April 2017 4 3
O
NE OF my favourite alt-right memes is deliciously simple.
It features a badly-drawn obese American on a mobility
scooter. A hamburger is dangled before his eyes. The dan-
gler is not Trump, but his chief strategist Steve Bannon,
himself being led by a dangled headshot of Trump held
ahoist by white supremacist Richard Spencer. This Russian doll
parade extends ever further backwards into increasingly obscure
layers of the alt-right, from Adult Swim prankster Sam Hyde to the
creator of the neo-reactionary movement, Mencius Moldbug.
What I like about this meme is Trump’s insignificance. He provides
excellent spectacle, but effectively he performs a function, he’s a
means to other people’s ends. Trump is a conduit for two distinct,
but not mutually exclusive, projects: Steve Bannon’s meta-historical
‘Fourth Turning’ and the tech-revivalism of PayPal founder Peter
Thiel. Both projects hinge on a worldview informed by the stagna-
tion of current political conditions and both require a fundamental
re-set of the political order. Both intend, as Trump promised through-
out his campaign, to “drain the swamp” and build condos on top of
it for themselves.
Stand too close to Bannon and Thiel and it is hard to imagine
what unites them. Take a few steps back and the alliance is emi-
nently sensible. They are two highly ambitious libertarians who
owe much to the silent libertarian coup that occurred a little before
Trump’s elevation. This article connects the rise of the alt-right to
Bannon’s philosophy of history. In a second article next month, I
will show the allure of neoreactionary politics for everyone from
cryptocurrency enthusiasts to the controversial philosopher of
accelerationism, Nick Land.
Steve Bannons worldview
by Paul Eliot-Ennis
Trump is a conduit for
two projects: Steve
Bannons meta-
historical ‘Fourth
Turning’ and the tech-
revivalism of PayPal
founder Peter Thiel
The Furthest
Exit: Bannons
Long-Game
A
ARTICLE