Steve Bannon
Political strategist; former Goldman Sachs banker and Hollywood producer; executive chairman of Breitbart News; Trump’s chief strategist (2017); associated with the Hard Right and economic nationalism; convicted of contempt of Congress (2022)
Who He Is
Steve Bannon is the most important political operator — rather than intellectual — of the MAGA New Right. Where the Claremonters and postliberals theorize, Bannon acts. His career spans finance (Goldman Sachs), entertainment (documentary films), right-wing media (Breitbart), and political strategy (Trump’s 2016 campaign and transition).
He is not primarily a theorist but an ideological entrepreneur: someone who synthesizes ideas from multiple traditions and weaponizes them for political combat.
Intellectual Influences
Bannon’s self-described intellectual influences are eclectic and revealing:
- Julius Evola — Italian fascist esotericist; Bannon cited Evola approvingly in a Vatican speech
- René Guénon — French traditionalist philosopher
- The Fourth Turning (Strauss and Howe) — generational crisis theory; Bannon believes we are in a “Fourth Turning” civilizational crisis
- Economic nationalism — protectionist, anti-globalist, industrial policy
This synthesis places Bannon in the orbit of the Hard Right’s more esoteric currents — closer to Curtis Yarvin and the Bronze Age Pervert than to the Claremonters or Catholic postliberals, despite occasional overlaps.
Strategic Role
Bannon’s primary contributions to the New Right are strategic and organizational:
- Breitbart News: transformed it from a center-right blog into the internet’s most influential MAGA media outlet
- The “administrative deconstruction” doctrine: Bannon’s stated goal in 2017 was “deconstruction of the administrative state” — a strategic complement to Vermeule’s Integration from Within
- The populist electoral strategy: Bannon understood before almost anyone else that working-class white voters without college degrees were a winnable coalition for economic nationalism + cultural grievance
- International network: Bannon worked with European populist-nationalist parties (Front National, Lega Nord, AfD) to build a global nationalist movement
Significance
Field positions Bannon in the Hard Right camp despite his elite educational background (Harvard MBA). His significance is as a translator: he can move ideas from Evola and Guénon and Yarvin into political messaging that resonates with Rust Belt voters. The intellectual sophistication and the populist brutalism are both real.
Cross-References
- Hard Right — the New Right camp Bannon most closely inhabits
- MAGA New Right — the movement he helped create
- Curtis Yarvin — intellectual overlap in the anti-democratic Hard Right
- National Conservatism — overlapping economic nationalism
- Integration from Within — Bannon’s “deconstruction of administrative state” is the mirror image
- January 6 2021 — Bannon’s “War Room” podcast was a major organizing venue for Stop the Steal