title: watch traffic reporters savage message to those who threatened to leave us if trump won
text:  thoughts on steve bannon as white house chief strategist by ben shapiro november   
  so in a notunexpected move donald trump has elevated former breitbart news ceo steve bannon to chief strategist of the white house 
  when i left breitbart back in march i accused bannon of turning breitbart news into trump pravda  as i wrote indeed breitbart news under the chairmanship of steve bannon has put a stake through the heart of andrews legacy in my opinion steve bannon is a bully and has sold out andrews mission in order to back another bully donald trump he has shaped the company into trumps personal pravda to the extent that he abandoned and undercut his own reporter 
  that decision paid off for bannon  in august he became trumps campaign ceo at that point i wrote this piece describing who bannon was  and this one for the washington post describing his probable impact on the campaign  
  with bannons accession to a top white house role its time to answer some brief questions about the man and what hes likely to do 
  is bannon antisemitic and racist i have no evidence that bannons a racist or that hes an antisemite the huffington posts blaring headline white nationalist in the white house is overstated at the very least with that said as i wrote at the washington post in august bannon has openly embraced the racist and antisemitic altright  he called his breitbart  the platform of the altright  milo yiannopoulos the star writer at the site is an altright popularizer  even as he continuously declares with a wink that hes not a member the lefts opposition to trump and their attempts to declare all trump support the altright have obfuscated what the movement is the movement isnt all trump supporters its not conservatives unsatisfied with paul ryan nor is it people angry at the media bannon knows that hes a smart man not an ignorant one the altright in a nutshell believes that western culture is inseparable from european ethnicity  i have no evidence bannon believes that personally but hes happy to pander to those people and make common cause with them in order to transform conservatism into european farright nationalist populism that means that the altright will cheer bannon along as he marbles trumps speeches with talk of globalism  and that bannon wont be pushing trump to dump the racists and antisemites who support trump anytime soon after all they love bannon  actual white supremacists like peter brimelow called his august appointment great news and richard spencer explained breitbart has elective affinities with the alt right and the alt right has clearly influenced breitbart in this way breitbart has acted as a gateway to alt right ideas and writers i dont think it has done this deliberately again its a matter of elective affinities that doesnt mean bannon will push racist or antisemitic policy or that hell be antiisrael himself  unless it serves his interests 
  what does bannons accession mean bannon has goals one of those goals is maximization of personal power which is why he spent the last decade and a half glomming onto powerful rightwing personalities bachmann morris palin kissing their asses and then moving on up the chain with breitbart and trump he picked two winners in a row  and that means hes now at the pinnacle of american power 
  so what will he do with that power hell target enemies bannon is one of the most vicious people in politics which is why ive been joking for months that should trump win id be expecting my irs audit any moment that wasnt completely a joke he likes to destroy people 
  but more importantly bannons interested in turning the republican party into a farright european party because republicans will like some of the policy that comes with that it could happen heres what i wrote in march about the trump movement  
  trump is a europeanstyle response to the europeanstyle leftism of barack obama hes a soft europeanstyle populist from his interventionist economics to his closedborders foreign policy as i wrote in december compare trumps platform with that of marine le pen whose french national front poses a significant threat to the national political establishment she calls for harsher penalties for criminals significant restrictions on muslim immigration to france protectionism on trade a restoration of the franc as the national currency rather than the euro and big government in terms of health care this sounds a lot like trump but the european right is not the american right the american right believes in constitutional ideas about checks and balances and federalism and negative rights from government the european right doesnt believe any of these things should trump win we could watch american conservatism lose the only party it has ever had 
  thats the plan yesterday the daily beast reported that bannon reached out to le pen for global ultraright coalition over the weekend le pen met with nigel farage of the uk independent party and trump met with farage shortly after being elected bannon has always wanted to burn down the gop thats still his goal he wants it replaced with an american national front party in fact if not in name 
  which war will bannon lead bannon considers himself a wartime consigliore  always at war always so the only question left is this what will bannons actual role be its difficult to tell since trump announced the bannon hire at the same time he announced that former rnc chairman reince priebus as his chief of staff what will their relationship be like ed morrissey of hotair thinks that bannon will lead the antimedia fight and reince will coordinate with congress that would be the best possible scenario 
  others have speculated that bannon has been added to the team as a sop to the populist base which would be angry at trump hopping into bed with the most establishmenty fellow in washington that too would be fine 
  its hard to tell from the outside whats happening but heres a third theory reince is the bagman for trump and bannons whispering in trumps ear that would fit the fact pattern here given reinces outsized praise for bannon this morning wise and smartvery very smart very temperate bannon is anything but temperate to those who disagree hes a consummate bully to anyone who disagrees hes actually malevolent priebus may not have seen a lot of disagreement because hes the one catering to bannons agenda 
  if bannons leading and reince is following that bodes ill for the republican agenda bannon opposes the republican party hates paul ryan  minutes after the joint bannonpriebus announcement breitbart news approvingly tweeted about a congressional rebellion against speaker ryan  and wants to watch it all burn bannon loves the firefight the only question is which direction hell turn his fire tags