Tornado Alley (PROG)

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Why far-right nationalists like Steve Bannon have embraced a Russian ideologue

"I figured that The Shower Cap would have an entry in his Rogues Gallery for Bannon."

And how his medieval fantasies distort history for his cause.

Perspective by Brandon W. Hawk
Brandon W. Hawk is an assistant professor of English at
Rhode Island College who writes about the Middle Ages,
biblical apocrypha, and intersections with pop culture.

April 16, 2019 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

[This article is over three years old]


Former Trump campaign manager Stephen K. Bannon speaks to reporters March 25 before meeting a member of the Italian
\ Democratic Party in Rome. (Claudio Peri/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

Stephen K. Bannon is back. He’s making the rounds in the United States and abroad, talking .. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-26/bannon-russia-probe-set-back-efforts-to-work-with-moscow .. about uniting “the Judeo-Christian West” in a clear call for violence against the Islamic world. Two new documentaries focus on his life and work — Alison Klayman’s “The Brink” and Errol Morris’s not-yet-released “American Dharma” — and Anderson Cooper interviewed him on CNN late last month.

Bannon’s return should raise concerns. It became clear during his time in the Trump campaign and then the administration that the former head of Breitbart was a key player in the mainstreaming of the alt-right in the United States. But Bannon’s reemergence is tied to the global spread of the far right in the United States and Europe. And Bannon is using a racist version of the history of the Middle Ages to justify and legitimize his vision for nationalist imperialism.

To understand Bannon and the threat posed by his reemergence, we need to get to know the dangerous Russian ideologue who has inspired him: Aleksandr Dugin, a man once called “The Most Dangerous Philosopher in the World .. https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/the-dangerous-philosopher-behind-putins-strategy-to-grow-russian-power-at-americas-expense ” for his influence on world politics. A Russian political analyst and modern fascist, Dugin has written dozens of books laying out his political philosophy. His Eurasianist ideology is grounded in a fundamentalist religious nationalism that seeks to create a Christian empire that unites Europe and Asia in a quest to restore a “traditionalism” rooted in conservative Orthodox Christian values and white supremacy.
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[INSERT: This is a decent read. Some of our local "useful idiots" should recognize a few of it's elements.
Russia Is Co-opting Angry Young Men
Fight clubs, neo-Nazi soccer hooligans, and motorcycle gangs serve as conduits for the Kremlin’s influence operations in Western countries.
[...]
Trump, Putin, and the “Alt-Right International”
Fringe-right groups already consider the Kremlin an ally. At the alt-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, chants of “Russia is our friend!” were commonplace. Richard Spencer, who led the Charlottesville rally and directs an alt-right organization called the National Policy Institute, has praised Putin as a protector of the white race. His website, altright.com, features such articles as “Why Anti-Racism is Nothing but a Lie” and defends the alt-right’s associations with Putin by arguing that “Russia is one of the few countries left that supports and upholds Pro-European values such as strength, unity, racial awareness, etc.” Similarly, the alt-right figure Alex Jones fawns over Putin and has hosted the Kremlin’s court ideologue Alexander Dugin on his show. Even the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is seen in a positive light by American right-wing groups, which portray him as a savior of Christian minorities, echoing a common Kremlin propaganda line. Matthew Heimbach, an American white nationalist who has extensively praised Putin, sums up the alt-right’s views when he says “I see Russia as kind of the axis for nationalists … and that’s not just nationalists that are white—that’s all nationalists.”
sortagreen, 2018 - https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=143314494]

Richard Spencer coined the phrase "alternative-right" as a euphemism for white nationalism. Bannon declared he wanted to make Breitbart a home for it.
[...]
...It came to be associated with other white nationalist websites and groups, including Andrew Anglin's Daily Stormer, Brad Griffin's Occidental Dissent, and Matthew Heimbach's Traditionalist Worker Party. Following the 2014 Gamergate controversy, the alt-right made increasing use of trolling and online harassment to raise its profile. In 2015, it attracted broader attention—particularly through coverage on Steve Bannon's Breitbart News
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=167294812

Well said, sortagreen. One link which could be the source you got the quote from .. Stormfront
Created by former Alabama Klan boss and long-time white supremacist Don Black in 1995, Stormfront was the first major hate site on the Internet. Claiming more than 300,000 registered members as of May 2015 (though far fewer remain active), the site has been a very popular online forum for white nationalists and other racial extremists.
[...]
In 2010, Black, his son Derek, who has since renounced white nationalism, and Duke took up residence on a South Florida news and talk radio station with a large Haitian audience. This bi-weekly program, hosted by the far right-wing Rense Radio Network, was the predecessor for Stormfront Radio, which now reaches North America, as well as over 100 million homes in Europe and the Middle East, daily via satellite.
P - Later that same year, Stormfront introduced its now annual “Smoky Mountain Summit” near Knoxville, Tenn. Past speakers have included David Duke, Sam Dickson, a CCC member and well known Klan lawyer, Paul Fromm, Matthew Parrott, of the Traditionalist Youth Network (TYN), Matthew Heimbach, also of TYN, Timothy Murchoch, also known as ‘Horace the Avenger’ of White Rabbit Radio, and Freeland Roy Dunscombe, also known as ‘Truck Roy,’ Don Black’s co-host on Stormfront radio. Plans have already been announced to continue the summit in 2015.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=164752589

She said she wasn’t going to jail for Jan. 6, citing ‘blonde hair white skin.’ A judge sentenced her to 60 days behind bars.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=166665618
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One key to understanding Dugin’s politics is his fixation on the Middle Ages. His website .. http://dugin.ru/ .. is plastered with medieval imagery and iconography: Stock images of icons of saints, Byzantine mosaics, manuscripts and church architecture abound. In his writings, too, Dugin idealizes a fictional version of the Middle Ages, one that stands in stark contrast to the modern world and liberalism, which he rejects.

To Dugin, Christian imperialism is an ideal political form that secures racial purity. He looks to Rome as the empire to which Eurasia needs to return, an alternative to the liberal modernity of today. He praises Constantine for founding a Christian Roman Empire .. http://dugin.ru/video/mediolanskiy-edikt-313-osnova-imperii .. and calls for a “Third Rome .. http://dugin.ru/video/nash-tretiy-rim ,” believing that the Roman Empire and its medieval European successor are the best models for combating liberal modernity. His view of the Roman Empire and medieval Europe exalts the triumphs of monolithic white, Christian nationalism.

The problem? This is a historical fabrication. Both the Roman Empire .. https://quillette.com/2017/08/22/yes-romans-diverse-not-way-understand/ .. and Middle Ages .. https://psmag.com/education/yes-there-were-poc-in-medieval-europe .. Europe were, in fact, extremely diverse — racially .. https://www.forbes.com/sites/drsarahbond/2017/04/27/whitewashing-ancient-statues-whiteness-racism-and-color-in-the-ancient-world/#7465e40675ad .. and otherwise — because both included cultures beyond the limited scope of Western Europe.

A vital component of Dugin’s rejection of modernity is an embrace of conservative Orthodox Christianity and, with it, sharp anti-Semitism. But this too is ahistoric. Dugin, Bannon and other right-wing fundamentalists use the racist dog-whistle term “Judeo-Christian,” which seems to indicate shared religious values, but through supersessionism, it erases differences and eliminates Judaism by appropriating it for Christianity.

In his embrace of a staunch Orthodox desire for conservative piety and devotion, Dugin also turns to the Middle Ages. He looks to Christian empire, led by monks, as way to usher in the apocalypse, or the Last Judgment. As he writes, “An empire needs monasticism as much as a church.” In his view, the Middle Ages are the high point of this type of religiosity, a time when there was a unified Christianity under an all-encompassing church. But that never actually happened, and believing that it did buys into myths constructed from bad history .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/5-myths-about-the-middle-ages/2016/09/22/e56c4150-7f50-11e6-9070-5c4905bf40dc_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_14 . Christians sharply disagreed with one another over issues big enough to cause schisms. Even just limiting the scope to Europe, Christianity was only one among multiple belief systems, including Judaism and Islam, with their own diverse beliefs and practices.

In sum, Dugin believes that “the alternative to the notion of liberalism is ‘returning to the Middle Ages .. https://4threvolutionarywar.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/dugin-the-alternative-to-liberalism-is-returning-to-the-middle-ages/ .’”

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[Insert: Late Middle Ages
War, famine, and plague
The first years of the 14th century were marked by famines, culminating in the Great Famine of 1315–17.[277] The causes of the Great Famine included the slow transition from the Medieval Warm Period

[Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=103618827]

to the Little Ice Age, which left the population vulnerable when bad weather caused agricultural crises.[278] The years 1313–14 and 1317–21 were excessively rainy throughout Europe, resulting in widespread crop failures.[279] The climate change—which resulted in a declining average annual temperature for Europe during the 14th century—was accompanied by an economic downturn.[280]


Execution of some of the ringleaders of the jacquerie, from a 14th-
century manuscript of the Chroniques de France ou de St Denis

These troubles were followed in 1347 by the Black Death, a pandemic that spread throughout Europe during the following three years.[281][AB] The death toll was probably about 35 million people in Europe, about one-third of the population. Towns were especially hard-hit because of their crowded conditions.[AC] Large areas of land were left sparsely inhabited, and in some places fields were left unworked. Wages rose as landlords sought to entice the reduced number of available workers to their fields. Further problems were lower rents and lower demand for food, both of which cut into agricultural income. Urban workers also felt that they had a right to greater earnings, and popular uprisings broke out across Europe.[284] Among the uprisings were the jacquerie in France, the Peasants' Revolt in England, and revolts in the cities of Florence in Italy and Ghent and Bruges in Flanders. The trauma of the plague led to an increased piety throughout Europe, manifested by the foundation of new charities, the self-mortification of the flagellants, and the scapegoating of Jews.[285] Conditions were further unsettled by the return of the plague throughout the rest of the 14th century; it continued to strike Europe periodically during the rest of the Middle Ages.[281]

These dire conditions resulted in an increase of interpersonal violence in most parts of Europe. Population increase, religious intolerance, famine and disease led to an increase in violent acts in vast parts of the medieval society. One exception to this was North-Eastern Europe, whose population managed to maintain low levels of violence due to a more organized society resulting from extensive and successful trade.[286] .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages#War,_famine,_and_plague ]
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Yet his notions have little to do with the actual Middle Ages. Rather than a historically accurate portrayal of the complex period, he cobbles together the bits of the Middle Ages that best suit his political philosophy. Ironically, for all of Dugin’s disdain for modernity, his views are modern at their core because they are rooted in 18th- and 19th-century constructions of nationalism.

These same ideas about medieval culture fueled dangerous regimes over the past century. The Nazis idealized medieval Germanic culture for imperialism and anti-Semitic genocide. George W. Bush’s administration idealized “crusader” rhetoric for the exigencies of interventionism. And today, the alt-right idealizes the idea of European racial “purity” to promote white nationalism.

Such idealizations of the Middle Ages use the idea of the past, rather than its reality, to serve their modern political projects.

Dugin’s ideas have infused right-wing circles, an influence apparent from his numerous appearances in “The Complete Glossary of the Trumpist Alt-right.” As others have charted, white supremacists have fallen in love with the Middle Ages. The white supremacists in Charlottesville embraced medieval imagery, and members of the alt-right and political actors like Bannon regularly deify the Middle Ages.

These are not just rhetorical links to American white supremacists. There are clear connections between Dugin and prominent right-wing figures. His works have been translated by Arktos Media, which proudly claims that he “has served as an adviser to Vladimir Putin.” He also shares ties to Richard Spencer and his wife, Nina Kouprianova, who has translated some of Dugin’s works into English. Additionally, there are connections between Dugin and David Duke, Milo Yiannopoulos, Stephen Miller and even President Trump.

It’s no surprise that such figures have used medievalism for their own political ends. In fact, Dugin endorsed Trump’s election as a victory for conservatives seeking a new world order through a return to the Middle Ages.

Bannon acknowledges affinities with the philosophies of Julius Evola and Dugin in relation to his conservative vision for world politics. Like them, Bannon believes in an Eurasian Christian empire led by “the church militant” that will reform religious, economic, political and social foundations around the world. Such views underlie his speech about conservative Christianity as a bulwark against liberalism at the Vatican in 2014, and it’s no coincidence that Bannon has been integral to the establishment of the conservative Catholic Dignitatis Humanae Institute in an 800-year-old monastery.

All of this should give pause. These appropriations of the Middle Ages by figures like Dugin and Bannon pose an odd reversal of the problem of calling things we don’t like “medieval.” Yet these appropriations are equally misleading and even more dangerous. The resulting racist, xenophobic, misogynist, “traditionalist” construction of the Middle Ages is pervasive in conservative spheres. This ideology is now not only Dugin’s construction but also the view that informs many right-wing thinkers like Putin, Bannon and Trump.

The medieval period is alluring for a variety of reasons. It would serve us well to question those narratives about the Middle Ages that uphold modern agendas of hate.

Brandon W. Hawk is an assistant professor of English at Rhode Island College who writes about the Middle Ages, biblical apocrypha, and intersections with pop culture. Twitter

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/04/16/why-far-right-nationalists-like-steve-bannon-have-embraced-russian-ideologue/