Steve Bannon is THE MAN: "Like Jackson's Populism, Gonna Build New Movement"

[polychronopolous]

Steve Bannon Vows ‘Economic Nationalist Movement’ from White House — ‘As Exciting as the 1930s, Greater than the Reagan Revolution’

“The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f—ed over. If we deliver—” by “we” he means the Trump White House “—we’ll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we’ll govern for 50 years.



Stephen K. Bannon (or, for those who want to maximize their SEO, Steve Bannon) gives an exclusive interview to Michael Wolff at the Hollywood Reporter, previewing his ambitious agenda for president-elect Donald Trump. While Bannon seems to relish the left seeing him as “Darth Vader” or “Satan,” he describes himself as “Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors.”
From The Hollywood Reporter:

What he seems to have carried from a boyhood in a blue-collar, union and Democratic family in Norfolk, Va., and through his tour of the American establishment, is an unreconstructed sense of class awareness, or bitterness — or betrayal. The Democratic Party betrayed its working-man roots, just as Hillary Clinton betrayed the long-time Clinton connection — Bill Clinton’s connection — to the working man. “The Clinton strength,” he says, “was to play to people without a college education. High school people. That’s how you win elections.” And, likewise, the Republican party would come to betray its working-man constituency forged under Reagan. In sum, the working man was betrayed by the establishment, or what he dismisses as the “donor class.”

To say that he sees this donor class — which in his telling is also “ascendant America,” e.g. the elites, as well as “the metrosexual bubble” that encompasses cosmopolitan sensibilities to be found as far and wide as Shanghai, London’s Chelsea, Hollywood and the Upper West Side — as a world apart, is an understatement. In his view, there’s hardly a connection between this world and its opposite — fly-over America, left-behind America, downwardly mobile America — hardly a common language.

This is partly why he regards the liberal characterization of himself as socially vile, as the politically incorrect devil incarnate, as laughable — and why he is stoutly unapologetic. They —liberals and media — don’t understand what he is saying, or why, or to whom. Breitbart, with its casual provocations — lists of its varied incitements (among them: the conservative writer David Horowitz referred to conservative pundit Brill Kristol as a “renegade Jew,” and the site delighting in headlines the likes of “Trannies 49Xs Higher HIV Rate” and “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy”) were in hot exchange after the election among appalled Democrats — is as obtuse to the liberal-donor-globalist class as Lena Dunham might be to the out-of-work workingman class. And this, in the Bannon view, is all part of the profound misunderstanding that led liberals to believe that Donald Trump’s mouth would doom him, instead of elect him.

Bannon, arguably, is one of the people most at the battle line of the great American divide — and one of the people to have most clearly seen this battle line.

He absolutely — mockingly — rejects the idea that this is a racial line. “I’m not a white nationalist, I’m a nationalist. I’m an economic nationalist,” he tells me. “The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f—ed over. If we deliver—” by “we” he means the Trump White House “—we’ll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we’ll govern for 50 years. That’s what the Democrats missed, they were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people. It’s not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about.”

In a nascent administration that seems, at best, random in its beliefs, Bannon can seem to be not just a focused voice, but almost a messianic one:

“Like [Andrew] Jackson’s populism, we’re going to build an entirely new political movement,” he says. “It’s everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I’m the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it’s the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up. We’re just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution — conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement.”

READ THE REST HERE: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/steve-bannon-trump-tower-interview-trumps-strategist-plots-new-political-movement-948747

[polychronopolous]

'Honey Badger Doesn't Give A Sh*t': Bannon unfazed by criticism of Trump appointment





Donald Trump's chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, is unfazed by the negative attention surrounding his White House appointment and feels no obligation to make peace with anyone in the Republican Party, according to two allies.



Bannon, the controversial former chairman of Breitbart News, has been holed up in an office at Trump Tower in recent days, taking a procession of meetings and phone calls as part of the transition effort.

All the while, he has been assailed by Democrats and civil rights groups who have called him everything from a white nationalist to a racist to an anti-Semite. Scores of Democrats in Congress have urged Trump to fire him.

The controversy surrounding his appointment has been so great that Bannon has even been featured on an episode of South Park.

Despite the criticism, sources close to Bannon say he’s not deviating an inch from the nationalist populist movement that propelled Trump to the presidency. If anything, he finds the negative attention motivating.

“He gets a kick out of that stuff,” said a source close to Bannon.

“He doesn’t care. He’s just doing what he has to do.”

A number of Trump allies have publicly defended Bannon this week, arguing the media characterization of hims is unfair and wrong. Israel's ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer said Bannon is someone he looks forward to collaborating with.

That defense came after Democrats assailed Bannon, citing statements from his past and from people who know him.  They have highlighted comments from his ex-wife, who alleged in divorce proceedings that Bannon said didn't want his children to attend a Los Angeles school because of “the number of Jews.” Bannon through a spokeswoman has denied ever saying that.

In a new interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Bannon also pushed back on the assertions that he's a white nationalist.

"I’m not a white nationalist, I’m a nationalist," Bannon said. "I’m an economic nationalist."

At the same time, Bannon used the interview to embrace his image as an outsider.

"Darkness is good,” he said. “Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when they get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing.”

Meanwhile, as Trump interviews candidates for administration positions, Bannon has spoken to or met with a number of prominent Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Reps. Steve Scalise (La.), Steve King (Iowa) and Kevin McCarthy (Calif.).

While some have suggested that Bannon might be trying to make peace with the Republican establishment, a second source close to Bannon said he's doing nothing of the kind.

“He’s got no intention of making peace with anybody,” the source said.

The source stressed that Bannon has not apologized to anyone and has no intention of doing so — and that extends to Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), a figure Bannon attacked ferociously with negative coverage at Breitbart.

“If any member of the establishment who weren’t on the team want to work together with the president-elect on the policies which he’s outlined, that’s great,” the source told The Hill on Thursday, when asked about Bannon’s relationship with Ryan.

“There is no apology tour or effort to focus on whether individual members in the House or Senate feel good,” the source added. “Donald Trump won a mandate from the American people who want to see the swamp drained.”

Despite the signs of a natural progression from Trump’s campaign, some pundits in Washington continue to predict that Trump’s administration’s will ultimately be a kinder, gentler affair.

Those who know Bannon best laugh at that suggestion, citing Breitbart’s longstanding motto: “Honey badger don’t give a s---.”

“Bannon has gone full honey badger,” said a Bannon ally. “He cares not what anyone in the swamp thinks of him. He’s on the hunt and he’s going to drain the swamp.”

Earlier this week, Breitbart News staff got wind that liberal protesters were planning to demonstrate outside Bannon’s Capitol Hill townhouse, which doubles as the Breitbart workspace.

The Breitbart response was straight from the playbook of the White House’s incoming chief strategist.

They hung a picture of a honey badger on the door.