Steve Bannon is learning from the Women’s March.
Bannon’s growing fascination with ascendant women’s causes has spilled into the press in recent weeks, confounding some observers. Now it seems the former White House strategist’s interest in these new movements stems from a larger interest in building a movement of his own.
In a new interview with GQ, Bannon simultaneously expressed admiration for and concern with Time’s Up, the nonprofit founded to combat Hollywood’s #MeToo problem. Though he insisted he respects the group, Bannon also worried its goals are “going against 10,000 years of recorded history.”
This past year has given rise to three high-profile groups and movements purportedly aimed at advancing the interests of women: the Women’s March, #MeToo, and Time’s Up, all of which Bannon referenced in the GQ interview.
Bannon correctly observed that Time’s Up is “coming from the left”: Its ranks are dominated by Hollywood’s liberal elite, far from the leaders of a populist uprising, and its message far more of a left-wing omnibus rather than a simple rejection of sexual harassment. Toward the end, he opened up about his plans to launch a new organization in the spring or summer, which he described as either a foundation or 501(c)(4). “It’s going to be focused on the promulgation of ideas, the weaponizing of ideas and building and binding together through affiliate groups,” he disclosed.
But for what purpose? “Something to counter this,” Bannon said, pointing to a New York Times article describing the recent Women’s March in Manhattan as “a movement’s vast cadre of foot soldiers.”
What an organization built off that framework would actually look like is hard to imagine, though it seems Bannon is intent on building a movement that undermines elite efforts to dramatically restructure society. His interest in Time’s Up and the Women’s March is another indication Bannon is looking to repurpose the methods of the Left to advance a conservative, populist, or Trumpist cause.
“The most powerful thing to this [women’s] movement is not Oprah Winfrey,” Bannon told GQ. “The most powerful thing is a million people [in the streets] on a Saturday. That’s power.”
