WASHINGTON — When Donald Trump announced Stephen Bannon as his top White House strategist, critics re-erupted with allegations that Bannon was racist, sexist and anti-Semitic.
If history is any guide, Bannon won’t be putting those fears to rest anytime soon. Bannon has discarded norms for discussing race, gender and religion, often framing even abstract political fights in deliberately inflammatory terms.
“What we need to do is bitch-slap the Republican Party,” Bannon said in a 2010 radio interview.
During the Republican Convention, Bannon said Breitbart was “the platform for the alt-right,” a loose group espousing a provocative and reactionary strain of conservatism. Heavily influenced by the shock-based rhetoric of internet chat boards, the alt-right includes strains of white nationalism and aggressive anti-feminism.
In interviews, Bannon has acknowledged that the alt-right may attract some racists, homophobes and anti-Semites, but said that he does not share those opinions — and that the left harbors undesirable elements as well.
Yet Breitbart actively cultivates some of those themes, and Bannon has shown little patience for adjusting the site’s tone to pacify critics.
Under Bannon, Breitbart kept a running tab of news stories titled “black crime,” which catalogued the activities of supposed “black rape gangs” and “black mobs.” The site used a slur for transgender people in headlines and stories. And during the campaign — a period in which Bannon stepped aside from running the site — Breitbart.com sometimes went out of its way to identify Trump critics as Jews.
Bannon has publicly disavowed tolerance for prejudice. But allegations of anti-Semitism have also followed Bannon into his personal life as well. In 2007, his ex-wife alleged in court documents from their divorce that Bannon expressed open anti-Semitism, declaring that he didn’t want their two daughters “going to school with Jews.” Bannon disputed saying this.
Regardless of Bannon’s personal views on race and gender, he has heartily endorsed using inflammatory rhetoric to incite Breitbart’s readership. In a December 2014 internal Breitbart email obtained by the Daily Beast, Bannon and an editor discussed a traditional Washington slight — the possibility that Breitbart might not have been invited to a press conference by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. The conversation quickly spiraled into rage at the Republican political establishment. He compared leadership figures to women’s genitalia. “Let the grassroots turn on the hate because that’s the ONLY thing that will make them do their duty.”