Stephen K. Bannon, the ideologue who provided a theoretical facade to the meandering rhetoric of President Donald Trump, is back to the job he does best — propaganda. Mr. Bannon returned to head the right-wing website Breitbart immediately after his job as chief strategist to the President ended on August 18. Since then, Breitbart has sharpened its campaign to charge up its nationalist audience, targeting key advisers to the President, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, daughter Ivanka Trump, Economic Adviser Gary Cohn and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. Breitbart argues for restrictions on immigration and trade, tough policies against radical Islam, and a staunch pro-Israel foreign policy — all elements of Mr. Trump’s politics. Mr. Bannon has said the advisers around Mr. Trump are forcing him to be moderate, but he will fight them for the President and his agenda.
The Trump presidency and Mr. Bannon’s absence from the platform when he worked in the White House eroded the website’s appeal in the last six months. Its monthly visitors are down to half of the 24 million it had during the campaign last year. Mr. Bannon’s return to the site has stirred such interest in the website that there are almost daily stories in other outlets about Breitbart . Mr. Trump has cheered the return of Mr. Bannon at the helm of the site, tweeting that he “will be a tough and smart new voice… maybe even better than ever before”. “Fake News needs the competition!” wrote the President.
Stories appearing on the site last week ridiculed Mr. Trump’s new Afghanistan policy as “McMaster’s voice” and reported on a Daily Mail story that claimed Ivanka Trump had engineered Mr. Bannon’s exit from the White House. The White House issued a clarification, which was later added to the story, denying the Mail version. In a sign of the significance of the Breitbart audience, Chief of Staff of the National Security Council Keith Kellogg wrote a piece on the site, explaining the new Afghan policy and why it does not in any way deviate from the America First policy, on Thursday. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders promptly tweeted the piece.
Stay the course
Today, America has two streams of media narratives, both urging Mr. Trump to stay the course, though they mean different things. The mainstream media wants him to act and talk presidential, while Breitbart and Fox News prod him to stay his original self. The President appears to be listening to both — last week, he changed his course every alternate day, reading out from the teleprompter one day, and going hammer and tongs with his pet issues the next. But Mr. Bannon has an axe to grind against Fox News, the Rupert Murdoch-owned channel that supports Mr. Trump. Mr. Murdoch had urged the President to fire Mr. Bannon, who considers the channel a globalist enterprise. Mr. Bannon is reportedly toying with the idea of a TV channel also.
Mr. Bannon is not merely promoting the causes, but also himself in the process. Brietbart is advertising a Bannon fidget spinner “Proudly Made in USA.” “Leftists need comfort at times like these. Gift them this pacifying item that will give them something to do in between pulling down monuments. Or keep one for yourself!” it says. In the midst of all this, a prankster who sent mails to senior Breitbart staffers posing as Mr. Bannon received scandalous replies immediately, which he promptly passed on to the CNN. In the mails, editor-in-chief Alex Marlow offers to do the “dirty work” for the fake Bannon, and promises to plot the exit of Ms. Trump from the White House before the end of the year.
