Face of White Nationalist Movement Named as Chief Counselor To Trump Administration

Steven Bannon
photo from Breitbart News

In an apparent attempt to compromise between establishment Republicans, and his anti-establishment, racist base, Trump announced his Chief of Staff pick tonight.  People were waiting to see if it was going to be Reince Priebus, former chairman of the RNC, and Republican insider, or Steve Bannon, who engineered Trump's campaign, and has a C.V. we'll dip into in a moment.  Trump selected both, in an unusual move that will pit two different groups of people against each other in the Trump inner circle.

Steven Bannon is well associated as the director of the online presence of the Alt Right, group, a white, separatist nationalist group of individuals that more or less represent the modern version of the KKK.  They long for a whites only Christian America, and are not ashamed or shy of their beliefs.

While the Alt Righters themselves have no particular formal structure, they use social media to get their message out, and Bannon's Breitbart News, for which he serves as the executive chief of staff, is their public mouthpiece.  

His personal history includes anti-semitic statements, wife beating and other charges of domestic abuse.

Riebus's title is Chief of Staff, and Bannon's, "Chief Strategist".  Interestingly enough, Trump's press release listed Bannon's name first.

While we certainly don't know for a fact what Bannon's goals in the inner circle will be, we can cautiously assume that a man who believes in white nationalist superiority does probably not have multicultural America's best interests at heart.