Alongside Guo, he has pushed for regime change in China (while mocking “neocons” who argue for the same elsewhere) and even co-founded a government-in-exile that awaits the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party. To Bannon, nothing is more of a compliment than being described as nearly unhinged in his obsession with China. “It’s one of the focal points of my life.”
I’ve been doing this for years,” he said in one episode.
He’s crowed in the podcast about being labeled a “Superhawk” in Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin’s book, Chaos Under Heaven, which covers the Trump administration’s China policy. “I don’t think in my experience I’ve found someone who is further right when it comes to being a China hawk than Bannon,” Justin Horowitz, a Media Matters for America researcher, told me.īannon loves having this reputation. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) fail to win his seal of approval even when arguing for similar policies toward Taiwan and other issues. Later in the piece, I mention how even relatively hawkish Republicans like Rep. As I wrote, “Bannon can take any subject-from George Floyd’s murder to Trump’s 2020 election loss-and turn it into a galaxy-brain plot, with China as the source of all ills.”Īs the mainstream discourse about China in the United States has turned more pessimistic and combative (due in no small part to China’s worsening authoritarianism), Bannon stands alone as a hawk among hawks. Such a positive reaction is a bit odd given that I described Bannon’s podcast, War Room, as a clearinghouse for conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, coronavirus vaccines, and China.
He also told Guo the story was the “best article ever written about me,” according to messages obtained by my colleague Dan Friedman, who wrote an extensive profile of Guo last week. On Gettr, the social media platform bankrolled by Bannon’s patron, Guo Wengui, he wrote, “Mother Jones Magazine assessment is WarRoom: Pandemic is the gathering place for anti-Communist, anti-CCP fighters - damn right!!!!” Subscribe to our print magazine.Ī weird thing happened in the hours after I published a story about Steve Bannon’s podcast and its relentless anti-China crusade.
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