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White nationalists see advocate in Steve Bannon who will hold Trump to his campaign promises
| CNN | - |
(CNN)
White nationalist leaders are praising Donald Trump's decision to name
former Breitbart executive Steve Bannon as his chief strategist, telling
CNN in interviews they view Bannon as an advocate in the White House
for policies they favor.
White nationalists see advocate in Steve Bannon who will hold Trump to his campaign promises
Steve Bannon selected as Trump's chief strategist 01:48
Story highlights
- White nationalists say Bannon's hiring is a signal that Trump will follow through on some of his more controversial policy positions.
- "I think that's excellent," former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke told CNN's KFile.
(CNN)White
nationalist leaders are praising Donald Trump's decision to name former
Breitbart executive Steve Bannon as his chief strategist, telling CNN
in interviews they view Bannon as an advocate in the White House for
policies they favor.
The
leaders of the white nationalist and so-called "alt-right" movement —
all of whom vehemently oppose multiculturalism and share the belief in
the supremacy of the white race and Western civilization — publicly
backed Trump during his campaign for his hardline positions on Mexican
immigration, Muslims, and refugee resettlement. Trump has at times
disavowed their support. Bannon's hiring, they say, is a signal that
Trump will follow through on some of his more controversial policy
positions.
"I
think that's excellent," former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke told
CNN's KFile. "I think that anyone that helps complete the program and
the policies that President-elect Trump has developed during the
campaign is a very good thing, obviously. So it's good to see that he's
sticking to the issues and the ideas that he proposed as a candidate.
Now he's president-elect and he's sticking to it and he's reaffirming
those issues."
Duke, who last week
lost his longshot bid for the US Senate seat from Louisiana, said he
plans on expanding his radio show and is hoping to launch a 24 hour
online news show with a similar approach to Comedy Central's Daily
Show. He argued Bannon's position was among the most important in the
White House.
"You have an
individual, Mr. Bannon, who's basically creating the ideological aspects
of where we're going," added Duke. "And ideology ultimately is the most
important aspect of any government."
Bannon,
who was a Navy officer and Goldman Sachs investment banker years before
taking over Breitbart, has called the site "the platform for the
alt-right." Under Bannon, Breitbart has taken an increasingly hardline
tone on issues such as terrorism and immigration, running a headline
after the Paris attacks of November 2015 saying, "Paris Streets Turned
Into Warzone By Violent Migrants." It also ran a headline in May 2016
calling anti-Trump, neoconservative commentator Bill Kristol a "Renegade
Jew."
Bannon himself was accused
of anti-Semitism by his ex-wife, who alleged in a 2007 court declaration
that he did not want their daughter to attend a Los Angeles school
because of the numbers of Jews who went to school there. (Bannon,
through a spokesperson, denied his wife's accusations.)
Peter
Brimelow, who runs the white nationalist site VDARE, praised Bannon's
hiring, saying it gives Trump a connection to the alt-right movement
online.
"I think it's amazing,"
Brimelow said of Trump's decision to tap Bannon. "Can you imagine Mitt
Romney doing this? It's almost like Trump cares about ideas! Especially
amazing because I would bet Trump doesn't read online. Few plutocrats
do, they have efficient secretaries."
Brimelow
added his site would continue to focus solely on their hardline
position on immigration, saying he expects American whites to vote their
interests similar to other minority groups.
"To the extent that the 'alt-right' articulates that interest, it will continue to grow," Brimelow said.
Brad
Griffin, a blogger who runs the white nationalist website Occidental
Dissent using the pseudonym "Hunter Wallace," said he thought Bannon's
hiring showed Trump would be held to his campaign promises.
"It
makes sense to me," he said. "Reince [Priebus] can certainly get more
done on Capitol Hill. He will be an instrument of Trump's will, not the
other way around. Bannon is better suited as chief strategist and
looking at the big picture. I think he will hold Trump to the promises
he has already made during the campaign. We endorse many of those
promises like building the wall, deportations, ending refugee
resettlement, preserving the Second Amendment, etc. There's a lot of
stuff in there on which almost everyone on the right agrees."
Griffin
added, "We're most excited though about the foreign policy
implications of Bannon in the White House. We want to see our
counterparts in Europe — starting in Austria and France — win their
upcoming elections. We're hearing reports that Breitbart is expanding
its operations in continental Europe and that is where our focus will be
in 2017."
Jared Taylor, who runs
the site American Renaissance, echoed those comments, saying Bannon
would help hold Trump to his campaign rhetoric.
"There
has been some waffling on some of candidate Trump's signature
positions: build the wall, deport illegals, end birth-right citizenship,
take a hard look at Muslim immigrants, etc," he said. "I suspect one of
Steve Bannon's important functions will be as an anti-waffler, who will
encourage President Trump to keep his campaign promises."
Chairman of the American Nazi Party, Rocky J. Suhayda, who wrote a post after Trump's election night victory celebrating it as a call to action, said he was surprised at the pick of Bannon, but said it showed him Trump could follow through on his campaign promises.
"I
must admit that I was a wee bit surprised that Mr. Trump finally chose
Mr. Bannon, I thought that his stable of Washington insiders would have
objected too vociferously," Suhayda wrote in an email. "Perhaps The
Donald IS for 'REAL' and is not going to be another controlled puppet
directed by the usual 'Wire Pullers,' and does indeed intend to ROCK the
BOAT? Time will tell."
Richard B.
Spencer, the president of the white nationalist National Policy
Institute, wrote a series of tweets on Sunday evening saying Bannon had
the best position as chief strategist, allowing him to not get lost in the weeds and could help Trump focus on the big picture of setting up his agenda.
"Steve
Bannon might even push Trump in the right direction. So that would be a
wonderful thing," he told CNN on Sunday before the announcement, adding
that he hopes to push Trump in an increasingly radical direction."
Matt
Parrott, a spokesman for the Traditionalist Worker Party, said Bannon
was a "civic nationalist" — someone who sees an American identity not
based on race.
"Steve Bannon has
never been a white nationalist and it's kind of tiresome how the
important distinction, everyone needs to learn them now that they're
relevant. There's an important distinction between a civic nationalist
and a white nationalist," Parrott to CNN. "Steve Bannon's entire career,
and if you look at Breitbart, like, he's accusing the other side of
racism. That's something that wouldn't happen out of an actual white
nationalist of course because we don't see being for your race as a
negative thing. Yeah, Steve Bannon's a civic nationalist and that's much
better than what was in Washington before. We're hopeful about the
whole thing."
Parrot added, "We in
the alt-right are going to be just as vicious in trolling and attacking
the Republican Congress as they try to obstruct Trump's reforms as we
were against the left."
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