When Steve Bannon was ousted from the White House as president Donald Trump’s chief strategist, the populist provocateur and former Hollywood executive was back running staff meetings at Breitbart less than 24 hours later. The rumpled, grizzled, grey-haired Bannon – who has a fondness for philosophy, history, political bloodsport and green camo jackets – is constantly on the move for a new project. In the United States, the big project was getting Trump elected and ensuring the New York billionaire never forgot about the part of America that loved him and the part that cringed at the mention of his name. But ever since he left the Trump administration – and later had a falling out with his former boss – Bannon has sought to take his pro-populist mission international. This master of the dark arts found an opportunity almost immediately in the 2019 European Union parliamentary elections.
Post-White House life has been busy for Bannon, who has collected thousands of frequent flyer miles jetting to numerous European cities for speeches about nationalism’s revival. In Rome, he congratulated Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini for forming the first anti-establishment government in western Europe. In France, he addressed Marine Le Pen’s National Front to, well, rally anti-Macron forces (Macron’s poll numbers have plummeted in the months since). And in Brussels, the city that hosts many of the EU institutions he would like to burn down, Bannon has promised his enemies full-throated political warfare. “The beating heart of the globalist project is in Brussels,” Bannon told the Guardian last autumn. “If I drive the stake through the vampire, the whole thing will start to dissipate.”
Bannon would never admit it, but he fancies himself a puppet master – a man who can harness his big, bold ideas, channel them through politicians of his liking, and spread his ideology through the halls of power.
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