I dare Steve Bannon to take me on as a progressive columnist at Breitbart News.

Bob Jacobson
Aug 23, 2017 · 6 min read

I have a lingering affection for Breitbart News, the mostly online “news network” and propaganda organ founded by the late iconoclast Andrew Breitbart and given necessary life and direction by Steve Bannon, late of the White House. Whenever I tire of the repetitiveness of news provided by the establishment press — by turns, too serious or too jokey — then aped by ingenue online publishers, I turn to Breitbart.com for a very different point of view. I immerse myself in the gestalt, especially Breitbart’s richly active Comments section. I do this for entertainment, but also for insights. As a committed progressive and an occasional political operative, I’m amused by what the other side’s thinking while open to those rare opportunities where our goals and missions — or at least opinions — might coincide. Golden.

A 15-20 minute immersion in the Breitbart Otherworld is a cheap pick-me-up. The Otherworld (my term) is a fantasy-propagating multiplayer, online, game — a kind of white “Dozens” — dressed in a mock sociocultural/political seriousness that Breitbart carefully fosters. Initially, it did so by giving voice to minor right-wing demagogues, including those on Fox News — then firebrands, now just a bunch of neo-conservative fuddy-duds — and Infowars, Alex Jones’ fantasy world. After Andrew Breitbart died in 2012 and Steve Bannon took over, Breitbart got soul: its job became stirring the economic-nationalist, neo-revolutionary pot, one of Bannon’s lifelong pursuits. Its audience grew, despite fierce, repeated internecine conflicts within its team.

But it wasn’t until 2016, when Breitbart became presidential candidate Donald Trump’s most ardent and reliable megaphone, that people began to take serious note. Breitbart was ballsy. And entertaining. And contributing to Trump’s popularity in a big way. Arguably, Breitbart’s audience was (and remains) Trump’s hoi-poloi “base.” Few traditional Republicans frequented the website, but speaking to conventional conservatives wasn’t its point. It’s point was to enlist stormtroopers for Trump’s blitzkrieg campaign to take the White House.

The routine worked out by Bannon was simple but effective: Breitbart to comment on a topic, Fox News to pick it up, Trump to watch it on TV and then tweet about it, and Breitbart pick up the tweet to incite the online mob, a circle-jerk wicked for its effectiveness at hyping non-news and the ideological tropes Bannon intended for Trump to implement as policy once Trump was in office. It was one of the principal contributors to Trump’s electoral successes. Hillary Clinton, who liked to play her cards close to her chest, had nothing like it to rally her side. Bernie Sanders did via a very active national network of activists. But Clinton’s hubris and her inability to link up with the “Bernies” was her undoing in non-metropolitan America, in the crucial electoral-college states.

Trump’s victory was not the win for radical reform that Bannon (and many others) expected. As I tweeted Bannon in a spirit of merriment, shortly after Trump’s inauguration and Bannon’s swearing in as principal strategic advisor, “You have truly big ideas, Steve, but sadly, a too small vessel to carry them.” Trump typically became excited about many of the issues Bannon championed, especially Bannon’s (to me, irrational) fear that the West — or more precisely, America — was facing defeat in a hostile world. But Trump’s usual response, besides issuing a meaningless executive order, wasn’t policy implementation (the one exception being the ill-conceived Islamic-nations travel ban): it was sheer exhibitionism, the uncloaking via a tweet or a news-conference outburst this or that random impulse, contributing to the public’s and his fellow politicians’ perception that here was a very confused, maladapted President.

Bannon’s well-oiled machine proved counterproductive in the extreme, actually empowering the Republican establishment, not the party’s base. The generals were brought in to provide “supervision” and Bannon himself was exiled from the White House, condemned to find meaning within Breitbart, the very madhouse that he constructed. Talk about just deserts!

And that is where things stand. So why would I dare Steve to hire me on as a progressive columnist? Why venture into that jungle? Well, pragmatically speaking, Breitbart needs new blood: its online visits have declined by from 70–90%, damaging its appeal to advertisers (except those who can make it hawking to a tiny hardcore collection of dubious wage-earners), resulting in layoffs. What an opportunity to take one of those too-many vacancies and filling it with something entirely different? What boldness that would show!

When you get right down to it, there are three deeper reasons for Breitbart to take on at least one progressive columnist:

  1. Breitbart can give its visitors someone real to be mad at — I’m used to offensive emoji — but also, a chance to confront ideas and perspectives that will be new to most but, on second thought, attractive to many. Progressive POVs on some issues coincide with conservative economic POVs. Bannon’s impromptu phone call with Bob Kuttner, a lifelong progressive, was prompted by Kuttner’s critique of relations with China, which Bannon admired, or so he said. Breitbart was founded on divisiveness, but divisiveness has a small constituency in America. Why not take a gamble by promoting comity and at least, more truces than battles? Isn’t “We’re All Americans!” a part of the Breitbart mantra? If not, Breitbart will smugly live out another couple years and then surely go the way of The Caller and other ultra-right rags of the 1930s calling for allying with Hitler: when war broke out they became irrelevant and their publishers, rendered ridiculous.
  2. Intellectual earnestness of the few deserves acknowledgement by the many. I mean, a special few on the right. Press and media organs on the Left commonly feature contrarian opinions from columnists and also from their viewers/listeners/readers. On Breitbart, about 90% of the comments are crude, banal, and worst of all, dull. Unoriginal. Repetitive. Mind-numbing. But then there are a 10% who, despite being conservative, are thoughtful, insightful, and curious about the world around them. Their need for intellectual stimulation is worthy of acknowledgement. Especially since they’re likely to be the most diligent and involved consumers of products and services other than weapons, MAGA caps, and racist propaganda. Advertisers would sit up and notice.
  3. Not featuring a progressive columnist with opinions perhaps contrary to those popular on Breitbart, or among its executives, betrays a lack of self-confidence in Breitbart’s own political and critical capacities. Too much sameness is the bane of modern life. It results in stasis — lack of movement, lack of flow, and lack of evolutionary potential — i.e., death. Right now, Breitbart is in a death grip of its own making. It is its own victim. Expect no relief from Donald Trump, who now has another reason (besides allegiance to corporate America and the world’s economic elite, and Steve Bannon) to defy Breitbart’s policy recommendations. If you can bore Trump, who gets his thrills over at Fox News, you are definitely sinking fast. Maybe Breitbart has lost its mojo. Is it willing to test this growing perception by opening its kimono just a little to a curious progressive like myself.

If Bannon takes my dare, good on him. He won’t get a doormat. Or a shill. Or a shrill, for that matter. He’ll get honest writing from a progressive perspective. Can he live with it? I can. Writing for journals left, right, or center — well, mostly left and center — I’ve been careful to preserve my reputation for intellectual and political integrity, even though I’m progressive through and through. I factor in my ideological filters whenever I’m called upon to write or speak about events in the tech sector (for a long time my home), controversies in the public sector (also for a long time my home), disputes in the larger world, and global issues that subsume the rest and often eclipse others in terms of their relevance and importance.

Steve, of course you’re reading this. Your Medium fans will no doubt forward this dare, this article, to you; or tweet about it endlessly. So give it a thought and drop me a line here, on Twitter (@Robert_Jacobson), or via email. I dare you. Against #War, I advise you. Give #Peace (and new ideas) a chance. And buy yourself a new identity.

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