{"id":693,"date":"2024-07-04T15:34:45","date_gmt":"2024-07-04T15:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/07\/04\/david-brooks-interviews-steve-bannon\/"},"modified":"2024-07-04T15:34:45","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T15:34:45","slug":"david-brooks-interviews-steve-bannon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2024\/07\/04\/david-brooks-interviews-steve-bannon\/","title":{"rendered":"David Brooks Interviews Steve Bannon"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an important interview. I will add a few comments at the end.   Excerpts<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

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You said something I\u2019ve got to ask you about, that Trump\u2019s a moderate. In what areas is the MAGA movement farther right than Trump?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

BANNON: I think farther right on radical cuts of spending, No. 1. I think we\u2019re much more hard-core on things like Ukraine. President Trump is a peacemaker. He wants to go in and negotiate and figure something out as a deal maker. I think 75 percent of our movement would want an immediate, total shutdown \u2014 not one more penny in Ukraine, and massive investigations about where the money went. On the southern border and mass deportations, I don\u2019t think President Trump\u2019s close to where we are. They all got to go home.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Also, on artificial intelligence, we\u2019re virulently anti-A.I. I think big regulations have to come.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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President Trump is a kindhearted person. He\u2019s a people person, right? On China, I think he admires Xi Jinping. But we\u2019re super-hawks. We want to see an elimination of the Chinese Communist Party.<\/span><\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/span><\/p>\n

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Would you like to have some role?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

No, no, no, no. We run this like a military command post. So I would only be giving up power. I went there before. I wanted out. I\u2019m not a staff guy. I can\u2019t do it. And also that\u2019s not where the center of power is. It\u2019s not how President Trump thinks. A big center of power is just media.<\/span><\/p>\n

I call Trump a Marshall McLuhanesque figure. McLuhan<\/a> called it, right? He says this mass thing called media, or what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin<\/a> said of the noosphere<\/a>, is going to so overwhelm evolutionary biology that it will be everything. And Trump understands that. That\u2019s why he watches TV.<\/span><\/p>\n

He understands that to get anything done, you have to make the people understand. And so therefore, constantly, we\u2019re in a battle of narrative. Unrestricted narrative warfare. Everything is narrative. And in that regard, you have to make sure you forget about the noise and focus on the signal.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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And remember, our audience is virtually all activists. So even though it may not be the biggest, it doesn\u2019t have to be. It\u2019s the people that are out there in the hinterland that are on the school boards. They now control so many state parties. Our mantra is you must use your agency. It\u2019s a spiritual war. The divine providence works through your agency.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span>[. . .]<\/span><\/p>\n

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Do you know the demographics of these activists? Education? Race? Income?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

First off, I would say 60 percent female. Female and over 40 years old. A lot of that, a third of them brought in by the pandemic, and the Moms for America. A ton of moms, women who didn\u2019t read a lot of books in college. They\u2019re not politically active. They had no interest. It was only later in life, as they became the C.O.O. of the American family, they realized how tough it was to make ends meet.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then they saw the lack of education, and it was really the pandemic when they walked by the computer and saw what the kids are doing. They\u2019re now at the tip of the spear.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you worry that your broader movement will be fatally poisoned by antisemitic elements, the conspiracy crazies?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re the most pro-Israel and pro-Jewish group out there. What I say is that not just the future of Israel but the future of American Jews, not just safety but their ability to thrive and prosper as they have in this country, is conditional upon one thing, and that\u2019s a hard weld with Christian nationalism.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n