Extract from The Guardian
The announcement that Donald Trump has appointed Stephen Bannon, the former head of far-right propaganda outlet Breitbart News, as his chief strategist is a layer cake of horrors.
On a personal level, Breitbart has long been an engine of anti-feminist harassment, and Bannon directly profits from the fragile male hunger for punishing disobedient women. I have been the subject of multiple Breitbart smears (which come, inevitably and by design, with a deluge of threats from sputtering Twitter eggs), as have most of the high-profile feminists I know, along with Black Lives Matter leaders, trans activists, rape victims, and even fellow conservatives who toe a more establishment line.
Bannon’s site was a home base for GamerGate, an interminable juggernaut of racist, misogynist, and transphobic abuse aimed at stanching diversity in video games, which eventually morphed into the youth wing of the Trump campaign. It is beyond unsettling to imagine a man who has not only attempted to ruin the lives of women I consider friends, but monetised that abuse, hissing in the ear of the President of the United States.
On a policy level, the Bannon appointment is potentially catastrophic. Breitbart peddles in disinformation, conspiracy theories and dog-whistles of every far-right stripe – headlines under Bannon’s tenure have included “Hoist it high and proud: The confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage”, “Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy”, and “Clinton aide Huma Abedin ‘most likely a Saudi spy.’” The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote of Bannon: “He has insinuated that African-Americans are ‘naturally aggressive and violent’ and under his leadership, Breitbart’s publishing strategy turned to one that has made it the media arm of the racist Alternative-Right movement, publishing articles promoting popular white nationalist tropes such as ‘black on white crime’ and that ‘rape culture’ is inherent in Islam.”
On a personal level, Breitbart has long been an engine of anti-feminist harassment, and Bannon directly profits from the fragile male hunger for punishing disobedient women. I have been the subject of multiple Breitbart smears (which come, inevitably and by design, with a deluge of threats from sputtering Twitter eggs), as have most of the high-profile feminists I know, along with Black Lives Matter leaders, trans activists, rape victims, and even fellow conservatives who toe a more establishment line.
Bannon’s site was a home base for GamerGate, an interminable juggernaut of racist, misogynist, and transphobic abuse aimed at stanching diversity in video games, which eventually morphed into the youth wing of the Trump campaign. It is beyond unsettling to imagine a man who has not only attempted to ruin the lives of women I consider friends, but monetised that abuse, hissing in the ear of the President of the United States.
On a policy level, the Bannon appointment is potentially catastrophic. Breitbart peddles in disinformation, conspiracy theories and dog-whistles of every far-right stripe – headlines under Bannon’s tenure have included “Hoist it high and proud: The confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage”, “Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy”, and “Clinton aide Huma Abedin ‘most likely a Saudi spy.’” The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote of Bannon: “He has insinuated that African-Americans are ‘naturally aggressive and violent’ and under his leadership, Breitbart’s publishing strategy turned to one that has made it the media arm of the racist Alternative-Right movement, publishing articles promoting popular white nationalist tropes such as ‘black on white crime’ and that ‘rape culture’ is inherent in Islam.”
Anyone who has been paying attention to Breitbart’s metastasisation over the past half-decade shouldn’t be surprised by the nationwide proliferation of hate speech and vandalism since Trump’s victory: the website has long seemed determined to stoke the culture wars until they explode into some iteration of literal war. “Mike Pence wants 1957, and that would be a nightmare,” a friend pointed out today, “but I think Bannon wants 1939.”
White nationalist and neo-Nazi groups openly gloried in Bannon’s appointment, just as they – along with the Ku Klux Klan – celebrated Trump’s win all week. “Bannon is our man in the White House,” wrote one commenter at the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer – which, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “claims to be the ‘#1 Alt-Right’ website”. Hey, you know who also claims to run the #1 Alt-Right website? Bannon, who once referred to Breitbart as the “platform for the alt-right”. In their own “guide to the alt-right”, Breitbart acknowledges the neo-Nazis within their ranks. Meanwhile, Ken Blackwell, a member of Trump’s transition team, told the Wall Street Journal that Reince Priebus’s role as chief of staff will be to “make the trains run on time”.
Not a neo-Nazi darling or a white nationalist hero or a xenophobic propagandist – just a rascally maverick ready to shake up the GOP establishment! After hours of outcry from progressive readers, the mainstream press began to catch up, if tepidly – “Critics See Stephen Bannon, Trump’s Pick for Strategist, as Voice of Racism,” the New York Times intoned – but the precedent was clear. We will have to fight tooth and nail for every molecule of honesty – to call racism racism – for the next four years and probably beyond.
On Twitter today I wrote that I had taken five minutes to phone my senators and congressman, to urge them to kick up a fuss about Bannon’s appointment. Not because congress has any direct control over the president’s inner circle, but because I want my elected representatives to understand very clearly that this president elect does not have a mandate, and as a constituent I will not tolerate complacency in the face of white supremacy. I will keep calling, every day if necessary, for four years if necessary, to keep that awareness alive: if you do not fight this administration, you do not represent me, you are not doing your job, and you do not have my vote. That is how representative democracy works.
I was immediately beset by an avalanche of Trump fanatics trolling the #StopBannon hashtag. Bannon isn’t racist, they said. He’s not antisemitic. In fact, I’m the real racist, if you think about it. Many of their Twitter feeds were littered with racist memes and buzzwords. A self-professed “Trump zealot” e-mailed to let me know that “white” is “the new n-word”. In the news, a mayor in West Virginia was criticised for saying that a “joke” calling Michelle Obama an “ape in heels” had “made her day”. But she’s probably “not racist” either!
One defining aspect of alt-right white supremacy is that it vehemently denies its own existence. They’re “just trolling”. They’re just “defending free speech”. They’re just anti-establishment firebrands. We are told that voting for racist policies is not a racist act. We are told that sexual assault is not a misogynist act. That mocking the disabled is not ableist and vowing to deport Muslims and Mexican immigrants is not xenophobic. It’s a brazen denial of reality and the meaning of basic English words. This erosion of language is an authoritarian tactic designed to stifle dissent. If you cannot call something by its name, then how can you fight it?
Whether Bannon keeps his job as chief strategist or not, we – the vast, passionate populace that chose Hillary by a margin of millions of votes – have to keep calling him and this administration what they are: dangerous.
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