Fw: Bannon the European: He's opening the populist fort in Brussels
[{"sender": "Benjamin Harnwell", "recipients": ["Steve Bannon"], "timestamp": "Sun, 22 Jul 2018 22:01:54 +0200", "subject": "Re:", "body": "What does this say???\n\nBegin forwarded message:\nFrom: Maria Luisa <>\nDate: July 22, 2018 at 9:11:58 AM EDT\nTo: Steve Bannon <>, Preate Alexandra <>\n<PHOTO-2018-07-22-10-02-17.jpg>"}, {"sender": "Steve Bannon", "recipients": ["jeffrey E. [jeevacation@gmail.com]"], "timestamp": "7/22/2018 11:27:26 PM", "subject": "Fw:", "body": "Bannon the European: He's opening the populist fort in Brussels\nThe former Trump strategist arrives in Europe with \"The Movement\". Objective: an alliance between\nright-wing leaders, from Salvini to Orban in view of the 2019 elections\nNEW YORK. The invasion of Europe has begun. Steve Bannon, 65, the American far-right guru who was\nDonald Trump's right-hand man in the White House — but let go last summer following the racist\nviolence in Charlottesville — is preparing to march on Brussels. Launching, he told the Daily Beast\nhimself, a new non-profit foundation called The Movement, (II Movimento), right in the heart of Europe\nand its institutions. Through which he hopes to coordinate the populist right in view of the European\nelections which will be held in spring 2019.\nObjective: to compete with George Soros, the American billionaire of Hungarian origin, benefactor of the\nDemocratic party, who since 1984 with his Open Society has spent at least $32 billion in support of\nNGOs dealing with human rights. And for this he became the bogeyman of the populist right, accused of\nplots of all kinds: including that of wanting to replace Italians with immigrants in order to have labour at\nlow cost. A mantra repeated in the past on Twitter also by the current Minister of the Interior Matteo\nSalvini.\nThe ambition of Steve Bannon, former director of the alt-right American site Breitbart — which in the\nEuropean campaign preceded him since the platform had already opened bureaux in London and Rome\n— is therefore to become the coordinator of the one great \"populist international\" of which he has long\nsince been dreaming.\nThe Movement, in fact, intends to function as an extreme right-wing think tank: a source of strategic\nadvice to channel the not-so-politically structured discontent of the most extreme European movements.\nAnalysing data and giving strategic advice. But also by raising funds and channeling funding.\nThe aim is to create a populist alliance, a sort of \"super group\" that if victorious can conquer up to a third\nof the European Parliament in the elections next May.\nIndeed — putting the common policy of the Old Continent in the hands of Bannon and his own. The\nAmerican strategist is very attached to the Freedom Caucus — the extreme right of the US Congress —\nand in 2014 he was at the top of the Cambridge Analytica company, which in 2016 used data stolen from\nFacebook to try to influence the presidential election from which Donald Trump emerged victor. It is not\na mystery that for a long time he courts nationalists of the right from East to West. And he has already\nmet, among others, the Hungarian Orban, the French Marine Le Pen and the former leader of the British\nseparatists Nigel Farage. The latter reappeared, coincidentally, on Friday in Pennsylvania, USA, to a\nfundraiser in favor of the Republican congressman Lou Barletta. Without forgetting the Italians of Lega\nand 5 stars. Of them, he said: \"If it works in Italy, we can import the model anywhere\".\nThe Movement, which for now will count on a staff of 10 people, will be fully operational in 2019. In\nshort, after the American midterm elections, where Bannon is fighting to influence the primaries\nsupporting candidates potentially able to undermine the prospects of Republican establishment. But in the\nfuture the former spin doctor says he wants to spend more and more time in Europe. Also because the\nrelationships with Trump have worsened after the revelations he made to Michael Wolff and published in\nthe scandal book \"Fire and Fury\". \"Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Paradise,\" Bannon says now\nparaphrasing the Satan of one of his favorite books, John Milton's Lost Paradise. Hell in this case would\nbe the dear old Europe and its democratic values. The \"army of darkness\" is already among us."}]