President Trump [6] on Jan. 29 reorganized the National Security Council [7], elevating his chief strategist Steve Bannon [8] and demoting the Director of National Intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Alt-right" mouthpiece Bannon will join the NSC's inner-core "principals committee." Access to the NSC for a White House strategist is unprecedented. Bannon will serve under National Security Advisor Mike Flynn [9], a recently retired general who is the Trump administration's most extreme Islamophobe. (NYT [10], NPR [11], BBC News [12])
Some of our favorite Bannon quotes:
"Darkness is good [13]." — Hollywood Reporter [14], Nov. 18, 2016
"Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that's my goal, too... I want to bring everything crashing down..." — Daily Beast [15], Aug. 22, 2016 (Quoted to writer Ronald Rasdosh in November 2013)
"Let the grassroots turn on the hate because that's the ONLY thing that will make them do their duty." — New York Times [16], Nov. 15, 2016, citing a 2014 e-mail first reported by Daily Beast [17]
The Rachel Maddow Show [18] noted when Bannon joined the Trump team in November that his Breitbart News [19] was the originator of the popular "alt-right" hashtag #DeportAllMuslims.
And now they are beginning to put this agenda in place. CNN [20] reports that Bannon is one of two White House figures responsible for the hardline interpretation being used of Trump's executive order [6] barring nationals of designated Middle East countries from entering the United State—for instance, having it apply to green-card holders. The two figures are named as Bannon and Stephen Miller, a former Jeff Sessions [21] aide who now serves as the top policy aide in Trump's White House. The "two Steves" apparently overruled the Homeland Security Department, which held that green-card holders were outside the scope of the order.
If the Trump White House is intentionally forcing a constitutional crisis over the immigrant exclusion orders, so as to claim sweeping powers in the name of "national security," the administration's exponent of the white-nationalist right will be at the very center of power.
