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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe New Vast Right-Wing Conspirator - CEO of Breitbart - Wants to Take Out Both Clinton and Bush
Steve Bannon is the executive chairman of Breitbart News, the crusading right-wing populist website thats a lineal descendant of the Drudge Report (its late founder, Andrew Breitbart, spent years apprenticing with Matt Drudge) and a haven for people who think Fox News is too polite and restrained. Hed spent the day at CPAC among the conservative faithful, zipping back and forth between his SiriusXM booth and an unlikely pair of guests he was squiring around: Nigel Farage, the leader of Britains right-wing UKIP party, and Phil Robertson, the bandannad, ayatollah-bearded Duck Dynasty patriarch who was accepting a free-speech award.
When Sarah Palin was at the height of her fame, Bannon was whispering in her ear. When Donald Trump decided to blow up the Republican presidential field, Bannon encouraged his circus-like visit to the U.S.-Mexico border. John Boehner just quit as House speaker because of the mutinous frenzy Bannon and his confederates whipped up among conservatives. Today, backed by mysterious investors and a stream of Seinfeld royalties, he sits at the nexus of what Hillary Clinton once dubbed the vast right-wing conspiracy, where he and his network have done more than anyone else to complicate her presidential ambitionsand they plan to do more. But this conspiracy, at least under Bannon, has mutated into something different from what Clinton described: Its as eager to go after establishment Republicans such as Boehner or Jeb Bush as Democrats like Clinton.
While attacking the favored candidates in both parties at once may seem odd, Bannon says hes motivated by the same populist disgust with Washington thats animating candidates from Trump to Bernie Sanders. Like both, Bannon is having a bigger influence than anyone could have reasonably expected. But in the Year of the Outsider, it's perhaps fitting that a figure like Bannon, whom nobody saw coming, would roil the national political debate.
While hed blanch at the comparison, hes pursuing something like the old Marxist dialectical concept of heightening the contradictions, only rather than foment revolution among the proletariat, hes trying to disillusion Clintons and Bushs natural base of support, recognizing, as Goldman Sachs taught him, that youre more effective if others lead the way. To succeed, Bannon will need to activate the anger and disgust with cronyism thats as powerful among supporters of Sanders as it is among fans of Trump. In Tallahassee, as GAIs phone keeps ringing, the vehicle for achieving this is clear. Editors and reporters at prominent magazines and newspapers, including ones that had passed when approached with Clinton Cash revelations, are calling to ask when the next salvo will arriveand might they arrange an exclusive?
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2015-steve-bannon/
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(477 posts)emulatorloo
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