Steve Bannon says he’s still a key player
Once portrayed as one of Washington’s most powerful men, Steve Bannon is either back or he’s still out in the political wilderness. He’s either a dangerous xenophobe who trades in conspiracy theories or a Harvard-educated former investment banker who claims his true mission is to stand up for the little guy at any cost.
Nearly 18 months after the architect of President Donald Trump’s “America First” national populism was fired as White House chief strategist, Bannon insists he remains a key player in an ongoing global political insurrection he defines as a clash between the legitimate demands and grievances of workingclass citizens versus a corrupt, out-oftouch, cosmopolitan, liberal elite.
“There’s populist movements everywhere, whether it’s with Brazil and (new President Jair Messias) Bolsonaro, in Pakistan with (Prime Minister Imran) Khan, in India (with Prime Minister Narendra Modi) or throughout Europe. I go all over the world to give talks. And if I wanted to, I could stay outside the United States for a whole year doing just that,” Bannon said in a recent interview with USA TODAY in London.
“This populist movement is all over the world. People are looking for assistance. They are looking for guidance. They keep coming to me and saying hey, ‘Tell me we’re not alone, tell me this is all interconnected,’ ” Bannon said.
But his remarks come amid at least a trio of accusations leveled against the 65-year-old former Hollywood producer and ex-chairman of far-right media outlet Breitbart:
❚ That since leaving Trump’s inner circle in August last year and effectively acquiring pariah status, few people are really interested in what he has to say. Campaign rallies Bannon held ahead of the U.S. midterm elections were poorly attended.
❚ That his attempts to launch a populism-focused think tank-cum-foundation in the heart of Europe’s political capital Brussels ahead of European parliamentary elections in May are being hampered by campaign-finance laws, as well as lukewarm interest from some of Europe’s most high-profile populist politicians.
❚ And that his efforts to investigate abuses of power by President Xi Jinping and China’s ruling Communist Party, as well as unite far-right political groups across borders, represent not only the internationalism he roundly rejects, but the latter may also be a form of election meddling or interference that succeeds by appealing to voters’ insecurities about immigration, jobs and cultural change.
Bannon said his campaigning for the U.S. midterms did not bring out large crowds because it was deliberately focused on “grass-roots leaders.”
He said he went into “living rooms, to prayer groups” to reach people who had a “force multiplier effect” – influential members of a community who can be relied on to get out the vote. “Our mission was to support the Trump program,” he said. “Go back and look at Buffalo, at Staten Island, all the districts we went to – you’ll see packed audiences.”
In Staten Island, where Bannon screened his documentary “Trump at War,” 38 people showed up. The event in Buffalo drew a few hundred Trump supporters.
Bannon spoke to USA TODAY last month, a few days after he appeared at a media conference in Scotland where there were calls for him to be dropped from the event over claims he normalizes far-right, racist views. Later the same day, he took part in a debate at Oxford University. Bannon’s presence there, too, sparked protests and calls for a boycott.
“People can play gotcha all day long but it’s not going to work. It’s a lie. I have done thousands of interviews, speeches, broadcasts and there’s not one racist statement,” Bannon said, responding to those claims.
“People think the Muslim (travel) ban is racism, it’s not. The Supreme Court upheld up it. They think the immigration policy at the (Mexican) border is racist, it’s not. It’s a humanitarian policy.”
Immigrant-rights groups and federal and district judges concluded both of these Trump policies were guided by racial animus. They were condemned on moral grounds by allies such as British Prime Minister Theresa May and by religious leaders, including Pope Francis. “Let them call you racist,” Bannon told a crowd at a far-right rally in France in March. “Let them call you ‘nativist.’ Wear it as a badge of honor,” he said.
Bannon said that next month the Movement, his fledgling think tank operation based out of a “chateau” in a wealthy suburb of Brussels, will start hosting conferences, dinners and other events that allow for the “exchange of ideas.”
These “ideas” will reflect his longstanding political beliefs, chiefly economic nationalism and anti-establishment populism. It will seek to unite anti-immigration, “nativist,” euroskeptic political groups as they prepare for battle in European Parliament elections next year. Mainstream political parties have historically controlled the parliament.
A surge in support for populist parties could disrupt the European Union’s broadly centrist policies on migration, economic policy and other salient issues.
Bannon referred to the Movement as a “loose association” that will be “totally voluntary.” He said he also wants to undertake “detailed polling” and to use data analytics to “drive where the voters are” – those persuadable ones who can sometimes determine the outcome of an election. He said “it’s what we did for Trump in the U.S.: writing op-eds, booking people on media, surrogate media – all that.”
Kim Hjelmgaard
Election-law experts say Europe’s campaign-finance laws are a major obstacle in the Movement’s way because only four out of 28 EU member states have no restrictions on foreign funding: Belgium, Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands, according to Kristine Berzina of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think tank.
Bannon, who said he’s using his own money and funds from “high net worth European individuals” to pay for the Movement, said he would be active “to the degree that election law allows us.” He said the organization has at least 12 people on its payroll.
Hope Not Hate, a London-based advocacy organization that campaigns against racism and far-right ideas, cautioned against accepting Bannon’s version of events.
“He’s fallen foul of election laws in just about every country where he’s tried to float his rabble-rousing message,” said spokesman Nick Ryan. “He uses the media to promote his particularly nasty brand of toxicity. It’s entirely possible he’s using media to hype it up when it isn’t really established.”
Ryan added that “the media should be careful not to talk (Bannon) up.”
Meanwhile, support from key European populism leaders for Bannon’s project has been tepid despite him saying in the interview that they are “1,000 percent supportive.”
“Bannon is an American and has no place in a European political party,” Jérôme Rivière, a spokesman for France’s far-right National Rally, said in July. “We reject any supranational entity and are not participating in the creating [sic] of anything with Bannon.”