11.14.2016 08:23 AM

The most powerful unelected people on Earth

That, usually, is what the most senior people around the President of the United States are: more powerful, with more influence, than any elected person anywhere.

That’s no revelation. What is a revelation, however, is that North America’s leading anti-racist organization keeps a file on those same people.

And here’s what the respected and independent Southern Poverty Law Centre has to say about the people around Trump:

The two political operatives chosen earlier this month to lead Donald Trump’s presidential campaign after two former managers departed have been members of the secretive Council for National Policy (CNP), Hatewatch has learned.

Longtime Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of the far-right Breitbart News operation, were named on Aug. 17 as, respectively, the Trump campaign’s manager and its chief executive officer. The appointment of Bannon was by far the more controversial choice, given his role at a “news” outlet known for bashing immigrants, Muslims, women and others.

The CNP is an intensely secretive and shadowy group of what The New York Times once described as “the most powerful conservatives in the country.”

And:

[The CNP] includes people like Michael Peroutka, a neo-Confederate who for years was on the board of the white supremacist League of the South; Jerome Corsi, a strident Obama “birther” and the propagandist hit man responsible for the “Swift boating” of John Kerry; Joseph Farah, who runs the wildly conspiracist “news” operation known as WorldNetDaily; Mat Staver, the Liberty Counsel leader who has worked to re-criminalize gay sex; Philip Zodhaites, another anti-gay activist who is charged with helping a self-described former lesbian who kidnapped her daughter from her former partner and fled the country; and a large number of other similar characters.

And:

Bannon was already controversial. His Breitbart news operation has specialized in extreme-right propaganda that is summed up in some of the headlines it ran while under his stewardship: “Bill Kristol: Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew,” “There’s No Hiring Bias Against Women in Tech, They Just Suck at Interviews,” “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy,” “Lesbian Bridezillas Bully Bridal Shop Owner Over Religious Beliefs” and so on. Breitbart also recently published a defense of the “Alternative Right” that included defending well-known white supremacist ideologues Jared Taylor and Richard Spencer.

For years, I’ve written about the racist Right – books, academic work and journalism. In all of that time, the neo-Nazis and white supremacists I’ve investigated – from the Aryan Nations to the Holocaust deniers to the fringe Right to the various Klans – have always been on the outside of power, looking in. They could never figure out a way to acquire real power.

Now, it seems, they have.

What does Bannon have to say about all of this? We don’t know. His ex-wife, however – whom he is alleged to have beaten – recalled Bannon said he didn’t want his children around Jews.

And now he is about to become the most powerful unelected person on Earth.  God help us all.

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15 Comments

  1. Eric Weiss says:

    Trump is a narcissist with little to no attention span. He doesn’t truly want to be POTUS. He loved the rally’s and being centre of attention, and is about to find out how tough the actual work is. He’ll get bored with it and probably defer to his advisors and let them make most of the decisions. That is terrifying.

    • smelter rat says:

      Or quit and leave the US with Pence….even more terrifying.

    • doconnor says:

      Trump’s love of rallies is a lot like Rob Ford’s love of meeting constituents. Its how thier egos are satisfied, even though its not really part of thier new jobs.

      Rob Ford managed to barely make it though four years. Trump might do the same. Maybe it will be a hearth crisis that eventually forces him out, too. He’s pretty old and doesn’t have very healthy habits.

      Pence probably won’t bumble his way into a nuclear war or try and get the next election cancelled if he is losing.

  2. Kevin T. says:

    America needs this, unfortunately. They will see what a right-wing, all Republican government does for the American people and America’s standing in the world. Trump is now a champion to the KKK, which is probably not exactly a legacy he probably thought he would ever have. The klan parades celebrating him will be most surely become unforgettable images and symbols of a Trump and Republican government.

  3. Luke says:

    I was taking some solace in the predictions of Michael Moore and others that Trump would either have a tantrum and quit, or break the law and suffer impeachment within a year or so of inauguration. However, realization that Pence will probably be no better squashed that solace. He’d probably retain Trump’s cabal of bastards.

    I’m not quite sure to hope for insofar as politics in America and on Earth more generally are concerned… That in execution these nutters aren’t as bad as they seem? I guess…

    Four years is a long time and it hasn’t even started yet.

    • monkey says:

      Probably the best hope is midterms which rarely favour the governing party. While it will be an uphill challenge if the Democrats take one of the two houses or both they can really challenge Trump. Likewise you have several state elections up for grabs and many GOP governors are either unpopular or term limited so I think they had a good chance at flipping many states back in their favour which means when the next re-districting happens they will be less favourable to the GOP as well as hopefully they can get rid of some of the voter suppression laws.

  4. Jordan says:

    Out of all people, he gets Bannon? Some of the things he advocated for makes me petrified. However, under the Trump administration, this is just the beginning…

  5. Mark says:

    I don’t dispute your comments, except to say that I think Preibus will actually be the most powerful unelected person on earth.

  6. Doris says:

    WTF did you people expect? Trump, Pence, Bannon, Giuliani, Gingritch, and all of the other right-wingers you can think of in the same room – Trump’s cabinet!!
    Amazing to contemplate.

    “We won you didn’t – bugger off”

  7. The Doctor says:

    What I find interesting about this is that the whole alt-right apparatus is built around being in opposition. Their whole founding and animating myth is built around being outsiders and insurgents. Now they’ve been given the keys to the car. What do they do?

    I went to the Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Brietbart websites the day after the election — and what amazed me was how angry the STILL were, despite winning. I think anger is all they know how to do. I guess that will be Bannon’s real job — making sure the alt-right stays angry. But of course angry at the right sort of people.

  8. bluegreenblogger says:

    I just copied this quote from Al Jazeera regarding Trump Transition and Administration: “In announcing the appointments, Trump said Priebus and Bannon would work as “equal partners” – effectively creating two power centres in the West Wing. The arrangement is risky and could leave ambiguity over who makes final decisions.”

    Can you believe how freakin lazy Trump is? Hitler rather famously did exactly this at the top tables everywhere. He made his followers share power centres with their enemies. Reich Police vs. Prussian Police vs SS vs Brownshirts vs Army units, economic ministries competing with the Treasury, Wehrmacht competing with the Waffen SS, and the Intelligence agencies!!! They fought WWII against each other. Every Roehm had a Himmler lurking in the shadows behind. That way their knives were always stuck in a colleagues back, instead of Hitlers. Trump is too lazy to manage his administration, so he shackles it with a cheesy power play instead. If this is a pattern that continues, the Administration will be totally dysfunctional. (but largely loyal, lol)

  9. monkey says:

    Perhaps the Republicans should change their name to the KKK party or Breibart party. This is no longer the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower, and Reagan. I bet many former GOP presidents are rolling in their grave seeing how their party has been hijacked by the alt right. After all it’s hard to believe the party that freed the slaves is now run by a bunch of racists.

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