Steve Bannon's Values Voters Speech: Did He Talk about Values?

Steve Bannon

Former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon spoke yesterday at the Values Voters Summit. Values were not Bannon's issue; victory was the issue. That is, in a speech at a values summit, Bannon mostly talked about strategy, not about values. I found this to be a bit disappointing.

Bannon's speech used a consistent tactic of the religious right: mix religious or moral issues with standard conservative issues that lack religious content. That creates an impression that conservative policies arise from a religious basis. In Bannon’s speech, the religious values almost disappeared among the conservative political and economic issues. Globalization versus nationalism? Electing nationalist leaders? Free market economy? Opposing social changes? Election strategies? The Bible, and Christian doctrine, tend to be quite silent on those issues. Yet, simply by speaking at the Values Voters Summit, Bannon gave the impression that these views, which are secular and controversial, needed to be accepted, not because they are right, but because they are associated with various values. What were those values? Who knows? Bannon never said. 

What surprised me is that Bannon said little about values, and instead talked about fighting for political issues that bore no obvious relevance to values. In Bannon's speech, values voters became victims of an establishment that didn’t care about them. He assumed that he and his audience shared values, although no one said what those values were, and he instead pictured a massive battle, a fight that he accused the other side of starting. He connected values voters with the alt-right, which is the new word that nationalists and white supremacists now use, since old words like “Ku Klux Klan” and “Nazi” have developed bad associations. The alt-right is very much not the traditional right-wing: at the outset, Bannon said: “It’s not my war. This is our war. The alt didn’t start it. The establishment started it.” He said that Mitch McConnell and others "personified" the Republican establishment.

There was more personification in this speech. Distinguishing between the alt-right and the Republican political establishment, Bannon said that "the politics of personal destruction as personified by the permanent political class is the only way they can win.” Bannon said that the establishment worldwide was nervous: “They understand that you’re the best transmission of the best values of the Judeo-Christian left.” What are the Judeo-Christian values? Bannon never said.

Readers will recall that, during the 2016 election campaign, a sound recording emerged of candidate Donald Trump talking about groping and assaulting women sexually. Mr. Trump dismissed this as "locker room talk." Values voters were, apparently, not horrified enough to vote against Mr. Trump. Bannon recalled that he told future President Trump that “They’re looking to take their country back and you’re the vehicle and instrument that’s going to do it. They don’t care about locker room talk because we’re going to bring to that debate the women that William Jefferson Clinton attacked and his wife covered for him.” Values were not the issue; victory was the issue. Bannon said this clearly: “I’m all about winning. You know why? Because we have to win.” Later, he said, "these folks are coming for you." It was a battle, and he wanted his applauding crowd to be afraid.

Also, Bannon’s war was more against the Republican establishment than against the Democrats. This was not because the Values Voters might turn into Democrats; it is because the culture war utterly rejects the Democrats, and is now also rejecting the mainstream Republicans. This is the strategy of polarization, which I'll talk about later.

Values were not the issue; victory was the issue.

White House photo

See my follow-up post about Bannon's values.