But he was one of the architects, surely, of the legislative insurrection, which he was very invested in. He’s such a dervish of chaos that I don’t know if I would necessarily say that he was responsible in any logistical way for January 6. So, I might eat my words, but what I would say is that he often speaks with a lot of machismo and extra habanero about “all hell is gonna break loose,” “this is gonna be epic,” ”our people are ready!”īut then he means that they’re ready to man the phones. “He’s really in the business of moving the Overton window and mainstreaming unacceptable ideas” Jennifer Senior I don’t know to what extent he was involved in preparations or planning or plotting or whatever, but he knew what was coming, and he clearly welcomed it and celebrated it. Was that kind of like the culmination of his work, of all the foundation-laying he’s been doing over these last several years? I was listening to some clips of his podcast on January 5. I am curious what you think the significance of that event was for Bannon. We’re obviously talking against the backdrop of these January 6 hearings. We ignore him at our own peril, if for no other reason than what he does is, he’s really in the business of moving the Overton window and mainstreaming unacceptable ideas.
He’s the best at capturing Trumpism distilled, giving everyone the songs to sing, the hymns to sing from. I think he gives everyone the best, crispest talking points.
I mean, others would certainly have done it. So you do buy this idea that this whole Trump era, this national nightmare, wouldn’t be possible without Bannon laying the foundations for what would become Trumpism with sites like Breitbart? Jennifer Senior He’s done the best job of articulating what Trumpism is, which includes sweeping in the Big Lie as one of its foundational ideas, but also a kind of economic populism, an economic nationalism.Īnd I think he’s a dangerous force in American politics, in that he is the number one roaring outboard motor of disinformation in the United States right now. What he also is is the guy who has given intellectual texture and firmness to a Trump philosophy, because there never really was an articulated Trump philosophy. He came in in 2016 and took a floundering campaign at the 11th hour and he made the campaign viable. Steve Bannon was, if you were going to assign responsibility to anyone, I would say the most responsible for getting Trump elected. Let’s start with a basic question: Who is Steve Bannon really? Jennifer Senior
#Bannon warroom full
As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so listen and follow Vox Conversations on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Senior is a Pulitzer-Prize winning staff writer at the Atlantic and the author of a recent feature on Bannon and his influence called “ American Rasputin.” She was given plenty of access to Bannon and his associates - so much so that, in the piece itself, she wonders: Am I being used?īelow is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. That’s why I invited Jennifer Senior onto a recent episode of Vox Conversations to discuss Bannon. Bannon speaks, and a ton of people listen - which is why Bannon has become a person of interest for the January 6 committee, and why I believe we can’t fully understand this political moment without also understanding what he’s been up to.
He has been one of the most effective propagandists for Trump and the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. Every day, from the basement of a Washington, DC, townhouse referred to as “the Breitbart Embassy,” he broadcasts his thoughts, live and unedited, for four hours a day. Since 2019, he’s been hosting a podcast called War Room, and it is hugely influential. He then served in the White House as chief strategist but lasted only seven months in that role. He went from running the conservative propaganda website Breitbart News to becoming the CEO of the first Trump campaign in August 2016. Just this week, he set off push alerts when he announced that he would be willing to testify in front of the January 6 House committee - a proceeding that he has relentlessly hammered for weeks.Ī few years ago, Steve Bannon was the subject of plenty of media fascination. If you had to rank the people most responsible for the Trumpist turn in American politics, Steve Bannon would land pretty high on that list.īannon hasn’t been in a position of formal power since the summer of 2017, when he stepped down as Trump’s chief strategist (or was fired - it depends who you ask), but he still lurks in the shadows of President Joe Biden’s Washington.
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