I am not sure who is using whom. Probably Donald J. Trump and Steve Bannon both use each other as long as their goals are aligned. The importance of Steve Bannon is highlighted by his official role as Chief Strategist and by his nicknames: dictator of Breitbart, most dangerous political operative, President Bannon, Rasputin and The Great Manipulator.
The doubt in my opening line is based on a Vanity Fair article by Ken Stern: “… when I talked with Bannon, he expressed a wariness about the political genuineness of the Trump campaign persona. Trump is a “blunt instrument for us,” he told me earlier this summer. “I don’t know whether he really gets it or not.” This Bannon remark appears sincere as Donald J. Trump’s behaviour is indeed characterized by opportunism and pragmatism rather than principles.
Steve Bannon appears to be a man of strong principles. There is a very interesting 2013 Bannon quote which he allegedly said to Ronald Radosh (American writer, professor, historian, and former Marxist) of The Daily Beast.
Snopes tried to verify this Bannon quote. Bannon claims that he cannot “remember” either having met Radosh or having said this. Snopes rates this quote as Unproven rather than False.
Everything follows Why and the Why behind this quote is found in Bannon’s 2014 Skype presentation to a Vatican conference. Late 2016, BuzzFeed posted the transcript of that conference.
Some important quotes: “I believe the world, and particularly the Judeo-Christian West, is in a crisis. [] it is a crisis both of capitalism but really of the underpinnings of the Judeo-Christian West in our beliefs. [] And I believe we’ve come partly off track in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union and we’re starting now in the 21st century, which I believe, strongly, is a crisis both of our church, a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the West, a crisis of capitalism.”
“Now, what I mean by that specifically: I think that you’re seeing three kinds of converging tendencies: One is a form of capitalism that is taken away from the underlying spiritual and moral foundations of Christianity and, really, Judeo-Christian belief. [] The other tendency is an immense secularization of the West. [] Now that call converges with something we have to face, and it’s a very unpleasant topic, but we are in an outright war against jihadist Islamic fascism. And this war is, I think, metastasizing far quicker than governments can handle it.”
Bannon’s views on crony capitalism in this 2014 presentation do support the 2013 Leninist quote. It’s not clear what follows his state’s destruction, apart from “an enlightened form of capitalism” through “an underpinning of Judeo-Christian beliefs”, resulting in “building blocks” of “strong countries and strong nationalist movements in countries [that] make strong neighbors”.
However, before rebuilding the “individual sovereignty of a country”, Bannon anticipates a global war against jihadist Islamic fascism, similar to the historic Christian-Muslim battles at “Vienna, or Tours, or other places”. Steve Bannon seems like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Put It Where You Want It (1972) by The Crusaders – artists, FB, video, Wiki
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