I recently found a key date that confirms my suspicions about Steve Bannon’s so-called Traditionalism. I’ve long suspected that Bannon isn’t a real traditionalist. To be clear, Bannon is not a real traditionalist in the same sense that Donald Trump was never a real candidate. Bannon piggy-backed on this conversation in the same way that Donald Trump piggy-backed on Bernie’s campaign. We know Trump had no constituents when he started. He had to hire actors to attend his first rallies. Steve Bannon is a pretend Traditionalist. He’s just trying to give depth and meaning to his audacious power-grab.
Teitelbaum’s Book Probably Gives Bannon Too Much Credit
In his book about Steve Bannon and the populist right, The Return of Traditionalism and the Rise of the Populist Right, 1 Benjamin R. Teitelbaum says he first became aware of Bannon’s Traditionalism in 2016. On the one hand, he gives Bannon too much credit as a traditionalist. But I’m comparing Bannon’s version to the Traditionalism of the early twentieth century. It’s always had authoritarian tendencies, but it used to have a coherent worldview. He’s right as far as he goes–as an ideology it has shed its coherent worldview and lost much of its luster. All that’s left is its claim to authority.
Amid startling political gains for nationalist, anti-immigrant forces in the twenty-first century, Traditionalists on the right appeared to be carrying on with a fantasy role-playing game-like Dungeons & Dragons for racists…It was the sort of thing that “serious,” practical-minded activists on the radical right fled from as they charged toward burgeoning political opportunities and the chance to brand themselves as viable leaders.
Teitelbaum goes on to describe his surprise that ‘an individual with such remarkable power and influence’ (Steve Bannon) had been recorded name-dropping Traditionalism’s key figures (like Rene Guenon). He couldn’t believe someone like Bannon would even know about Traditionalism.
What is Bannon Really Up To?
Teitelbaum was right the first time. Steve Bannon fits his definition of a typical Traditionalist on the right. However, Bannon represents its modern guise. He has no ideas of his own so he uses Traditionalism as a cloak. He’s really a hyperactive trickster whose first impulse in 2016 was to steal the show.
At the Least, Traditionalism Deserves to Be Correctly Represented as a Historical Phenomenon
I’ve been talking about Rene Guenon since 2015. I wrote What Does Theology Have to do with Life? in March of 2015. I wrote Transgender Rights, Same-Sex Marriage and Women in November of 2015. I wrote Can We Talk About Patriarchy? in May of 2016.
We would do well to ignore the piggy-backers and freeloaders on the conversation.