You Will Eat the Fruit of Your Labor

David Blondin

About two weeks ago the world ended. As Rome burned at the hands of its less than mentally endowed citizens; our new Caesar—who is less like Nero than expected—is getting ready for his transition into power. One of his first moves was appointing Steve Bannon as his senior strategists. These same cry babies who can´t figure out the simple arithmetic behind the Electoral College have already found him a guilty of being a white supremacist because he associates with the Alt-Right.

Who is Steve Bannon and who are the Alt-Right?

Steve Bannon is the executive chair of Breitbart news, an international news outlet that is associated with right wing politics. Bannon’s career has followed many paths including working for Goldman-Sachs, serving in the United States Navy, and directing an earth science research project called Biosphere 2.

The Alt-Right—which is short for alternative right—is a far right political movement that rejects conservatism for white nationalism. The perceived leading authority for the Alt-Right is the National Policy Institute (NPI) which aims to “protect the identity and future of people of European decent”. It isn’t hard to read between the lines with that statement to guess an ulterior motive. If you need more evidence on their toxic policies, you can read an essay by founder Richard Spencer advocating segregated schools that is showcased on the homepage of their website. The website goes on to call for solidarity of white European people to give them political power and self-determination. We can all agree that if you believe this you are a piece of scum. That is why people are trying to associate Steve Bannon with the alt-right.

The Alt-Right sounds an awful lot like some other groups in our country, and I’m not talking about white supremacists groups. A popular social movement called Black Lives Matter (BLM) has some surprisingly similar demands. According The Movement for Black Lives’, they want separate community control, collective ownership, and self-determination. BLM wants to dismantle actual racial progress like that achieved in the landmark case Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education.

The Alt-Right and the regressive left want to return to a society where we are separated by race. This neo-segregation has readily been accepted as dogma on college campuses like the University of Minnesota. The Alt-Right is a hilarious mirror to the logic behind the political left. It is all based on identity politics and name calling. The Left doesn’t have to use logic when they can use feelings, just like the Alt-Right. The rise of radicalism is prevalent on both sides, but what came first, the chicken or the egg?

If we want to stop the radicalization, we need to police ourselves. If you don’t want white people to organize into an identity, then don’t advocate for other demographics to do it. If social justice groups keep feeding the fire, it will just burn down our political climate. It will do more damage than any Trump presidency could accomplish.

Why is Steve Bannon associated with the alt right? Breitbart is a website that Alt-Right members visit. People don’t scream at Al-Jazeera for being a member of Al-Qaeda because it is a major outlet for the Arab world. It wouldn’t make sense to do that in the same way it doesn’t make sense to call Bannon a white supremacist.

Steve Bannon is an American who puts America first, not any distinct nationality or race. You can see that from the diversity of his journalism staff. He doesn’t care about race, just results. He believes in equal opportunity—not equal outcome—and that scares the political left. Curse that free market for being the great equalizer!

When you label people as bigots simply because they disagree with our political agendas, you don’t make actual progress, you alienate. Calling Steve Bannon a racist trivializes actual white supremacists that cause harm to our society. Radicalization of any group it a threat. A radical Alt-Right poses as big a threat as leftist student groups on campus like Students for a Democratic Society. If we keep radicalizing because of some perceived threat we will eat the fruit of our labors, we will burn in a fire lit by our own ignorance.