The
world according to Breitbart
The
alt-right publication recently led by Steve Bannon has clashed at
times with Trump’s world views.
By NAHAL
TOOSI 11/25/16, 4:23 PM CET Updated 11/25/16, 7:35 PM CET
President-elect
Donald Trump suggested earlier this week that right-wing British
politician Nigel Farage should be the U.K.’s next ambassador to the
United States. Within hours, Farage had written a gleeful column in
response, saying he was ready to “help cement ties with the
incoming Anglophile administration.”
But Farage, a major
force behind Britain’s decision to quit the European Union, didn’t
publish his column in the Sun, the Times of London or another British
news outlet. Instead, in a telling move, he chose Breitbart News, the
conservative, white nationalist-friendly media site that until
recently was led by Trump aide Stephen Bannon.
With Bannon suiting
up to be Trump’s chief strategist in the White House, he is likely
to have significant influence on how Trump deals with Britain and the
rest of the world in the coming four years. One way of understanding
Bannon’s approach to foreign policy is to read the coverage he
inspired and oversaw at Breitbart.
POLITICO scoured
hundreds of foreign policy-related articles published by Breitbart
News from mid-2012 to mid-2016, during which Bannon led the site, to
get a sense of his worldview. While by no means a perfect measure —
Breitbart is a platform for many people, and it relies heavily on
aggregation — Bannon nonetheless served as the site’s chief
editorial strategist, setting the tone and priorities for its
coverage before joining the Trump campaign in August.
The themes that
emerged from POLITICO’s perusal of the content bolster existing
expectations that Bannon will push Trump to fight “Islamo-fascism,”
even if it means cracking down on Muslim-Americans; that he will urge
Trump to offer unyielding support to Israel, despite the cost to the
Palestinians; and that he also could push Trump to undermine
multi-lateral institutions, such as the United Nations, while
offering a boost to nationalists such as Farage.
“They cover
stories like you cover stories. Now, they are certainly a much more
conservative paper, to put it mildly, than The New York Times” —
Donald Trump on Breitbart
In many ways, how
Breitbart has covered the planet is in line with Bannon’s vision of
the world as he himself laid it out in a 2014 speech recently
published by BuzzFeed. In that speech, Bannon warned of a rising
Islamist jihadist threat and praised populist movements gaining
traction worldwide. But under Bannon’s reign, Breitbart also
published pieces that seem at odds with, or go further than, Trump
may wish on foreign fronts.
For instance,
Breitbart News has occasionally been tough on Russian President
Vladimir Putin, a man Trump has repeatedly praised. It also has been
critical of Syrian leader Bashar Assad, even as Trump has indicated
he’s not willing to take on the Russian-backed Arab strongman
believed responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. And it has
provided often positive coverage of Pope Francis, with whom Trump
clashed on the campaign trial.
* * *
Over the years,
Breitbart has been accused of racism, misogyny and xenophobia, thanks
to incendiary headlines such as “Birth control makes women
unattractive and crazy.” Bannon himself has described Breitbart as
a platform for the “alt-right,” a term that encompasses many
white nationalists now rejoicing over Trump’s win.
In comments to the
New York Times on Tuesday, Trump defended both Bannon and Breitbart.
“Breitbart, first
of all, is just a publication,” Trump said. “They cover stories
like you cover stories. Now, they are certainly a much more
conservative paper, to put it mildly, than The New York Times. But
Breitbart really is a news organization that’s become quite
successful, and it’s got readers and it does cover subjects that
are on the right, but it covers subjects on the left also. I mean,
it’s a pretty big, it’s a pretty big thing. And he helped build
it into a pretty successful news organization.”
Breitbart’s
foreign affairs coverage, however, seems to lend credence to many of
the criticisms thrown at it, especially when it comes to the Muslim
world.
Its widely
trafficked website has published many harsh news articles, opinion
pieces and headlines with little regard for diplomatic sensitivities
toward the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims. Because the site makes
little effort to distinguish its news articles from opinion pieces,
the two often seem to bleed into one primal scream. The pieces
published, many of which rely on the reporting of other news outlets,
often also treat allegations as facts or rely on dubious,
conspiracy-theory style rumors to make a point.
“CIA hosts
training by Muslim Brotherhood leader and Hamas supporter,” was the
headline of an October 2012 article that insisted Islamist leaders
were infiltrating the U.S. government. Pieces that hint at such
“Islamist enemies within” possibilities are Breitbart favorites.
Breitbart also often
gives a platform to deeply polarizing figures. A January column by
Tom Tancredo, the ex-congressman known for pushing severe immigration
restrictions, was titled, “Political correctness protects Muslim
rape culture.” The Southern Poverty Law Center cited such columns
in calling on Trump to rescind Bannon’s White House appointment.
* * *
Iran, which is led
by an Islamist government, is frequently derided by Breitbart,
suggesting it should not feel particularly comfortable under a Trump
administration. “As with women’s soccer, Iran will cheat on the
nuclear deal,” claimed an October 2015 article that tried to link
the multilateral nuclear agreement to dubious reports that Iran was
fielding men on its women’s soccer team.
The sharp rhetoric
on Iran (“terrorist regime” is a typical modifier) is often
combined with strong affinity for Israel. In what appears to be a
July 2015 opinion piece about the nuclear deal President Barack
Obama’s administration reached with Iran and five other countries,
the author asserts, “Obama wants Iran to be a regional power,
because Obama fears Israel more than he fears Iran.”
Breitbart has a
Jerusalem bureau, which oversees much of its Middle East coverage.
Its stories and opinion pieces in general brook little sympathy for
the Palestinians, who are frequently described as terrorists.
Meanwhile, people or institutions that try to hold Israel to account
for some of its behavior, such as its construction of settlements on
land claimed by Palestinians, are often called out. “A very
incomplete list of anti-Israel biases at The New York Times,” was
one such piece in October 2015.
Such pro-Israel
coverage stands at odds with the anti-Semitic views of many in the
white nationalist community that holds Breitbart News so dear. At the
same time, it could comfort supporters of Israel who fear Bannon may
have been influenced by such anti-Semitism. (Bannon himself has been
accused of anti-Semitic comments by his ex-wife, claims he denies.
Trump on Tuesday insisted Bannon was not at all a racist.)
In pushing
nationalism, Breitbart News has given fawning coverage to right-wing
figures such as Farage, France’s Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders of
The Netherlands. Breitbart exulted in June after Farage and fellow
members of the U.K. Independence Party triumphed in their bid to
convince Britons to vote in favor of quitting the European Union.
Meanwhile, multilateral institutions are often cast as money-grubbing
bureaucracies of little value to the world.
In one September
2014 piece, Breitbart’s best-known provocateur, Milo Yiannopoulos,
slams the U.N.-backed He for She campaign to encourage men to stand
up for women’s rights. He calls the men who sign up for it
“sexually-frustrated dickless wonders” and implies that the U.N.
world view includes hating Jews.
The influx of
migrants from war-ridden Syria and other parts of the Muslim world to
Europe has been breathlessly covered by the site. The tracts at times
conflate and confuse issues in a way that bolsters the hostility
toward the foreigners harbored by figures such as Le Pen. Trump has
been similarly suspicious of the migrants, and he has vowed to
prevent any Syrian refugees being resettled in the United States.
“While thousands
of born Germans remain homeless, one city is building trendy downtown
apartments for single male migrants on the corner of the Oberhausen
Peace Square,” read the lead of one such article about Germany in
July.
But the man many of
the Syrians are fleeing from, Bashar Assad, has received his fair
share of harsh coverage by Breitbart. The site has often referred to
Assad as a “dictator” who is murdering his own people, and it
hasn’t hesitated to report on Assad’s use of chemical weapons.
One September 2013 article mocked Assad’s wife, Asma: “Bashar
Assad’s wife shops while country burns.”
While Trump hasn’t
exactly praised Assad, he’s been more reserved in his descriptions
of the Syrian leader than many others in his own party. Trump has
indicated he may shut down U.S. support for moderate rebel factions
trying to oust Assad in the nearly six-year-old civil war in the Arab
state. Instead, Trump has signaled that he’ll back anyone who’s
battling the Islamic State terrorist group, a category in which Trump
includes Assad.
* * *
Trump’s views on
Assad may be colored by his generally positive takes on Russia, the
Syrian strongman’s most important foreign patron. Breitbart’s
coverage of Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, is often
admiring as well. Putin is viewed as strong and capable, while Obama
is cast as weak.
But Putin hasn’t
gotten away scot-free in all of Breitbart’s coverage. One February
article called Putin “a journalist-assassin and country-invader.”
Another, in October 2014, said Putin “has cultivated an
international image based heavily on his self-worship. He criticizes
anyone who attempts to be exceptional or powerful, but he has no
problem when people celebrate him.” In July of this year, Breitbart
posted a piece on Putin “revoking religious freedom.”
One August 2013
parody column (carrying Putin’s byline) followed Obama’s decision
to cancel a summit with the Russian leader after he gave asylum to
National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. “Yeah, I’m a
dictator and everything, but it always helps to have a strong base of
support — and flipping the bird to the Americans is a great way to
get the average Ivan to say, “Way to go! That’ll stick it to
Uncle Sam!” the fake Putin wrote.
In his 2014 speech
and subsequent Q&A, Bannon said Putin was running a kleptocracy.
But he also said Putin is “very, very, very intelligent” and
spoke admiringly of the Russian leader’s appeal to nationalism and
traditionalism, forces that Bannon appears keen on seeing Trump
harness in the United States.
Even if Bannon has
zero input into what the site publishes from here on, observers,
foreign and domestic, will likely scour Breitbart every day for clues
about what the administration will do.
Breitbart also has
published significant coverage of the Vatican, including during
Bannon’s tenure. Much of the reporting, however, plays it straight,
faithfully relaying the latest words and activities of Pope Francis.
That includes coverage of the pope’s repeated pleas to Europeans
and people in other countries to take in Syrian refugees — messages
that seem to be at odds with Trump’s views.
Trump and Francis
have clashed over the migration issue, with the pope clearly
signaling his displeasure over Trump’s plans to build a wall along
the U.S. border with Mexico. The pope said anyone who wants to build
walls instead of bridges is “not Christian” while Trump said the
pope was being “very political.”
Bannon, who is
Catholic, has been criticized by liberal Catholic groups for saying
the church supports immigration because it needs to boost its
numbers, but he’s also appeared to agree with Francis on the perils
of corrupt capitalism. (It’s a strange position for a man whose new
boss, Trump, is a billionaire businessman under heavy fire for being
slow in untangling his business interests from his soon-to-be role as
president.)
Even though Bannon
was said to have left Breitbart in August, his exact relationship
with the site now remains unclear, a situation some critics worry
will mean Breitbart will wind up being a propaganda arm of the Trump
administration. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bannon is on a
leave of absence from Breitbart.
Even if Bannon has
zero input into what the site publishes from here on, observers,
foreign and domestic, will likely scour Breitbart every day for clues
about what the administration will do.
On Tuesday, as word
emerged that Trump may not pursue a campaign promise to jail
Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton, Breitbart News at
first appeared angry at the president-elect. It headlined a story on
its homepage with the words: “BROKEN PROMISE.”
But later in the
day, that phrase was gone.
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