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David Brooks interviews Steve Bannon, is horrified at the world he helped make [1]

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Date: 2024-07-01  

David Brooks interviewed Steve Bannon before he reports to jail. To say he was gobsmacked is an understatement.

I felt like I was talking with Leon Trotsky in the years before the Russian Revolution. I was sitting in Steve Bannon’s Washington living room in 2019. His stint in Donald Trump’s White House had ended ingloriously, but he had resumed his self-appointed role as populism’s grand strategist, its propagandist, its bad-boy visionary. He sat there that day sketching out his plans for how MAGA-type movements could take over the world. By then populists had already racked up some big wins — Brexit in Britain, Trump’s victory in 2016. Right-wing populists were in power in Hungary and Poland, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party was surging and populists were rising across Latin America. Bannon knew I opposed him in every particular and abhorred much of what he said, but he laid out his grand vision cheerfully, confidently. He didn’t seem concerned about old-fashioned conservatives, moderates and classical liberals like me; we were destined for the ash heap of history. I decided to check in with Bannon again about a week ago. This year, populists have scored yet another string of triumphs and a second Trump victory is possible or even probable this November. I found Bannon, currently the host of the podcast “War Room,” to be embroiled and embattled as usual. He’s going to prison Monday, to begin serving a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress. If anything, he is more confident than ever.

Read the whole thing. (Full access gift link.) What Bannon has to say seldom gets as much coverage as it deserves.

Several points:

It’s always darkly amusing to hear Brooks talk about people losing confidence in out-of-touch elites. Has the man no mirrors?

I guess it’s official: populism is the polite euphemism for Fascism. It’s a psychological mechanism that allows people in the media to pretend that isn’t what movement conservatism is these days. (It can’t happen here!)

While it’s reasonable and necessary to label Bannon extreme, it’s important to remember the Republican Party is just as committed to destroying government of, by, and for the people. They are not hiding it — it’s the media that keeps looking away.

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