I'm sure everyone is familiar with the concept of being judged by the company you keep.
That being so, what does it say about Trump to bring Stephen Bannon into the White House alongside Priebus as Chief of Staff?
Background material published in August:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/stephen-bannon-donald-trump-alt-right-breitbart-news
"By bringing on Stephen Bannon, Trump was signaling a wholehearted embrace of the "alt-right," a once-motley assemblage of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, ethno-nationalistic provocateurs who have coalesced behind Trump and curried the GOP nominee's favor on social media. In short, Trump has embraced the core readership of
Breitbart News.
"We're the platform for the alt-right," Bannon told me proudly when I interviewed him at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in July. Though disavowed by every other major conservative news outlet, the alt-right has been Bannon's target audience ever since he took over
Breitbart News from its late founder, Andrew Breitbart, four years ago. Under Bannon's leadership, the site has plunged into the fever swamps of conservatism, cheering white nationalist groups as an "eclectic mix of renegades," accusing President Barack Obama of importing "more hating Muslims," and waging an incessant war against the purveyors of "political correctness."
"Andrew Breitbart despised racism. Truly despised it," former
Breitbart editor-at-large Ben Shapiro
wrote last week on the
Daily Wire, a conservative website. "With Bannon embracing Trump, all that changed. Now
Breitbart has become the alt-right go-to website, with [technology editor Milo] Yiannopoulos pushing
white ethno-nationalism as a legitimate response to political correctness, and the comment section turning into a cesspool for white supremacist mememakers."
A Twitter analysis conducted by The Investigative Fund using Little Bird software found that these "elements" are more deeply connected to
Breitbart News than more traditional conservative outlets. While only 5 percent of key influencers using the supremacist hashtag #whitegenocide follow the
National Review, and 10 percent follow the
Daily Caller, 31 percent follow
Breitbart. The disparities are even starker for the anti-Muslim hashtag #counterjihad:
National Review, 26 percent; the
Daily Caller, 37 percent;
Breitbart News, 62 percent.