Steve Bannon: 'Darkness is good ... Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power.'


Not everyone has nice things to say these days about Breitbart News' executive chairman, Steve Bannon. The freshly appointed "chief strategist" to the Donald Trump administration has been blasted as a "misogynist," as well as a "racist, [anti-Semite], and white nationalist," and there are plenty of headlines on Bannon's Breitbart that would give such accusations some credence.
But rather shockingly, no one paints a darker picture of Steve Bannon than Steve Bannon himself:
In this dark day for Democrats, Bannon has become the blackest hole."Darkness is good," says Bannon, who amid the suits surrounding him at Trump Tower, looks like a graduate student in his T-shirt, open button-down and tatty blue blazer — albeit a 62-year-old graduate student. "Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power. It only helps us when they" — I believe by "they" he means liberals and the media, already promoting calls for his ouster — "get it wrong. When they're blind to who we are and what we're doing." [The Hollywood Reporter]
It's not exactly the most reassuring comparison, but it turns out Bannon has a knack for describing himself. In the same interview, he clarifies, "I'm not a white nationalist, I'm a nationalist, I'm an economic nationalist," and says he is "Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors."
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You can learn more about who Bannon is — or at least who he claims to be — at The Hollywood Reporter.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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