'Darkness is good' for political power, Steve Bannon says
Steve Bannon isn鈥檛 concerned about the 鈥渄arkness鈥� surrounding his new position with the Trump administration.
The former Breitbart executive and chief strategist for Donald Trump has been a controversial pick on the president-elect鈥檚 staff. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Mr. Bannon said the administration planned to usher in a "," one that he hopes could allow the GOP to hold its reign over the government for some 50 years.
But taking that route doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean playing nice.
"Darkness is good," Bannon told The Hollywood Reporter. "Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power. It only helps us when [the liberals and media] get it wrong. When they're blind to who we are and what we're doing."
Despite overwhelming predictions that Hillary Clinton would win the presidency, Bannon was one of the holdouts who truly believed that Mr. Trump could achieve a victory. Now, the man formerly behind a right-wing news network that supported Trump鈥檚 bid for the presidency from its early days will be responsible for shaping what a Trump presidency means for the future. While Bannon has received criticism for views deemed anti-Semitic, sexist, and racist, he decries the 鈥渁lt-right鈥� label that鈥檚 been slapped on him, his network, and the Trump administration.
He says he鈥檚 focused on reshaping the economy and rebuilding infrastructure, and it鈥檚 those views that will allow the Trump campaign to make a lasting impression on American society.
"I'm not a white nationalist, I'm a nationalist. I'm an economic nationalist," Bannon said. "The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia ... If we deliver, 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."
Like Trump, Bannon has criticized establishment politicians and the GOP. Now, he鈥檚 joining the outsider candidate鈥檚 movement to reshape the Republican party, likening the movement to Andrew Jackson鈥檚 populism.
"Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political movement," he said.聽鈥淚t will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution 鈥� conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement."聽
While several senators and pundits, including conservative news host Glenn Beck, have called on Trump to rescind Bannon's job offer, the president-elect has shown no signs of heeding those calls. Meanwhile, members of the alt-right are thrilled with Bannon鈥檚 appointment, hoping he鈥檚 the person who can hold Trump to his campaign promises that may lose momentum now that he鈥檚 left the campaign trail behind.
"There's no question that of all the appointments that we have known about so far, Steve Bannon seems to be the one who would be most likely to urge President Trump to keep his campaign promises,鈥� Jared Taylor, editor of the alt-right publication American Renaissance, previously told 海角大神. 鈥淎nd that's a hugely important thing."
