Patterico's Pontifications

11/21/2016

Howard Dean: Steve Bannon Is A “Nazi”

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:00 pm



Ridiculous. This is the quintessence of the freakout from leftists and Big Media (but I repeat myself) over the election of Trump.

Howard Dean, who is in the running to become the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee, called Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman and current senior strategic adviser, Stephen Bannon, a “Nazi.”

Speaking of Trump in an interview with a CBS affiliate in Texas, Dean called the president-elect a “complicated guy.”

“He appoints a reasonable person, who’s much more conservative than I am, but for somebody who can talk to, as chief of staff, and then his senior adviser is a Nazi,” Dean said, referring to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Bannon, respectively.

“[Bannon is] anti-Semitic; he’s anti-black; and he’s anti-women,” Dean said.

Oh, Good Lord. Howard Dean is going to make me defend Steve Bannon, isn’t he?

Yes, he is.

Look. I am no fan of Steve Bannon. I don’t like the way he treats people. I don’t like his promotion of a trillion-dollar infrastructure program. And I don’t like the fact that he has (by his own admission/boast) used Breitbart.com to promote the alt-right, a movement that is deeply infected by collectivism on the part of whites . . . to put it kindly.

But let’s get real. While Bannon seems to be an exceedingly mercurial, autocratic, and unpleasant individual, I know of no evidence that he is personally a racist or an anti-Semite. In addition, much of Big Media criticism of Breitbart.com as a racist, sexist, homophobic site that promotes birtherism and the notion of Obama as a foreign-born Muslim is lazy, inaccurate, and exaggerated. One might even call it “fake news.” Breitbart.com is far more likely to accuse Hillary Clinton of promoting birtherism than it is to promote birtherism itself.

Now we’re getting to the point where Howard Dean calls Bannon a “Nazi”? Absurd and irresponsible. Dean owes Bannon an apology.

Remember how Bill Maher said he had cried wolf about Republicans before Trump? Dean is doing the same with Bannon. There are actual Nazis and Neo-Nazis who support Trump (though, as streiff noted, the number is vanishingly small). If, as I consider very unlikely, Trump were to actually bring one of those people into his administration, what rhetorical arrows would remain in Howard Dean’s quiver?

The Nazi phenomenon was a real phenomenon, and a very scary one. A populace of largely educated people, with one of the greatest cultural backgrounds in the world, came under the sway of a madman. I have argued many times that we would be fools not to be on guard for the possibility that it could happen again. And the actual Nazis didn’t come out and say in their speeches in the early 1930s: we are going to round up all the Jews, put them in concentration camps, and slaughter them by the millions. The signs were there, but they weren’t as explicit as people seem to assume these days. So, while it’s easy to say any given emerging figure is not Hitler, neither was Hitler. Until he was. And then it was too late.

But leftists have been crying wolf for decades now. Literally every major Republican figure who comes along is deemed the second coming of Hitler by the radical left. And my fear is, if we ever get a figure that absolutely does resemble Hitler, the left’s lazy accusations will have numbed other Americans to the accusation so much . . . we may not recognize the threat at that point.

Howard Dean’s hysterical scream was the end of his presidential aspirations, back in the day. This nonsense ought to be the end of his DNC aspirations today.

But I suspect it’s not, and I’m guessing he knows that. Screaming NAZI! these days is all the rage among crazed leftists.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

53 Responses to “Howard Dean: Steve Bannon Is A “Nazi””

  1. Yet it wasnt in fact it was his entree to run the Dnc just like markoos expanded after his remarks about contractors. Dean’s top aide tripping took over part of the gitmo detainee lobbying gig from levick

    narciso (d1f714)

  2. So, the dems have their choice of leader between Stalin and khadaffi. Is that between a rock and a hard place?

    jim (a9b7c7)

  3. Kang or kudos, pick one.

    narciso (d1f714)

  4. Yeargh is in the fine tradition if Ted Kennedy’s Jeremiah against bork, however its like that revenant mao vs red queen, Ellison is the more toxic

    narciso (d1f714)

  5. Is “Bannon” a German name? I don’t know why he’d be interested in German National Socialism. Not much in it for many Americans.

    US national socialism is the Bernie/Warren wing of the Party of Slavery. Whereas Obama and his minions are more like global socialists, perhaps Trotskyites.

    Jcurtis (c19dd4)

  6. July 18, 1925
    Mein Kampf is published in Germany. Nearly 10,000 copies were published and purchased that year. So plenty of Germans knew what Hitler wanted to do early on.
    Maybe they thought he didn’t mean the “extreme stuff” he said. We’ll never know.
    But they were told what he planned to do.

    Charlie Roy (b9eabb)

  7. #6 That was what, 6-7 years of crippling sanctions after WWI?
    Not that the Germans hadn’t earned a slap, but they chafed, and Mein Kampf gave them hope there was a way up and out… with all the bogeymen Jews, Gypsies eliminated

    It was a different time and age, but looking back, there is no way Germany, a mere 20 years from defeat, should have been allowed to rebuild their war machine.

    I believe we will see another world war before our “Hitler” could emerge.
    Unless Trump pulls a rabbit out of the comb over, China moves east and south, Iran moves west and south, while Russia moves to Europe, but holds Syria. The US cannot fight a three front war.
    Notice that I think everyone but the US gives a rats ass about the Iraqis or the Afghans

    steveg (5508fb)

  8. Howard Dean has difficulty characterizing Muslim terrorists as Muslim terrorists.
    But everyone’s a Nazi in his book! (LOL)

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  9. A week ago I’d have never suspected a Broadway troop could get me rooting for Aaron Burr.

    Original “got milk?” commercial – Who shot Alexander Hamilton? [on der YouTubin]

    papertiger (c8116c)

  10. Dean is like Cruz; desperate to remain relevant as the parade passes them by.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  11. KKK, Nazi, alt-right – what’s the difference? They’re just smears designed to foreclose debate and dismiss legitimate opposing arguments.

    Reagan was called a Klansman by Democrats; if there had been an internet, they would have called him alt-right.

    ThOR (c9324e)

  12. My favorite Hitler quote:

    “I have studied with great interest the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock.”

    ThOR (c9324e)

  13. Howard Dean, who wants to head up the Democratic National Committee, is playing to the lowest element of the party because he understands that’s how you have to do it to win with that awful organization. Especially since he’s running against the Muslim Brotherhood. Dean knows that if he doesn’t get the DNC head then as a older white male who has no elective office he is effectively done as having any influence in the party. Lord help me for rooting for Ellison, but good riddance to bad trash like Howard Dean.

    JVW (6e49ce)

  14. Ron Coleman raises a query. What a difference three weeks make

    narciso (d1f714)

  15. All the Middle East powers were strongly and directly influenced by the Nazis.

    The Jews were influenced by the Nazis murdering and torturing them.

    The other powers in that part of the world were influenced by the Nazis training them in ways to carry out the “Final Solution”.

    The Democrats are now and have always been more closely aligned to Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Islamic terrorists than the Republicans now or ever. Only the degree of alignment varies. Which party is more closely aligned never varies.

    John Hitchcock (b917c9)

  16. To be a “Nazi”, you have to be more than just an anti-Semite AND a racist, you have to advocate a totalitarian state bent on killing all the undesirable elements that “poison the society.”

    This would be a pretty easy libel case, I think.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  17. Nazi = National Socialist Workers Party, which puts it firmly in Howard Dean’s own bailywic. Birds of a feather…what he professes to hate is what he has become.

    ropelight (efd631)

  18. I believe Ace said it, but really it’s hard to give him too much credit as it’s just a variation on the warning against crying wolf.

    When when everyone’s a Nazi, no one is a Nazi.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  19. Howard Dean should be pulled like a rotten tooth.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  20. A week ago I’d have never suspected a Broadway troop could get me rooting for Aaron Burr.

    You get your history from minstrel shows? Say it ain’t so.

    Or is it because Hamilton was an immigrant? From Jamaica!

    nk (dbc370)

  21. If Donald Trump is true to his sometimes word I’ll be the first in line to say I was wrong.

    With his suggested appoinents it’s starting to look I was wrong.

    Peep’s, listen up. I could have an “I love me” wall. Lord knows I have the certificates and pictures from my naval service and it’s all boxed up. But I ‘d rather fly the flag of my great-uncle, a Marine, WWI. That’s what you’ll see in my living room; his certificate of service.

    All I care about is the same thing my family cared about since they got off the boat. To have a country.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  22. So now you can be attacked as an anti-Semite, even a Nazi, for hiring David Horowitz. And you can be attacked as a homophobe for hiring Milo Yiannopoulos. The denial and anger stages of grief have made some of Trump’s detractors insane.

    David Pittelli (0a4463)

  23. All I care about is the same thing my family cared about since they got off the boat. To have a country.

    That’s my greatest earthly desire also, Steve57. How many leftists do you know who feel the same?

    Rev. Hoagie® (785e38)

  24. Howard Dean didn’t originate the idea, and that’s not a reason to hope he loses to Keith Ellision.

    On another thread:

    The New York Times has an article that evokes a specter of people giving Nazi salutes to Richard Spencer.

    The CBS Evening News had a story about Richard Spencer too. In fact two stories, on different nights. He must have a good PR person, or somebody’s doing it for him.

    Here’s the pro-Hillary spin on the first one, last Thursday, which also quotes the story:

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/11/17/cbs-evening-news-provides-platform-white-nationalist-spin-without-pressing-him-racist-views/214535

    Here’s the follow-up story last night:

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/some-alt-right-leaders-say-donald-trump-victory-has-given-them-big-boost/

    “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory,” was heard over the weekend at a meeting in Washington, D.C.

    A meeting of the National Policy Institute – an alt-right think tank – drew hundreds to the Ronald Reagan pavilion in Washington.

    Since 2008, the alt- or alternative-right movement lived mostly on obscure message boards online. It gained more attention after Donald Trump hired Steve Bannon to run his presidential campaign in August.

    Bannon’s Breitbart website is, among other things, seen as the largest platform for the alt-right message — with more than 300 million views in the last month.

    “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory,” was heard over the weekend at a meeting in Washington, D.C.

    A meeting of the National Policy Institute – an alt-right think tank – drew hundreds to the Ronald Reagan pavilion in Washington.

    Since 2008, the alt- or alternative-right movement lived mostly on obscure message boards online. It gained more attention after Donald Trump hired Steve Bannon to run his presidential campaign in August.

    Bannon’s Breitbart website is, among other things, seen as the largest platform for the alt-right message — with more than 300 million views in the last month.

    Thirty-eight-year old Richard Spencer, who is president of the National Policy Institute, said he is enthusiastic about Bannon acting as the strategist for President-elect Donald Trump.

    “Because Breitbart has been an open place for a lot of ideas that I care about,” he said.

    Bannon denies being alt-right…

    Now that business of Hail Trump has got to be on purpose. And it can’t because anyone thought it would help their cause or National Policy Institute.

    The whole organization has to be bought and paid for.

    Maybe by Democratic donors, maybe by Vladimir Putin’s intelligence agency.

    Sammy Finkelman (07e67b)

  25. And mil is a gay Jewish Greek brit

    narciso (d1f714)

  26. 24. Or its a variation of the Jew.S.A business at that late Trump rally. I don’t think NPI whole hog would take money from obscure sources, but yes they could be susceptible to smaller groups of trolls and provocateurs.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  27. 19. Why waste the effort, a cousin of mine just had one drop from his gums while asleep.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  28. The tweet was three weeks Ago, we were focused on kgb, now nazis

    narciso (d1f714)

  29. Is Hamilton in wide adaptation for the HS drama clubs yet? I would think those casts would be blanched but yet a young Eminem is tearing it up. I’m waiting for when the muskets have actual grapeshot or are Garands.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  30. Well they dropped the muskets recently.

    narciso (d1f714)

  31. #29 urbanleftbehind, in order for high school drama classes to put on a commercial public performance of Hamilton, they would have to receive licensing from the publisher. I imagine the licensing will not be extended until after the initial Broadway run is over.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  32. One recalls that the left tried to Kevin bacon, heritages richwine by tying him to Spencer’s outfit.

    The fact that ellison visited Mecca in 2008 thanks to an ikwan sponsor is not of interest.

    narciso (d1f714)

  33. They’ll have to buy the copyrighted scripts and music for every performer (no xeroxing) but strictly not-for-profit (all the way down the line, nobody gets paid) performances by educational, religious and charitable organizations are exempt.

    nk (dbc370)

  34. I care about having a homeland. A country is an abstraction, as US elections have made perfectly clear for decades.

    Leviticus (dc2306)

  35. The fact that they call him a Nazi reveals the true despicable nature of their campaign. If anything, Breitbart is accused of being too pro-Israel! So it’s like they picked out the most ridiculous accusation and hurled it at him. The mob followed.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  36. Seen on Facebook: “The last time Hamilton had a duel with a Vice President, he lost that one too.”

    Wish I had said that.

    I know who Hamilton and Burr are nk.

    It just the topic gives Pat a head ache, so….

    papertiger (c8116c)

  37. The first question is not really who is giving NPI money – that could be disguised – but are they taking money from some source to do stuff that serves other people’s purposes? What they did with Hail Trump is so irrational, it almost has to be paid for.

    Then it becomes interesting who.

    Sammy Finkelman (643dcd)

  38. There’s more in the New York Times (and also in Bret Stephens column in the Wall Street Journal) today:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/world/americas/white-nationalism-explained.html

    Mr. Trump’s appointment of Mr. Bannon as his senior counselor and chief West Wing strategist has, more than anything, brought white nationalism to the forefront of conversation. He is the former editor of Breitbart News, a site he described in August to Mother Jones as “the platform of the alt-right.” Although the alt-right is ideologically broader than white nationalism — it also includes neoreactionaries, monarchists, and meme-loving internet trolls — white nationalism makes up a significant part of its appeal.

    For instance, Richard B. Spencer, who runs the website AlternativeRight.com, is also the director of the National Policy Institute, an organization that says it is devoted to protecting the “heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world.”

    Mr. Spencer argues that immigration and multiculturalism are threats to America’s white population, and has said his ideal is a white “ethno-state.” He has avoided discussing the details of how this might be achieved, saying it is still just a “dream,” but has called for “peaceful ethnic cleansing” to remove nonwhite people from American soil.

    Mr. Bannon, the Trump adviser, told The New York Times upon his appointment that he does not share those ethno-nationalist views. But under his leadership, Breitbart News has gone to considerable lengths to cater to an audience that does. And in a 2015 radio interview that was resurfaced this week by The Washington Post, Mr. Bannon opposed even highly skilled immigration, implying he believed it was a threat to American culture.

    “When two-thirds or three-quarters of the C.E.O.s in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think …,” he said, trailing off midsentence before continuing a moment later, “a country is more than an economy. We’re a civic society.”

    White nationalists, including Mr. Spencer, have rejoiced at Mr. Bannon’s appointment to such a senior position in the Trump White House. But focusing on high-profile figures like Mr. Bannon may obscure the more significant way that white nationalist ideas are affecting politics — and fueling the rise of politicians like Mr. Trump in the United States as well as anti-immigrant populist movements in Britain and continental Europe.

    Several studies of other countries have found that a desire to protect traditional values and culture is the strongest predictor of support for the sort of populism that propelled Mr. Trump to power in the United States.

    Many of those voters would not think of themselves as white nationalists, and the cultural values and traditions they seek to protect are not necessarily explicitly racial. However, those traditions formed when national identity and culture were essentially synonymous with whiteness…

    Sammy Finkelman (07e67b)

  39. Actually I think this all comes from a position favoring immigration restriction, whixh someoneis paying for, and all the rest of it follows.

    Sammy Finkelman (e1ddc6)

  40. Numbers USA.

    Sammy Finkelman (e1ddc6)

  41. To be a “Nazi”, you have to be more than just an anti-Semite AND a racist, you have to advocate a totalitarian state bent on killing all the undesirable elements that “poison the society.”

    This would be a pretty easy libel case, I think.

    Actually not. Such a case would be dismissed instantly, because it’s obviously not meant to be taken literally. By calling Bannon a Nazi, Dean obviously means the reader to understand that he’s just as bad as a Nazi, which is a statement of opinion rather than fact, and therefore absolutely protected.

    As Patterico points out, this degrading of the “Nazi” epithet leaves us with nothing to use when and if an actual Nazi does rear his head up. If we call him what he is, people will automatically assume we don’t mean it.

    This is not a new problem. Already by 1944 the term “facism” had, through inaccurate overuse, become “almost entirely meaningless”. Things have only got worse since then.

    Milhouse (40ca7b)

  42. So now you can be attacked as an anti-Semite, even a Nazi, for hiring David Horowitz. And you can be attacked as a homophobe for hiring Milo Yiannopoulos. The denial and anger stages of grief have made some of Trump’s detractors insane.

    Yes, exactly. The sheer insanity of this particular line of attack on Bannon has had the ironic effect of forcing Bannon’s most severe but honest critics to defend him. Even Alan Dershowitz defended Bannon, in the same breath as he defended Ellison.

    Milhouse (40ca7b)

  43. Dean is like Cruz; desperate to remain relevant as the parade passes them by.

    DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/21/2016 @ 9:59 pm

    When was the last time Cruz called anyone a Nazi, an anti-Semite, or was anti black or anti woman? Perhaps I missed that bit. Any cite will do. Thanks in advance.

    Bill H (971e5f)

  44. I care about having a homeland. A country is an abstraction, as US elections have made perfectly clear for decades.
    Leviticus (dc2306) — 11/22/2016 @ 7:59 am

    I have no idea what you mean by this.

    My family had a homeland. They left it. Good riddance. They left to get a country.

    “This is to certify that …. enlisted the day of 19… in the United States Service and was assigned to…”

    The pencil writing is fading. Soon you won’t be able to see it at all. But I know who he was, and that’s what counts. You know what else counts? Hillary Clinton will not be President. Ever.

    Feel free to call me every name you can think of. I don’t think particularly good of my own self right now. But when it came down to it I had to keep the faith.

    http://www.ussnautilus.org/undersea/cromwell.html

    For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as Commander of a Submarine Coordinated Attack Group with Flag in the USS Sculpin, during the 9th War Patrol of that vessel in enemy-controlled waters off Truk Island, 19 November 1943. Undertaking this patrol prior to the launching of our first large-scale offensive in the Pacific, CAPT Cromwell, alone of the entire Task Group, possessed secret intelligence information of our submarine strategy and tactics, scheduled Fleet movements and specific attack plans. Constantly vigilant and precise in carrying out his secret orders, he moved his underseas flotilla inexorably forward despite savage opposition and established a line of submarines to southeastward of the main Japanese stronghold at Truk. Cool and undaunted as the submarine, rocked and battered by Japanese depth charges, sustained terrific battle damage and sank to an excessive depth, he authorized the Sculpin to surface and engage the enemy in a gunfight, thereby providing an opportunity for the crew to abandon ship. Determined to sacrifice himself rather than risk capture and subsequent danger of revealing plans under Japanese torture or use of drugs, he stoically remained aboard the mortally wounded vessel as she plunged to her death. Preserving the security of his mission, at the cost of his own life, he had served his country as he had served the Navy, with deep integrity and an uncompromising devotion to duty. His great moral courage in the face of certain death adds new luster to the traditions of the US Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

    Life so totally sucks.

    Then you die.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  45. I got to vote in a s**k @$$ election. You know what happened the next day? The sun came up.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  46. Man of mystery is confused, shocker, a homeland is real the ideas it may represent are abstract.

    narciso (d1f714)

  47. The Remington M700 and the Ford Crown Vic Police Interceptor are real.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  48. One recalls that the left tried to Kevin bacon, heritages richwine by tying him to Spencer’s outfit.

    You need to turn your spellfixer off, or drink less.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  49. I went through a period when I would only buy variants of Czech Mausers. If I was going to buy a bolt action rifle.

    Then it occurred to me. What am I, nucking futz?

    http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/02/16/remington-arms-moving-2000-jobs-ny-alabama

    Ever since my first 870 I have always loved Remington.

    Steve57 (0b1dac)

  50. Will Alabama start getting mad when the factories start going back North?

    urbanleftbehind (6c1033)

  51. Milhouse (40ca7b) — 11/22/2016 @ 10:52 am

    Already by 1944 the term “facism” had, through inaccurate overuse, become “almost entirely meaningless”. Things have only got worse since then.

    The fact that people had all kinds of different definitions of fascism is discssed in Stuart Chase’s 1938 “The Tyranny of Words” which I first read around 1970.

    Buut actuakky this should be no problem. Fascism was the ideology of Mussolini, who ruld italy. The word “fascism” was misued, especially bt the Communists or people following the Communists, to mean other dictatrships, and tgat was the word they used too descrbe Nazis Germany.

    Actually, though, apart from Mussolini’s Italy, the word fascism does have a meaning.

    Fascism is justifying a one-man dictatorship, in principle, and not based on any notion of the legitimacy of the ruler, like maybe his father was the king. Just in principle, autocracy. Under the theory of fascism, it almost didn’t matter who it was, and there was no claim that any particular person was particularly well-suited to be the dictator. His authority actually rested on nothing, except maybe a claim of popularity.

    It had the same name in Italy and Germany. In Italy the leader was called Il Duce and in Germany you know.

    Stalin’s Russia didn’t have that because Stalin was supposed to be the wisest of men or something. He was the boss, the Vozhd, but there was no principle that there was supposed to be a boss. In fact there was actually a claim that he wasn’t and taht everything was being done by the choice of the people.

    Sammy Finkelman (c95a5a)

  52. Sorry tie him by association to Spencer, and hence discredit his stance on welfare reform.

    narciso (d1f714)


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