President-elect Donald Trump has selected Steve Bannon as his chief policy strategist. This has produced widespread alarm.
Who is this man? Many of us were unaware of him until August, when he took as chief executive officer of Trump’s campaign.
He has traditional credentials: He grew up in Virginia, was in the Navy, went to Harvard Business School and worked for Goldman Sachs. He then took over a right-leaning conservative news media company, Brietbart News.
So where is the worry? What is the problem?
Steve Bannon, as CEO of Brietbart news, has welcomed the ideology of white nationalists. He has opened his media company to their anti-Semitic articles and promoted articles that demonize black people and Hispanic people as violent thugs and killers.
He apparently wants the United States to return to its roots, where only white people of Anglo-Saxon heritage are dominant and they alone hold the strings of power.
The day Trump announced his appointment of Bannon as his chief strategist, John Weaver, a consultant to Ohio Gov. John Kasich, tweeted: “Just to be clear news media, the next president named a racist, anti-Semite as the co-equal of the chief of staff.”
Weaver also wrote, “The racist, fascist extreme right is represented footsteps from the Oval Office. Be very vigilant America.”
How very frightening. Echoes of Germany, 1933.
Mary Wegmann,
Port Angeles