The executive order issued by President Donald Trump banning migrants from seven different Muslim-majority countries for 90 days, and barring Syrian refugees from entry indefinitely, was signed on Jan. 27, Holocaust Memorial Day.
When I realized this, I thought about how the United States in the late 1930s on multiple occasions barred German Jewish refugees from entering the country. Many of those sent back home would die in the concentration camps.
The same day, the White House issued a statement remembering the lives lost in the Holocaust. The statement made no mention of Jews or anti-Semitism; something which every previous annual statement on the subject had done. I am skeptical that this omission was an accident, primarily due to the involvement of one particular individual.
Donald Trump may be the face of the new American political order, but the architect is his chief strategist — Steve Bannon. A former banker for Goldman Sachs who made a fortune through a chance investment in Seinfeld, his first major foray into politics was as a documentary film-maker and financier, to the point that he was described as the “Leni Riefenstahl of the Tea Party movement.”
No, this wasn’t an attack on him by a leftist media outlet — that comparison of him to the famous Nazi propagandist who directed Triumph of the Will was intended, and accepted by Bannon, as a compliment. Bannon emerged as politically prominent in 2012 when he became the executive chair of Breitbart, the most notorious media voice of the “alt-right.”
Even if Bannon is not a white nationalist, he is disturbingly popular among them. Former KKK leader David Duke and neo-nazi news site The Daily Stormer were both enthusiastic about Trump’s choice to include Bannon in his administration largely because they think of him as “one of them” and believe that he will work to popularize their ideas. On that particular point, I am inclined to agree.
As Mother Jones has reported, and Duke’s Chronicle recently addressed, Bannon’s collaborator on the ban, Stephen Miller, worked closely with white nationalist Richard Spencer (whose most valuable contribution to society was being punched in the face) to set up a debate on immigration policy at Duke in 2007. And just as Breitbart has an entire of category of articles under the explicit label of “black crime,” the Trump administration has chosen to publish a weekly report of crimes committed by immigrants.
The fact that Bannon is a major influence on Trump has become increasingly apparent. He was given the role of “chief executive” of his campaign during the election. As president, Trump gave Bannon the newly created title of “chief strategist,” as well as putting him on the National Security Council. Keep in mind that one of the powers of the National Security Council is to order assassinations, including those of American citizens.
This isn’t all opportunism to Bannon. To him, he’s on a mission from God. He honestly believes that secularization undermines both the economy and morals of the United States, and that every Christian who is a capitalist should recognize that “divine providence” has made them “a creator of wealth.” Though he is not as outward about it as many other American conservatives, the political and religious are deeply intertwined for Bannon. To him, America is a “Christian nation,” capitalism is ordained by God, and Islam is the enemy.
