Bannon: 'I'm not a white nationalist, I'm a nationalist'
Stephen Bannon, who will become President-elect Donald Trump's chief strategist in the new administration, is embracing the "darkness" many see in his promotion and Trump's operation.
“Darkness is good,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when they get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing.”
Many Democrats have been calling for Trump to boot Bannon, pointing to his connection to Breitbart News, which he once called the "platform for the alt-right."
"I’m not a white nationalist, I’m a nationalist," Bannon said. "I’m an economic nationalist."
In the interview, Bannon emphasized that his ideology runs counter to those of both parties, which he believes have sold out the country and effectively "created a middle class in Asia."
“It’s everything related to jobs," he said. "The conservatives are going to go crazy. I’m the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it’s the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up.
"We’re just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution — conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement.”