Usually a president-elect’s first job is to unite the country, but Donald Trump has already shown he’s doing terrible with that with his selection of Steve Bannon, executive chairman of alt-right website Breitbart News Network, as his chief strategist.
“President-elect Trump’s choice of Steve Bannon as his top aide signals that white supremacists will be represented at the highest levels in Trump’s White House,” a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said in a statement.
Bannon is a former Goldman Sachs investment banker who was appointed executive chairman of Breitbart News Network after the passing of its owner, Andrew Breitbart, in 2012. According to former Breitbart editor-at-large, conservative talk show host Ben Shapiro, Bannon is a sinister character. “He is a vindictive, nasty figure, infamous for verbally abusing supposed friends and threatening enemies,” Shapiro wrote. “He will attempt to ruin anyone who impedes his unending ambition, and he will use anyone bigger than he is — for example, Donald Trump — to get where he wants to go.”
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Here are five quotes that demonstrate what Bannon’s all about:
Bannon is open about the alt-right being a cesspool for white nationalists and antisemites.
“Are there racist people involved in the alt-right? Absolutely,” he told Mother Jones at this year’s Republican National Convention. “Look, are there some people that are white nationalists that are attracted to some of the philosophies of the alt-right? Maybe. Are there some people that are anti-Semitic that are attracted? Maybe. Right? Maybe some people are attracted to the alt-right that are homophobes, right? But that’s just like, there are certain elements of the progressive left and the hard left that attract certain elements.”
According to BuzzFeed, Bannon has made homophobic remarks about the women’s movement.
“That’s one of the unintended consequences of the women’s liberation movement––that, in fact, the women that would lead this country would be feminine, they would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love their children. They wouldn’t be a bunch of dykes that came from the 7 Sisters schools.”
Bannon believes that progressivism is essentially nothing more than a philosophy of victimhood.
“They’re either a victim of race. They’re victim of their sexual preference. They’re a victim of gender. All about victimhood and the United States is the great oppressor, not the great liberator.”
In a court deposition, Bannon’s ex-wife Louise Piccard accused him of being an antisemite. She also brought charges of domestic violence against him in 1996, but they were dropped after she failed to appear in court.
“The biggest problem he had with Archer [School for Girls] is the number of Jews that attend. He said that he doesn’t like Jews and that he doesn’t like the way they raise their kids to be ‘whiney brats’ and that he didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews.”
If Bannon’s actual words don’t disqualify him from holding a top position in the Trump White House, the headlines he published at Breitbart should.
