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Some of Steve Bannon’s biggest intellectual influ... https://www.salon.com/2017/03/09/some-of-steve...

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fascists andwhitesupremacistsHis fondness for a French reactionary has madeheadlines, but he has cited worse

BEN NORTON, ALTERNET

TOPICS: ALTERNET, BREITBART NEWS, FASCISM, HITLER, HUFFINGTON POST, MEIN KAMPF, NAZI, STEVEN BANNON,

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, WHITE SUPREMACY, POLITICS NEWS, MEDIA NEWS

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Steve Bannon (Credit: Jeffrey Malet, maletphoto.com)

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

Steve Bannon just can’thelp himself. Despite the

media glare that comes with being thepresident’s chief strategist, the formerBreitbart editor-in-chief continues to citefascists and white supremacists withoutcompunction or even discretion.

A recent investigation by the Hu�ngton Post

Some of Steve Bannon’s biggest intellectual influ... https://www.salon.com/2017/03/09/some-of-steve...

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exposed how Bannon’s fondness for “TheCamp of the Saints”, an obscure Frenchnovel that portrays a race war between the“civilized” white West and the evil brownhordes of the so-called East. The Hu�ngtonPost highlighted several interviews in 2015and 2016 in which Bannon compared globalpolitics and the refugee crisis to the plot ofthe book, which has been likened to AdolfHitler’s “Mein Kampf”.

“The Camp of the Saints”, which takes its titlefrom the Bible, was written by ultra-reactionary French author Jean Raspail, whoopenly describes himself as a “royalist” whowants to restore the Catholic monarchy. Inthe book, he describes hordes of Indianstrying to conquer white WesternChristendom as “thousands of wretchedcreatures” and “turd-eaters.”

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The Hu�ngton Post described the novelBannon admires as “nothing less than a callto arms for the white Christian West, torevive the spirit of the Crusades and steelitself for bloody con�ict against the poorblack and brown world without and thetraitors within.”

Yet Bannon’s admiration of “The Camp of theSaints“ is by no means an isolated exampleof his extreme far-right politics. The NewYork Times pointed out that Trump’sright-hand man cited Nazi-a�liated Italianphilosopher Julius Evola in a 2014 speech ata Christian conference.

Benito Mussolini, the founder of Italianfascism, greatly admired Evola. The Italianleader of the extreme right-wingTraditionalist movement wrote for fascistpublications and journals, espousing

Some of Steve Bannon’s biggest intellectual influ... https://www.salon.com/2017/03/09/some-of-steve...

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anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian ideas.Evola was virulently racist and anti-Semiticand openly claimed that non-European raceswere inferior. He also condoned patriarchaldomination of women and advocated rape.

A big fan of Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler,Evola spent years in Nazi Germany, where hegave lectures. He personally welcomedMussolini to the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s militaryheadquarters. In a post-war trial in 1951,Evola denied being part of Mussolini’s fascistmovement, which was apparently notbombastic enough for his tastes; instead, heproudly declared himself to be a“superfascist.”

Neo-fascist leader Richard Spencer told theTimes he was excited that Bannon knew ofEvola.

“It means a tremendous amount,” Spencer

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said, adding that Trump’s chief strategist “isat least open to them.”

I reported on Bannon’s 2014 speech, inwhich he described his belief in anintractable violent con�ict between the“enlightened” Christian West and the forcesof Islam, secularism and socialism.

Ben Norton is a politics reporter and staff

writer at AlterNet. You can find him on Twitter

at @BenjaminNorton.

MORE BEN NORTON.

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Alex Flores · Works at Quetico Logisitcs

Anyone who supports this Nazi thug needs to be beaten up by Inglorious

Basterds.

Like · Reply · Mar 10, 2017 8:55pm

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