of racist nationalism theories?