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Bannon the European: He's opening the populist fort in Brussels
The former Trump strategist arrives in Europe with "The Movement". Objective: an alliance between right-wing leaders, from Salvini to Orbán in view of the 2019 elections
The invasion of Europe has begun. Steve Bannon, 65, the American far-right guru who was Donald Trump's right-hand man in the White House — but let go last summer following the racist violence in Charlottesville — is preparing to march on Brussels. Launching, he told the Daily Beast himself, a new non-profit foundation called The Movement, (Il Movimento), right in the heart of Europe and its institutions. Through which he hopes to coordinate the populist right in view of the European elections which will be held in spring 2019.
Objective: to compete with George Soros, the American billionaire of Hungarian origin, benefactor of the Democratic party, who since 1984 with his Open Society has spent at least $32 billion in support of NGOs dealing with human rights. And for this he became the bogeyman of the populist right, accused of plots of all kinds: including that of wanting to replace Italians with immigrants in order to have labour at low cost. A mantra repeated in the past on Twitter also by the current Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini.
The ambition of Steve Bannon, former director of the alt-right American site Breitbart — which in the European campaign preceded him since the platform had already opened bureaux in London and Rome — is therefore to become the coordinator of the one great "populist international" of which he has long since been dreaming.
The Movement, in fact, intends to function as an extreme right-wing think tank: a source of strategic advice to channel the not-so-politically structured discontent of the most extreme European movements. Analysing data and giving strategic advice. But also by raising funds and channeling funding.
The aim is to create a populist alliance, a sort of "super group" that if victorious can conquer up to a third of the European Parliament in the elections next May.
The Movement, which for now will count on a staff of 10 people, will be fully operational in 2019. In short, after the American midterm elections, where Bannon is fighting to influence the primaries supporting candidates potentially able to undermine the prospects of Republican establishment. But in the future the former spin doctor says he wants to spend more and more time in Europe. Also because the relationships with Trump have worsened after the revelations he made to Michael Wolff and published in the scandal book "Fire and Fury". "Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Paradise," Bannon says now paraphrasing the Satan of one of his favorite books, John Milton's Lost Paradise. Hell in this case would be the dear old Europe and its democratic values. The "army of darkness" is already among us.
Europe can be a wife not a mistress
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If you are going to play here, you'll have to spend time, Europe by remote doesn't work. Lots and lots of face time and hand holding