Steve Bannon: Sympathy for White Supremacists in the White House

President-elect Donald Trump has started to select members for his upcoming cabinet. Two positions have already been filled: Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus as chief of staff and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Steve Bannon as chief strategist. The former is a sane and solid choice, based on his experience in the GOP establishment, while the latter is notorious for bigotry and affiliated with the alt-right – a xenophobic, anti-Semitic, and overall racist ideology.

Bannon led Breitbart News in perverting the legacy of its namesake, Andrew Breitbart, who denounced racism. Ultimately, Bannon changed the site from its founder’s goal – targeting Hollywood and other elites, who usually sympathize with the Left – to Trump’s propaganda machine and an echo chamber for white nationalists. Bannon himself even labeled the site as “the platform for the alt-right.” A couple of examples of the site’s racist undertones include a headline in November 2015 after the Paris attacks saying, “Paris Streets Turned Into Warzone By Violent Migrants,” as well as a headline written by David Horowitz of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, attacking Weekly Standard Founding Editor Bill Kristol as a “renegade Jew.”

The Anti-Defamation League released the following statement yesterday:

…the ADL strongly opposes the appointment of Steve Bannon as senior adviser and chief strategist in the White House. “It is a sad day when a man who presided over the premier website of the ‘alt-right’ – a loose-knit group of white nationalists and unabashed anti-Semites and racists – is slated to be a senior staff member in the ‘people’s house,’” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “We call on President-elect Trump to appoint and nominate Americans committed to the well-being of all our country’s people and who exemplify the values of pluralism and tolerance that makes our country great.”

Although Bannon denied it, his ex-wife said in sworn affidavits in 2007 that he resisted sending their daughters to a private school because he “didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews.” Reportedly, at a potential school for their daughters, she said her ex-husband “asked the director why there were so many Chanukah books in the library.” At another school, according to Bannon’s ex-wife, he “went on to say the biggest problem he had with Archer [The Archer School for Girls] is the number of Jews that attend. He said that he doesn’t like Jews and that he doesn’t like the way they raise their kids to be ‘whiney brats’ and that he didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews.”

Trump has yet to take the oath of office, a promise to deliver the best results for America, but he has already dealt a blow to a public tired of hateful rhetoric. Bannon exemplifies hate – and particularly anti-Semitism, which should alarm the American Jewish community. One can only hope Trump will have a change of heart and demote, or even remove, Bannon from his newest position in the next White House administration.

Jackson Richman is a senior studying political science at George Washington University. He has interned at The Weekly Standard and The Daily Caller. He’s a frequent contributor for Red Alert Politics and American Action News. You can follow him on Twitter: @jacksonrichman.