Universidades Lusíada Rodrigues, Luís Manuel Barbosa, 1962- Stephen K. Bannon : an American prayer http://hdl.handle.net/11067/5668 https://doi.org/10.34628/t2mt-b589 Metadados Data de Publicação 2020 Resumo The present study attempts to understand the main vectors of Stephen K. Bannon’s political thought, a thought that decisively influenced the last American Administration practice.... O presente estudo visa conhecer os principais vetores do pensamento político de Stephen K. Bannon, pensamento que influenciou decisivamente a prática da última Administração americana.... Palavras Chave Bannon, Stephen K., 1953- - Visão política e social, Estados Unidos - Política e governo - 2017-, Nacionalismo - Estados Unidos Tipo article Revisão de Pares Não Coleções [ILID-CEJEA] Polis, s. 2, n. 01 (Janeiro-Junho 2020) Esta página foi gerada automaticamente em 2021-10-10T18:36:49Z com informação proveniente do Repositório http://repositorio.ulusiada.pt STEPHEN K. BANNON: AN AMERICAN PRAYER - L. Barbosa Rodrigues Stephen K. Bannon: an american prayer manipulator4, propagandist5, determined6, L. Barbosa Rodrigues intelligent and charismatic7, systemic8, Doutor e Mestre em Direito pela Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Lisboa Anglo-Saxon, but, above all, and viscerally, Professor Associado das Faculdades de Direito da Universidade Lusíada de Lisboa e da Universidade Lusíada Norte - Porto Investigador do Centro de Estudos, Jurídicos, Económicos e Ambientais da Universidade Lusíada (CEJEA) North American. E-mail: [email protected] ORCID ID: 0000-0002-0386-3704 II - His professional and political careers DOI: https://doi.org/10.34628/t2mt-b589 are rather heteroclite, or, at the least, unu- Abstract: Resumo: sual. Emerging from the typical American The present study attempts to unders- O presente estudo visa conhecer os prin- working class of the fifties (born 1953)9, he tand the main vectors of Stephen K. cipais vetores do pensamento político de discovered, initially, a position in the U.S. Bannon’s political thought, a thought Stephen K. Bannon, pensamento que that decisively influenced the last Ame- influenciou decisivamente a prática da rican Administration practice. última Administração americana. some matches”; Shane, loc. cit.: “rarely has there been so incendiary a figure at the side of a presi- Keywords: Palavras-chave: dent-elect”; Wolff, op. cit., p. 39: “a professional ag- Populism; Nationalism; China; Islam. Populismo; Nacionalismo; China; Islão. itator”; and, Caldwell, loc. cit.: “the historian Ron- ald Radosh contributed to this image with his (later contested) recollection that, years ago, Mr. Bannon “Modern political speech was designed not to 1 – PROFILE (…) described himself as a ‘Leninist’, who wanted to ‘bring everything crashing down, and destroy all talk about the issues. It was about a series of of today’s establishment’”. evasions that were meant to keep voters paci- I - Stephen K. Bannon, or, most commonly, 4 Similarly, Green, Devil’s…, p. 242: “he was, as the fied while the political class looked after its Steve Bannon, is an American contempo- infamous Time cover put it, ‘The Great Manipula- own interests.” rary political ideologue, and, as well, po- tor’”; Grynbaum, loc. cit.: “Bannon is (…) a savvy 1 2 3 manipulator of the press”; and, Shane, loc. cit.: (Bannon) litical operative . Incorrect , incendiary , “Shapiro, a former Breitbart News editor, who has been sharply critical of Mr. Bannon, called him ‘a NOTE manipulator’ who had ‘mainstreamed’ far-right ex- 1 Similarly, Koffler, op. cit., p. 3: “unlike most intellec- tremists for cynical political purposes”. tuals (…), Bannon´s ideas have actually translated 5 Similarly, Guilford; Sonnad, loc. cit.: “Bannon is a Stephen K. Bannon is, often, demonized into real politics”; Caldwell, loc. cit.: “an intellectual master propagandist”; McBain, loc. cit.: “a propa- and accused to be a right-wing extremist, in politics excited by grand theories - a combination gandist film-maker”; Egan, loc. cit.: “from his films maybe a fascist, a xenophobic, a racist that has produced unpredictable results before”; and, on Sarah Palin to his time running Breitbart, he Green, loc. cit.: “this man is the most dangerous politi- learned how to be a very good propagandist. It’s a and white supremacist, an anti-Semitic, cal operative in America”. role that has served him well in the White House”; and a sexist, too. 2 Closely, McSweeney, a former chairman of Virginia’s and, Blake, loc. cit.: “Andrew Breitbart, who found- We do not share such an opinion. Indeed, Republican Party, cit. in Shane, loc. cit.: “the least ed the far-right website Breitbart News in 2007, once politically correct person I know”; Shane, loc. cit.: admiringly called Mr. Bannon ’the Leni Riefenstahl the scientific research produced, over the “his ideology is that of the outsider and the insur- of the Tea Party movement’”. past few months, allows us to conclude, gent”; Green, Devil’s…, p. 21: “a brilliant ideologue 6 Similarly, Wolff, op. cit., p. 45: “a determinate man, on all these issues, in the precisely oppo- from the outer fringe of American politics”; Cald- he was suddenly at an ever higher level of focus and site direction. well, loc. cit.: “it did show a relish for the role of determination; and, McSweeney, cit. in Shane, loc. ideological bad boy”; Paxton, Columbia University, cit.: “nobody says he is nice (…). His overriding con- For us, Stephen K. Bannon is just a hard cit. in McBain, loc. cit.: “he is an adventurer, a pri- cern is always getting the mission accomplished”. conservative, a traditionalist, in a mod- vate freebooter, and a pirate”; and, Koffler, op. cit., 7 Similarly, Wolff, op. cit., p. 48: “smart and even char- ern and now globalized world, praying, in p. 2: “a rebel by nature, but always a rebel with a ismatic”; and, Green, Devil’s…, p. X: “he was clearly the name of the past, present and future, cause. That cause today is America, American cul- intelligent, and had a manic charisma”. ture, and the survival and prosperity of the Ameri- 8 Similarly, Caldwell, loc. cit.: “he does have a real gift for America. can working and middle class“. for thinking systematically”; and, Wolff, op. cit., p. 3 Similarly, Boyle, a former Breitbart News writer, 139: “an hyper-rationalist approach”. cit. in Green, This man…: “if there’s an explosion 9 Closely, Green, Devil’s…, p. 47: “Bannon was born or a fire somewhere, Steve is probably nearby with into a blue-collar, Irish-Catholic, family”. POLIS nº 1 (II série) Janeiro / Junho 2020 81 | STEPHEN K. BANNON: AN AMERICAN PRAYER - L. Barbosa Rodrigues Navy, which ended at the rank of Lieuten- So, when two - quite obscure - American ant, moved, after, to Goldman Sachs, left “In political terms, historians, William Strauss and Neil Howe, on the post of Vice-President, and, finally, published The Fourth Turning - An Ameri- goes to Hollywood, making politically en- Steve Bannon is, can Prophecy - What the Cycles of History gaged movies, as well, in Breitbart News - Tell Us About America’s Next Rendez-vous or, occasionally, Huntington Post and Fox originally, an ex- with Destiny, New York City, Broadway News - right wing activist and journalistic pected, although dis- Books, 1997, an extensive essay supporting work10. the existence of these circles and, more, tant, Democrat, later characterizing each one in detail, Bannon, III - In political terms, Steve Bannon is, not surprisingly, incorporated that theory originally, an expected, although distant, on, a far more enthu- in his own thinking18. Democrat11, later on, a far more enthu- siastic Republican, inspired by Reagan’s siastic Republican, III – Strauss and Howe suggests, indeed, policies12, and lastly, in the 21st century, a that the history always develops in periods decided conservative - maybe, a paleo-con- inspired by Reagan’s of time of eighty to hundred years, desig- servative13 - simultaneously, populist, na- nated, by them, as saeculum. tionalist14, capitalist, Judeo-Christian and policies, and lastly, That the saeculum is targeted in four turn- anti-establishment. st ings, lasting from twenty to twenty five in the 21 century, a years. 2 - FOURTH TURNING That each turning has different charac- decided conservative teristics, defined by the successive genera- I - Despite his education, at Georgetown tions19. University Scholl of Foreign Service, first, – maybe, a paleo- And that these turnings can be seen as a at Harvard Business School, later, Bannon “high”, a “awakening”, an “unraveling”, conservative – si- and, finally, a “crisis”. multaneously, pop- So, the first turning - after a latter crisis 10 Identically, Koffler, op. cit., p. 118: “in late middle - characterizes by prosperity, stability and age, he was transformed into a full-time conservative ulist, nationalist, traditionalism20. activist”; Von Drehle, loc. cit.: “Bannon’s life became The second turning saw the emergence, on a crusade against political, financial and cultural elites of all stripes”; and, Wolff, loc. cit.: “the other- capitalist, Judeo- a new generation, of a rebellion against world of the vast right-wing conspiracy and conser- this whole social model21. vative media”. 11 Similarly, Green, Devil’s…, p. 47: “Bannon was born Christian and anti- into a (…) family of Democrats”. 18 Similarly, Von Drehle, loc. cit.: “sometime in the ear- 12 Bannon, cit. in Green, Devil’s…, pp. 58, 59: “I was establishment”. ly 2000s, Bannon was captivated by a book called not that political. But then you see, with a guy like The Fourth Turning. by generational theorists Wil- Carter, how fucked the things can get. My political liam Strauss and Neil Howe; and, Koffler,op. cit., pp. views were formed by seeing how a weak leader like is, essentially, a self-taught15, not an aca- 58, 59: “had long been convinced that history moves that could get America into a Middle East debacle demic16. in cycles, after read the 1997 book The Fourth Turn- (…). It pushed me into a different party (…). I came ing (…) which had accurately predicted an economic back to the U.S.