I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the interesting question of whether or not the former chief strategist to the President of the United States is too fringe a figure to be allowed to speak in public. A lot of very prominent people seem to think that Steve Bannon shouldn’t be given a platform. And among two venues to have recently invited him, the New Yorker promptly disinvited him from their festival under fire from political heavyweights including former ‘funny man’ Jim Carrey.
By contrast, the Economist managed to hold firm, surviving the withdrawal of a British blogger and going ahead as planned with their live interview. The video of the resulting event is well worth watching.
Not because Steve Bannon says anything new, or anything he hasn’t said many times before. And certainly not because the Economist has its finger on any unfamiliar pulse. But rather because it is such a fascinating meeting of worlds.
Zanny Minton Beddoes herself could almost have been dreamed up by Bannon. She is his ideal foil. The Economist’s editor-in-chief is the epitome of a certain hectoring Davos type. From the moment she kicks off her interview she is as sharply rude as possible to her guest, making it clear to her audience from the get-go that her attitude towards Bannon is akin to that of someone who, having trodden in excrement, must perforce adopt some attitude towards its removal.
What makes this so grimly watchable is that Bannon merely has to phone it in. Zanny Minton Beddoes, on the other hand, appears to be fighting for her political, professional and social life. She won’t let Bannon get on a roll on anything. She won’t let him finish a sentence. She rebukes. She jabs.
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