NYT Report: Bannon Colleague Says He Spoke About Genetic Superiority and Suggested Banning Some Blacks From Voting

‘Mused About the Desirability of Limiting the Vote to Property Owners’

A former colleague of Steve Bannon says the former Breitbart publisher who has been named as Donald Trump’s Chief White House Strategist would talk about the genetic superiority of some people and even suggested that if might not be bad if some African Americans were banned from voting, according to a report in The New York Times.

Jones worked with Bannon on a 2004 Ronald Reagan documentary, “In the Face of Evil,” when they were both Hollywood screenwriters. The Times reports Jones “said that in their years working together, Mr. Bannon occasionally talked about the genetic superiority of some people and once mused about the desirability of limiting the vote to property owners.”

“I said, ‘That would exclude a lot of African-Americans,’” Ms. Jones recalled. “He said, ‘Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.’ I said, ‘But what about Wendy?’” referring to Mr. Bannon’s executive assistant. “He said, ‘She’s different. She’s family.’”

It should be noted that African Americans have been systematically prohibited from voting, and from acquiring and handing down property in America, including by now-outlawed yet allegedly still followed practices of “redlining.”

New York Daily News’ Shaun King, in response to the Times article, writes, “I don’t know how many different ways the bigotry of Donald Trump’s Chief Strategist, Stephen Bannon, needs to be described in order for him to be disqualified for his insider position in the White House.”

His ex-wife said he openly and repeatedly made anti-Semitic statements about Jews.

His hero, Andrew Breitbart, boldly compared him to a Nazi propagandist as a compliment.

Bannon himself recently admitted that he built Breitbart into “the platform for the alt-right,” which is little more than Neo-Nazism with a new name.

Some have called Bannon a white nationalist, a charge he denies, preferring to be called an “economic nationalist,” perhaps because it sounds nicer. Bannon told The Wall Street Journal, “I’ve never been a supporter of ethno-nationalism.”

And yet, he’s the one who bragged about turning Breitbart into a home for white nationalists and white supremacists, who also prefer to be called by a different name.

MSNBC’s Joy Reid offered this response to the Times‘ revelation:

 

Image by Don Irvine via Flickr and a CC license