海角大神

The appointment of Breitbart news chief Stephen Bannon to head Donald Trump鈥檚 presidential campaign this week marks the official entree of the so-called 鈥渁lt-right鈥� into the Republicans鈥� top campaign.

For the Trump campaign, Mr. Bannon is an experienced political street fighter who is well-versed in the sharp-edged, populist message that served the candidate well in the Republican primaries.

Mr. Trump鈥檚 tapping of the alt-right could help solidify his base by letting Trump be Trump, and potentially propel him to hit Hillary Clinton鈥檚 weak points harder.

But critics say that Bannon's hiring resonates far beyond the Trump campaign in troubling ways. It marks a worrisome marriage of the Republican Party with an Internet culture that, they say, peddles in white identity, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and Clinton conspiracies.聽

In short, it doubles down on a largely white voting bloc that, in the words of Brendan O鈥橬eill, a commentator for the conservative Spectator magazine in Britain, is 鈥渃onvinced the world is one big lefty, feminist plot to ruin your average white dude鈥檚 life.鈥�

鈥淭he [Mexican] rapist comments, the banning Muslims comments 鈥� the crowd roars for that,鈥� says Marc Hetherington, who has studied voter polarization at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. 鈥淩epublican voters have said this is what we want, and it鈥檚 now the national party. And it鈥檚 a problem for [the party establishment] to manage.鈥澛�

From a purely electoral perspective, the move risks keeping the Trump campaign鈥檚 center of gravity too far right for a general election. On Friday,聽Trump strategist聽Paul Manafort, installed to help the candidate reach out to a wider audience, resigned from the campaign.聽While Trump will be even more adored by those who adore him, he could become even more objectionable to all others聽鈥� and there are not enough of Trump鈥檚 core voters to tilt a presidential election, argue many political scientists and pollsters.

鈥淚f you trust the polls, this seems like a fundamental strategic error. Trump is running worse than Mitt Romney among almost all demographic groups; white men without a college degree are the most prominent exception,鈥� writes Nate Silver on the FiveThirtyEight data journalism website. 鈥淏ut there aren鈥檛 enough of those men to form a majority or really even to come all that close.鈥�

Breitbart's banner

Bannon heads the site Breitbart news, founded by the late Andrew Breitbart, an early tea party champion who built a small media empire on the belief that he was taking on the liberal media in a 鈥渨ar for the American narrative,鈥� as he once wrote.

Since Mr. Breitbart鈥檚 death in 2012, Bannon has built the site into a powerhouse in part by courting America鈥檚 alt-right. The site fully embraced the alt-right in March, when Milo Yiannopoulos, a gay provocateur and conservative folk hero, took a more prominent position at the site.

鈥淪ome 鈥� mostly Establishment types 鈥� insist that [the alternative right is] little more than a vehicle for the worst dregs of human society: anti-Semites, white supremacists, and other members of the Stormfront set. They鈥檙e wrong,鈥� wrote Mr. Yiannopoulos, who was recently banned from Twitter for encouraging what Twitter called 鈥渢argeted abuse鈥� on a black actress. 鈥淧reviously an obscure subculture, the alt-right burst onto the national political scene in 2015. Although initially small in number, the alt-right has a youthful energy and jarring, taboo-defying rhetoric that have boosted its membership and made it impossible to ignore.鈥�

Trump鈥檚 new campaign tack would appear to sidestep the Republican status quo in order to court a new kind of voter, one that has noted that even when 鈥減ast conservative administrations have been in office they have failed to arrest the leftwards drift of the culture,鈥� as James Delingpole writes in The Spectator.

Unlike establishment Republicans, 鈥渢he alt-right sees limited-government constitutionalism as pass茅,鈥� adds Ben Shapiro, a former Breitbart editor, in The Washington Post. 鈥淚t holds that only nationalist populism on the basis of shared tribal identity can save the country.鈥澛�

Breitbart, a Matt Drudge prot茅g茅, is remembered for his involvement in the 2009 ACORN undercover videos scandal and an engaging and hard-edged writing style that influenced how many people 鈥� and not exclusively on the right 鈥� thought and wrote about politics. His main criticism of politics was what he saw as the unholy marriage between the media and politicians.

But in 2010, he saw Trump as a part of that problem, saying in a Fox News appearance: 鈥淐elebrity is everything in this country.鈥�

Trump is 鈥渘ot a conservative,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f these guys [Republicans] don鈥檛 learn how to play the media ... we鈥檙e going to probably get a celebrity candidate.鈥�

Trump's 'Patton'

For his part, Bannon adds a new kind of campaign savvy to a faltering campaign. His hire may also be a recognition that, if Trump does lose, he does so on his own terms.

鈥淭he media is out to destroy Donald Trump,鈥� Pamela Geller, the anti-jihadi activist, told the Daily Beast. 鈥淭rump needs a champion, a 鈥楶atton,鈥� a Bannon.鈥�

Specifically, Ms. Geller said Bannon 鈥渁rticulates what millions of Americans are thinking about how we need to tell the truth about jihad and the Muslim migrant invasion of the West.鈥�

Trump鈥檚 open moves toward the alt-right could be effective in renewing the candidate鈥檚 focus on Mrs. Clinton. A renewed line of attack on Clinton has the capacity to hurt a vulnerable front-runner who also has historically high unfavorable ratings in polls.聽

Yet the appointment was disappointing to many establishment Republicans.

By nominating an alt-right darling like Trump to run for president, 鈥渢he Republican Party has 鈥� transformed into the world鈥檚 largest and angriest comment section,鈥� South Carolina House minority leader Todd Rutherford (D) told The State newspaper recently.