Chief Strategist & Senior Counselor: Steve Bannon

Summary 

As a newly appointed member of the National Security Council, and a largely unaccountable member of President Trump's administration, Steve Bannon will undoubtedly continue to make headlines throughout Trump's term in office. A common defense of Steve Bannon we’ve found is that he’s not as bad as Breitbart News, the website where he has served as executive chair for the past five years. Hopefully our response below should make anyone who believes he’s not that bad think again. If you are arguing with someone who loves Bannon or is a member of the alt-right, best of luck.

Background 

Chief Strategist/Senior Counselor

1. While the position of Chief Strategist is new under Trump, presidents since Richard Nixon have had Senior Advisors or Counsels that served in similar capacities. Many of them have turned out to be instrumental in helping the president in various capacities:
   • David Axelrod was a Senior Advisor to president Obama.
   • Karl Rove was a Senior Advisor to president George W. Bush.
   • John Ehrlichman was a White House Counsel to president Nixon.
2. As the Trump transition team explains it, the position appears to be on the same level as the Chief of Staff. According to them, the Chief Strategist and the Chief of Staff will work together as “equal partners” and sign off on decisions jointly.
3. The Chief Strategist position does not specifically entail any departmental or administrative powers and does not technically qualify as a cabinet position.
4. The Chief Strategist position, like the similar positions before it, has no obligation to release a calendar or report daily operations beyond what’s required in security clearances. There is, therefore, not much specific information on what Senior Counselors or Advisors have been responsible for in the past. However, judging from past advisors, they likely wield a lot of power.

Steve Bannon

1. Bannon had a variety of careers before coming to Breitbart News:
   • He was a naval officer.
   • He got an MBA from Harvard and was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs.
   • He was a film producer.
   • He was the acting director of the environmental project Biosphere 2.
2. Bannon was a founding board member of Breitbart News and was promoted to executive chairman after the death of its founder, Andrew Breitbart in 2012.
   • Breitbart News lacks a mission statement or an About Us section to self-describe their style or agenda. That said, Andrew Breitbart has said he started Breitbart to be pro-freedom and his mission is to destroy the old media guard, which he perceived as liberal and corrupt.
     • Bannon, after Breitbart’s death, was quoted saying “We are going to be the Huffington Post of the right...That is our focus every day.”
     • Breitbart’s three sites (originally launched separately but now unified on the main site) include “Big Government”, “Big Journalism,” and “Big Hollywood.” Each site offer articles attacking their respective categories.
3. Since Breitbart’s death and Bannon’s promotion, news outlets and former employees have characterized Breitbart News as becoming more nationalist and supportive of the racist, alt-right movement. Those former employees have also personally criticized Bannon as a “Pathological liar ... a bully ... a dictator … a scorched-earth personal opportunist.”
   • Also since Breitbart’s death, Bannon has become a host for the Breitbart News Daily radio show.
4. Bannon is a gifted media operative with a history of using the media to further his perspective.

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THE BEST DEFENSES: steve bannon

Response 1: As the executive chairman of Breitbart News, he’s responsible for content and who is hired to write that content. If Breitbart News is a platform for racism and misogyny and Bannon not only doesn’t condemn it but instead hires or continues to hire writers who create bigoted content, then he’s a bigot.

• Milo Yiannopoulos, senior editor at Breitbart, co-wrote a Breitbart article praising the alt-right movement describing them as “dangerously bright” and “unapologetically embracing a new identity politics that prioritizes the interests of their own demographic.”
  • In the same article, Yiannopoulus gleefully describes these “rational” thinkers “demolishing the age-old biases of western political discourse” arguing that “egalitarianism flew in the face of every piece of research on hereditary intelligence.”
    • In reality, the alt-right movement, a name coined by white supremacist Richard Spencer, is a collection of people with far-right and ethnocentric, racist ideologies.
  • Yiannopoulos says “He [Bannon] made me into a star.”
  • Bannon himself has said himself that Breitbart News is the “platform for the alt-right.”
• Other articles not explicitly written by Bannon but produced during his tenure include:
  • "Why White People Seek Black Privilege" in which writer Ben Shapiro explains how being black in America is actually better despite all the ways it obviously isn’t.
  • "Read the Scary Descriptions of Refugees by Idaho Refugee Agency" in which writer Lee Stranahan explains how refugees from non-European countries are dangerous.
  • "Birth Control makes Women Unattractive and Crazy" in which Milo Yiannopoulus explains how since birth control pills leads to weight gain (among other things), it makes women look like “Gollum” from Lord of the Rings.
  • "World Health Organization Report: Trannies 49 Xs Higher HIV Rate" in which writer Austin Ruse takes a report from the WHO about the dangers still facing the trans community and uses it to try to scare children away from a trans lifestyle, because he thinks that children are becoming transgendered only because it’s “fashionable.”

Response 2: To say that Bannon’s not a bigot because he hasn’t written any specific articles that are bigoted doesn’t make sense. Bannon is not a columnist for Breitbart. He’s written 45 articles in the last six years, fewer than eight a year. It’s not his job to write articles.

Response 3: Breitbart News attracts a strong white supremacist and misogynist audience through its articles about Islam, immigration, and African Americans.

• Articles on Breitbart often have anti-Black, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant perspectives.
• Bigots praise Breitbart and the Bannon appointment.

Response 4: Even other far-right conservatives have criticized Bannon for encouraging racism on his site.

• Ben Shapiro, conservative commentator and former employee of Breitbart, described Breitbart News now as “the alt-right go-to website...pushing white ethno-nationalism.”
  • Shapiro is a conservative writer who has claimed “The black lives matter movement is the single greatest threat facing young black men” and he thinks Bannon’s Breitbart News has become a white supremacist organization.
  • Shapiro also added that Bannon is a “sinister figure,” “vindictive,” and “infamous for verbally abusing supposed friends and threatening enemies.”
• Glenn Beck, conservative radio and TV show host described Bannon as a “terrifying man.”

Response 5: Bannon has made no attempt to distance himself from his bigoted audience. He admits that “maybe” some of his readers are racists, but if it upset him or he wanted to discourage them, he hasn’t done anything about it. If he really disagreed with his bigoted audience, he could

• make a public statement against the many bigoted Breitbart fans, or
• stop his staff from writing racist articles.

Response 6: While Bannon’s racism is rarely overtly expressed, his history of misogyny is well documented.

• During his second marriage, Bannon was charged with domestic abuse and battery. The charges were dropped after his ex-wife didn’t appear in court. She later said that she didn’t appear because Bannon and Bannon’s lawyer threatened her.
  • His second wife also said that she “does not feel safe with him” and that he spanked one of their 17-month-old daughters despite her objection.
• He was sued in the 90s for sexual harassment for sexually suggestive comments and grabbing a coworker.
• On his radio show, he described some progressive women as “a bunch of dykes that came from seven sisters schools.”
• He described a female coworker as a “bimbo” and said he would take comments she made that he disagreed with and “ram it down her fucking throat.”

• He was sued for firing a disabled woman on maternity leave on the basis of her sex and disability.

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Warnings

Bannon has been very careful about not being overtly racist. Try not to call him such right off the bat as conservatives who support him might just dismiss everything else you have to say.

As a defense against claims of bigotry by Bannon or Breitbart, people might bring up that Breitbart employs Jewish or gay individuals, or people of color as writers and staff. Make it clear that diverse hiring does not prevent them from being racist. You can bring up that Breitbart itself regularly accuses white people of being racist against whites. Being of a specific ethnic group doesn’t prevent you from discriminating against that group. For example, Milo Yiannopolous, a Jewish, out, gay man, has said that he would “be better” if he wasn’t gay.

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