SHOWDOWN

Steve Bannon Wanted the MAGA Movement to Rule for 100 Years

A new book describes Bannon’s desire to shatter the American political establishment.

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon sought to smash the American political establishment, and replace it with a MAGA movement that “could rule for a hundred years,” according to a new book about the present-day pugnacious nationalist right-wing podcaster. In Isaac Arnsdorf’s new book Finish What We Started, the Washington Post reporter describes Bannon’s desire to “completely dismantle and redefine the parties,” The Guardian reports. According to Arnsdorf, Bannon “wanted a showdown between a globalist, elite party, called the Democrats, and a populist, Maga party, called the Republicans. In that match-up, he was sure, the Republicans would win every time.” Bannon would help to build this movement of zealots out of the audience of Brietbart, his far-right news outlet. Arnsdorf wrote that Bannon believed that even disaffected Democrats would take up the not-so-righteous MAGA sword, because they were more interested in joining a mass movement than following their ideology.