{"id":617,"date":"2018-07-26T13:27:54","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T11:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/main.cse-initiative.eu\/?p=617"},"modified":"2018-11-10T15:49:07","modified_gmt":"2018-11-10T13:49:07","slug":"inside-bannons-plan-to-hijack-europe-for-the-far-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/main.cse-initiative.eu\/?p=617","title":{"rendered":"Inside Bannon\u2019s Plan to Hijack Europe for the Far-Right"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bannon is moving to Europe to set up The Movement, a populist foundation to rival George Soros and spark a right-wing revolt across the continent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

SOURCE<\/a><\/p>\n

LONDON\u2014Steve Bannon<\/a> plans to go toe-to-toe with George Soros<\/a> and spark a right-wing revolution in Europe.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s former White House chief advisor told The Daily Beast that he is setting up a foundation in Europe called The Movement which he hopes will lead a right-wing populist revolt across the continent starting with the European Parliament elections next spring.<\/p>\n

The non-profit will be a central source of polling, advice on messaging, data targeting, and think-tank research for a ragtag band of right-wingers who are surging all over Europe, in many cases without professional political structures or significant budgets.<\/p>\n

Bannon\u2019s ambition is for his organization ultimately to rival the impact of Soros\u2019s Open Society, which has given away $32 billion to largely liberal causes since it was established in 1984<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Over the past year, Bannon has held talks with right-wing groups across the continent from Nigel Farage and members of Marine Le Pen\u2019s Front National (recently renamed Rassemblement National) in the West, to Hungary\u2019s Viktor Orban and the Polish populists in the East.<\/p>\n

He envisions a right-wing \u201csupergroup\u201d within the European Parliament that could attract as many as a third of the lawmakers after next May\u2019s Europe-wide elections. A united populist bloc of that size would have the ability to seriously disrupt parliamentary proceedings, potentially granting Bannon huge power within the populist movement.<\/p>\n

After being forced out of the White House<\/a> following internal wranglings that would later surface in the book Fire and Fury, Bannon is now reveling in the opportunity to plot his new European empire. \u201cI’d rather reign in hell, than serve in heaven,\u201d he said, paraphrasing John Milton\u2019s Satan in Paradise Lost.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The Movement\u2019s headquarters are expected to be located in Brussels, Belgium, where they will start hiring staff in coming months. It is expected that there will be fewer than 10 full-time staff ahead of the 2019 elections, with a polling expert, a communications person, an office manager and a researcher among the positions. The plan is to ramp that up to more like 25 people post-2019 if the project has been a success.<\/div>\n

Bannon plans to spend 50 percent of his time in Europe\u2014mostly in the field rather than the Brussels office\u2014once the midterm elections in the U.S. are over in November.<\/p>\n

The operation is also supposed to serve as a link between Europe\u2019s right-wing movements and the pro-Trump Freedom Caucus in the U.S. This week Paul Gosar (R-AZ) was its envoy to Bannon\u2019s operation in London.<\/p>\n

Bannon and Raheem Kassam, a former Farage staffer and Breitbart editor, set up shop in a five-star Mayfair hotel for a week while Donald Trump was visiting Europe. Between TV appearances as Trump surrogates, they hosted a raft of Europe\u2019s leading right-wingers at the hotel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so successful that we’re going to start staffing up,\u201d said Bannon. \u201cEverybody agrees that next May is hugely important, that this is the real first continent-wide face-off between populism and the party of Davos<\/a>. This will be an enormously important moment for Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having seen the shock right-wing victory with the Brexit referendum and Matteo Salvini\u2019s electoral success in Italy, which were achieved on relatively tight budgets, Bannon sees the opportunity to boost radically disparate nationalist parties by deploying a well-financed centralized operation intended to blow local opponents out of the water.<\/p>\n

Up until now insurgent populist groups across Europe have often suffered from similar problems: lack of expertise and finances. Le Pen\u2019s party was kept afloat by Russian loans back in 2014<\/a>, when French banks refused to extend lines of credit for the Front National. Le Pen was back in Moscow shaking Putin\u2019s hand before last year\u2019s French elections, which the NSA subsequently revealed had been hacked by the Russians.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Movement plans to research and write detailed policy proposals that can be used by like-minded parties; commission pan-European or targeted polling; and share expertise in election war room methodology such as message discipline, data-led voter targeting and field operations. Depending on electoral law in individual countries, the foundation may be able to take part in some campaigns directly while bolstering other populist groups indirectly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn’t get the idea until Marine Le Pen invited me to speak at Lille at the Front National,\u201d recalled Bannon. \u201cI said, \u2018What do you want me say?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The response came back: \u201cAll you have to say is, \u2018We’re not alone.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bannon was stunned to discover that the nationalist movements in Europe were not pooling skills and sharing ideas with populist parties in neighboring countries\u2014let alone on a global scale.<\/p>\n

Bannon said the Front National recognized that he was \u201cthe guy that goes round and understands us as a collective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Up on stage he told the crowd: \u201cYou fight for your country and they call you racist. But the days when those kind of insults work is over. The establishment media are the dogs of the system. Every day, we become stronger and they become weaker. Let them call you racists, xenophobes or whatever else, wear these like a medal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former Trump campaign manager believes the fuse for the global populist revolt\u2014now led from Washington, D.C. by his former boss\u2014was lit 10 years ago during the financial crisis and President Barack Obama\u2019s bailout of the broken financial sector. With income inequality growing, Bannon first championed Sarah Palin and then Donald Trump as vanquishers of the establishment elite who were capable of turning traditional politics on its head.<\/p>\n

His next populist heroes can be found in Europe.<\/p>\n

He sees Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, as the perfect foil to help accelerate that dynamic in Europe.<\/p>\n

Noting Trump\u2019s controversial decision to call out Merkel over her gas pipeline deal with Russia last week, Bannon said: \u201cThis is the lie of Angela Merkel. She\u2019s a complete and total phony. The elites say Trump is disruptive but she\u2019s sold out control to Russia for cheaper energy prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

He describes Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, the French president who crushed Le Pen in a runoff election last year but has since flagged in the polls, as vulnerable figureheads of establishment Europe. With Britain voting to quit the E.U., Merkel and Macron\u2019s vision of a united continent will be put to the test at next year\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n

Bannon is convinced that the coming years will see a drastic break from decades of European integration. \u201cRight-wing populist nationalism is what will happen. That\u2019s what will govern,\u201d he told The Daily Beast. \u201cYou’re going to have individual nation states with their own identities, their own borders.\u201d<\/p>\n

The grassroots movements are already in place waiting for someone to maximize their potential. \u201cIt will be instantaneous\u2014as soon as we flip the switch,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The sight of Brexit virtually upending the entire European Union with a campaign spending cap of \u00a37 million ($9 million) was a great inspiration. \u201cWhen they told me the spending cap was \u00a37 million, I go, \u2018You mean \u00a370 million? What the fuck?!\u2019 \u00a37 million doesn\u2019t buy anything. It doesn\u2019t buy you Facebook data, it doesn\u2019t buy you ads, it doesn\u2019t do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDude! You just took the fifth largest economy in the world out of the EU for \u00a37 million!\u201d<\/p>\n

This week, British officials ruled that the Brexit campaign had not stuck to the legal limit<\/a>\u2014overspending by more than $600,000. There were also unofficial campaigns which spent additional millions arguing that Britain should leave the E.U.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Britain\u2019s GDP is around $2.6 trillion and leaked government figures estimate that Brexit could wipe 10 percent off that figure<\/a>, meaning the impact of the democratic decision vastly dwarfs the scale of the investment by the campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing they teach you at Harvard Business School is operating leverage,\u201d said Bannon. With his expertise, contacts and financial backing, he is convinced that he can have an outsized impact all across Europe.<\/p>\n

Bannon went to Italy to observe the campaign earlier this year as populist parties surged in the polls despite their tiny operations. \u201cLook at Five Star and the Northern League,\u201d he said. \u201cThey used their own credit cards. They took control of the seventh largest economy in the world\u2014on their credit cards! It’s insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two anti-establishment parties reached a coalition agreement that made Matteo Salvini deputy prime minister and put him in charge of the interior ministry two months ago. He has since shut Italy\u2019s ports to NGO ships carrying rescued migrants and called for a census of the Roma<\/a> community that may lead to mass deportations. Last year, he called for a radical crackdown on immigrants. \u201cWe need a mass cleansing, street by street, piazza by piazza, neighborhood by neighborhood,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bannon sees Salvini as a model for his future Movement partners to follow. \u201cItaly is the beating heart of modern politics,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it works there it can work everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

He admitted that the scale of his right-wing coalition could be limited by the extreme positions of some of The Movement\u2019s potential partners. \u201cSome people may opt out because they think some of the guys may be too immigrant focused,\u201d he conceded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re not looking to include any ethno-nationalist parties in this although guys like the Sweden Democrats or the True Finns are perfect casting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kent Ekeroth of the Sweden Democrats was one of those who met Bannon in Central London in the last week. The party, which had its roots in the Neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements of the 1980s, has shot up to almost 20 percent in recent polls after adopting a more conventionally populist, anti-immigration message<\/a>.<\/p>\n

J\u00e9r\u00f4me Rivi\u00e8re of Marine Le Pen\u2019s Front National (Rassemblement National since June) also made the pilgrimage to London\u2019s Mayfair, as did Mischa\u00ebl Modrikamen of the People\u2019s Party of Belgium, Nigel Farage of UKIP and Filip Dewinter of Vlaams Belang, a Flemish nationalist party formed in 2004 when its predecessor was found to be in breach of a Belgian law on racism and xenophobia.<\/a><\/p>\n

Bannon said Farage and Le Pen would take the lead in figuring out the logistics of creating a new European parliamentary grouping that could be home to all of these parties and more.<\/p>\n

Gosar, the Republican congressman, also stopped by Bannon\u2019s London hotel. He was in Britain to attend a rally for the street protester and alt-right provocateur Tommy Robinson<\/a>, who was recently jailed for contempt of court for breaching reporting restrictions on a trial. During his trip, Gosar accused the British government of jailing Robinson as part of a cover up of rape perpetrated by \u201cdisgusting and depraved individuals\u201d<\/a> from Muslim immigrant communities, which he described as a \u201cscourge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bannon\u2019s ambition is no less than to take a stranglehold on Europe in the same way that he believes Soros has been able to dominate proceedings in recent decades.<\/div>\n

\u201cSoros is brilliant,\u201d he said. \u201cHe’s evil but he’s brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bannon wants to fulfil that role on the right and he is not ashamed to assert his objectives. \u201cI’m about winning. I’m about power,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to win and then I want to effectuate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is not afraid of being caricatured in the way that Soros has been vilified by the right. He compared it to the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. \u201cLook at Chris Wylie [the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower]. He is saying \u2018Bannon made psychological weapons.\u2019 He’s literally made me the most brilliant evil genius. I’m a Bond villain. I kind of dig it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kassam, who worked closely with Bannon at Breitbart and followed him out the door of the populist news site, said The Movement was shaping up as a force that would subsume national politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cForget your Merkels,\u201d said Kassam. \u201cSoros and Bannon are going to be the two biggest players in European politics for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Comment by Wayne Hall<\/strong><\/p>\n

Steve Bannon works with the Vatican, it seems, which does not speak for Christians as a whole<\/span><\/span>, much less citizens as a whole, though he is trying to speak for citizens as a whole without speaking for Christians as a whole. https:\/\/riseforclimate.org\/the-popes-call-for-people-power\/<\/a><\/p>\n

If Bannon wants to fight Soros in the European Parliament, in alliance with the Vatican, the best way of dealing with this is not to fight for Soros in the European Parliament, but to fight the European Parliament, by setting up an alternative citizens parliament, in Eastern Europe so as to take advantage of the Orthodox demographic element in the population without compromising the necessary secular approach to politics. The alternative citizens parliament should be absolutely free from the influence of the corporate media, should seek constitutionally underwritten power as a revocable alternative to the European Parliament, should resolutely defend Julian Assange and should be open to collaboration with whatever elements in Bannon’s movement agree that the European Parliament should not have a monopoly on representing European citizens and are willing to support our alternative parliament (in the sense of being willing to vote for it in a periodic referendum). We should not attempt just traditional parliamentary competition with them but should also propose a scheme into which they can be co-opted without abandoning their obligations to their own movement FOR AS LONG AS THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT HAS A MANDATE.<\/p>\n

If one has this approach, what Bannon is trying to do is not just \u201cscary\u201d but also represents an opportunity for us to be smarter than him, and show it. After all, Europe has seen a Protestant Reformation, there is a whole tradition of Orthodox Christianity that is mostly outside of EU institutions, and Jews, Muslims and atheists can also be potential allies against a movement that \u201cclings to the balls\u201d of the Pope. The Swiss are also potential allies, particularly if we develop a form of direct democracy that is superior to theirs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bannon is moving to Europe to set up The Movement, a populist foundation to rival George Soros and spark a right-wing revolt across the continent. SOURCE LONDON\u2014Steve Bannon plans to go toe-to-toe with George Soros and spark a right-wing revolution in Europe. Trump\u2019s former White House chief advisor told The Daily Beast that he is setting up a foundation in Europe called The Movement which he hopes will lead a right-wing populist revolt across the continent starting with the European Parliament elections next spring. The non-profit will be a central source of polling, advice on messaging, data targeting, and think-tank research for a ragtag band of right-wingers who are surging all over Europe, in many cases without professional political structures or significant budgets. Bannon\u2019s ambition is for his organization ultimately to rival the impact of Soros\u2019s Open Society, which has given away $32 billion to largely liberal causes since it was established in 1984. Over the past year, Bannon has held talks with right-wing groups across the continent from Nigel Farage and members of Marine Le Pen\u2019s Front National (recently renamed Rassemblement National) in the West, to Hungary\u2019s Viktor Orban and the Polish populists in the East. He envisions a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/main.cse-initiative.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/main.cse-initiative.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/main.cse-initiative.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/main.cse-initiative.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/main.cse-initiative.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=617"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/main.cse-initiative.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":637,"href":"https:\/\/main.cse-initiative.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions\/637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/main.cse-initiative.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/main.cse-initiative.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/main.cse-initiative.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/main.cse-initiative.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}