Steve Bannon on ‘Broligarchs’ vs. Populism
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Hey, listeners, it's Ross Douthat. We're hard at work developing my new show, which is going to be called Interesting Times, a reference to the curse disguised as a blessing, or maybe the blessing disguised as a curse. May you live in interesting times, which we are. And our first few episodes will be coming out soon. But before then, I wanted to reshare the interviews that started it all, a set of conversations that attempt to map out the new political order with some of the people at the forefront. So enjoy, and please subscribe to Interesting Times wherever you get your podcasts. All right, Steve, you ready? Born ready, sir. I know, born fighting. If we don't have a fight, why are we populists?
If you want to deliver a long monologue about the genius of Elon Musk and Silicon Valley, if you've had AI write one for you, we can do that too.
No, I've got a very specific take on the oligarchs. I'll share it with you today.
From New York Times Opinion, I'm Ross Douthat. On this week's show, we're continuing my one-on-one conversations with figures who represent different, potentially clashing worldviews within the new Trump administration. Two weeks ago, I talked to venture capitalist Mark Andreessen about the newest faction in Trump world, the so-called tech right. My guest this week, Steve Bannon, represents what I might call Trumpism classic, the populist and nationalist movement that brought Trump to power in the first place and that aspires to exert significant influence in Trump's second administration. Indeed, a lot of executive orders we've already seen from this White House on immigration, reshaping the federal bureaucracy and more are clearly stamped by Bannon's populist anti-establishment aspirations. Bannon is also emerging as one of the most vocal critics from the right of Elon Musk and other members of the tech right. And so we're going to talk a lot about that brewing conflict.
Steve, welcome to the show.
Ross, thank you very much, but I got to correct you right out of the box. Please don't tell me, because I read your column, that you didn't consider Marc Andreessen a part of the right. Marc Andreessen and the oligarchs are nothing but a bunch of progressive leftists. that had, most of them had their Damascene moment at, I don't know, between 10 and 11 o'clock on the evening of 5 November when the Trump movement won Pennsylvania. So, no, I think the oligarchs are, they're not conservative, they're not on the, certainly not on the right. And so everything they're doing, crawling under their belly to try to get into this movement and pollute this movement because they see the raw political power of this movement, I find Disgusting and revolting.
All right. We're going to get into that. But first, I thought I should do a little resume refresher just at the top about who you are. It's a detailed resume. I'm going to go through it.
I'm a convict.
That's at the end?
I'm a prisoner. I'm a convict. You can just sum it up in that.
I think a man of parts is what we like to say. So we're going to say Steve Bannon, U.S. Navy, Goldman Sachs, Hollywood producer, impresario behind the success of the website Breitbart, founded by Andrew Breitbart, but I think raised to special prominence by yourself. One of Trump's leading strategists in 2016, an architect of an upset victory over Hillary Clinton. Briefly, a leading advisor to the Trump White House. Exiled from Trump world after Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury came out because you were a source, prominent source, a would-be organizer of international populist movement, host of the podcast show War Room, involved in the January 6th protests, and a very prominent promoter then and now of President Trump's stolen election claims.
A four-month stint in prison—see, I said we'd get around to it—for defying a subpoena from the January 6th committee. Released, Donald Trump wins. You've been in D.C. celebrating while also, as we've already heard, attacking some of the president's key allies, including Elon Musk. Is that a fair sketch?
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