WASHINGTON, D.C. Feb 27 (DPI) –  In something of a departure for big media, The New York Times this weekend gave space to a sober, nuanced, wait-and-see analysis of Trump’s political guru, Stephen K. Bannon. But nearly 1,000 readers who commented on the essay, penned by an editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, almost universally condemned the presidential adviser, whom they called “ruthless,” “radical” and  “Rasputin.”

Bannon of course has brought a revolutionary temper to The White House, pledging to dismantle big government – what he calls the  “administrative state” – and to put the US on a perpetual war footing with Islam. All of Trump’s initiatives – an immigration ban from Muslim countries, budget cuts on everything except the military – all appear to be the design of Bannon, a 63-year-old former financier and Breitbart.com editor who took to politics after 9/11.

Bannon has been vilified for months now as a racist, a fascist and a white nationalist by much of the media and pundits, including The Times. But this recent column by Christopher Caldwell suggests that Bannon is not quite the reactionary cartoon figure portrayed by so many news outlets today. Rather, Caldwell writes, Bannon is a “newcomer to political power” who identifies with so-called historical cycles and who believes in a Judeo-Christian cultural basis for the nation. For the most part readers scoffed at those characterizations, with many asserting “We are past all that.”

Caldwell writes that ultimately “we’ll see how it works out” – both for Bannon and Trump, as well as for the nation. But Caldwell suggests Bannon is a lot more complicated than he is portrayed.

There are plenty of reasons for concern about Mr. Bannon, but they have less to do with where he stands on the issues than with who he is as a person. He is a newcomer to political power and, in fact, relatively new to an interest in politics. He is willing to break with authority. While he does not embrace any of the discredited ideologies of the last century, he is attached to a theory of history’s cycles that is, to put it politely, untested.

The most popular reader comments, though, suggest that Caldwell wrote a “whitewash” of Bannon, and that Bannon is a dangerous threat to the nation:

Here is my issue with Bannon: Nobody elected him.  When Trump moves his lips, I hear Bannon talking. All Trump cares about is being adored by his base. His recent life is a story of massive insecurity and a desire to be liked–by women, TV audiences, reporters (at least until he got to DC) and the like. My impression is that Bannon, while wrong about many things, is super intelligent and, of most importance, is smart enough to manipulate Trump to do and say what he wants him to. It’s not that Trump is unintelligent; it’s that his constant need for attention and adoration, and his resultant aversion to any kind of criticism, makes him easy fodder for the likes of Bannon. And, unfortunately, also for a master manipulator like Putin.

According to Caldwell, Bannon believes that “[a] class of regulators in the government has robbed Americans of their democratic prerogatives. That class now constitutes an ‘administrative state’ that operates to empower itself and enrich its crony-capitalist allies. . . . [H]e is an intellectual in politics excited by grand theories . . .”
So we have crony-capitalism (that somehow excludes Trump and all his CEOs and billionaires), and grand theories (which although “naive and unrealistic” are supposedly products of a brilliant intellectual mind). Oh, and by the way he believes in Judeo-Christianity, whatever that means to him.
Instead, I would offer that we have an example of “a little knowledge is dangerous,” where his grand theories about history are meaningless short-cuts to actually studying history and appreciating its complexities (and why not pick other grand theories – Kondratieff waves of expansion, stagnation, and recession, the business cycle, the myth of eternal return, Buddhist kalpas leading to an end of Dharma and salvation for the chosen ones, etc.?). I see the arrogance, not the brilliance in this. Sure, he is glib, just like Cruz and other clever moral cretins. And Judeo-Christian? What does this mean to him? The rules, morality, compassion, justice, faith, and divergent beliefs of its many followers over the years? Or its institutions and actions — the suffering of Job, the Spanish Inquisition, imperial conquest? What is going on here?

I have had the very good fortune in my life of studying and working with truly brilliant people who spent their lives studying, thinking, and developing knowledge. And, as a result, I am getting really tired of hearing Steve Bannon referred to as a brilliant intellectual. Why? Because he understands that there are cycles in history? Please, a student with an excellent high school education in history understands that, too. Perhaps, because he looks at a very complex world and decides that the way to prevent another 9/11 is to ban people from seven countries from entering the United States? There are other examples, but these suffice as examples of ideas that are neither brilliant nor the result of any kind of rational systematic thinking of his own. As well, brilliant thinkers and intellectuals are rarely interested in destroying things, they are interested in learning and building things based on that knowledge.

Thank you, Mr. Caldwell. Bannon definitely needed your thorough White-washing.