A Worldview of War.


Steve Bannon, senior advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, makes a call outside Trump Tower on Friday, Dec. 9, 2016, in New York. CREDIT: AP Photo/Kevin Hagen.

Steve Bannon, senior advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, makes a call outside Trump Tower on Friday, Dec. 9, 2016, in New York. CREDIT: AP Photo/Kevin Hagen.

Several days ago, along with many other people, I posted about Bannon and the NSA. That’s very frightening news, and boy, is it ever bad news. Unfortunately, that post didn’t get the views it should have. People not only need to know about this, they need to understand just how unprecedented and momentous this move is, and how it’s going to have one hell of way of taking us straight into Naziland 2.0.

As noted in previous posts, the recent executive orders have been written and pushed out by Bannon and Miller, including the ban on Muslims. Trump is but the hand that obeys and signs. All anyone has to do is tell him [Trump] that something is his idea, and that he’s a super genius, and he’ll sign anything.

Authoritarianism experts and national security analysts are seriously disturbed by top White House adviser Steve Bannon’s newfound position on the National Security Council (NSC) principals committee, which further deepened the influence of his ethno-nationalist ideology on the Trump administration.

Multiple reports have also named Bannon as the driving force behind a series of hard-right executive orders from President Donald Trump’s desk, most notably the widely criticized Muslim ban order. The ban was “obviously an Islamophobic dog whistle,” according to Cas Mudde, an associate professor at the University of Georgia who studies radical right wing movements, and indicative of Bannon’s en

Bannon has largely followed up on Trump’s populist campaign message by delivering nativist and populist policy instructions without bothering to consult the National Security Council staff.

“He is running a cabal, almost like a shadow NSC,” an unnamed intelligence official told Foreign Policy. The official had originally kept an open mind about the incoming Trump administration, but FP reported he is now “deeply troubled by how things are being run.”

The directness of such decrees and the lack of input from advisers has done little to mitigate concerns that the Trump administration exhibits authoritarian tendencies.

Now Bannon’s malevolent world view — he is the person most responsible for turning Breitbart into a platform for the white nationalist “alt-right” — will have even greater influence over pressing matters of national security. Both the Muslim ban and Bannon’s prior remarks suggest he will use his NSC post to advocate belligerence to the global Muslim community.

If you aren’t scared, there’s something wrong with you, especially in light of Trump’s loose attitude about using nuclear weapons. Trump thinks sabre rattling is fun, and he has little sense, if any, about going too far.

[…]

Bannon’s emnity toward Islam is part of a holistic, nationalist ideology that shares plenty of common ground with the thought of Russian philosopher and uber-nationalist named Aleksandr Dugin, one of the white nationalist movement’s favorite traditionalist thinkers.

Bannon’s words and ideas seldom appear in the media firsthand, but a speech he delivered at the religious right wing Human Dignity Institute in the summer of 2014 revealed some of how he views the world. In his remarks, he spoke of Julius Evola, an Italian traditionalist philosopher who had a hefty influence on the political ideology of Benito Mussolini.

That should be enough to wake people up, and scare the shit out them, but I’m afraid there are simply too many people who truly don’t have a problem with any of this, and will slide willingly into the boiling pot of dictatorship.

Via Think Progress.

Comments

  1. samihawkins says

    The lack of outrage over Bannon disgusts me. You can quibble over whether he’s officially a nazi or not, but any decent person should be able to see what a twisted and evil creature he is. Him just being an advisor is awful, the fact that he’s writing executive orders and making national security decisions is fucking horrifying.

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