Steve Bannon Says America Was Built on ‘Nationalism’ – What Does That Mean?

September 11, 2017

WRITER

Former White House adviser Steve Bannon unleashed some shocking quotes in a recent interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” including seeming to call for bigger government in the U.S.

“Economic nationalism is what this country was built on, the American system,” Bannon said, explaining that this nationalist system included lending to manufacturers to support American production and controlling the border.

On radio Monday, Glenn Beck parsed this particular segment of the interview to take a look at the word “nationalism.”

“Is anybody noticing what he’s just done?” Glenn asked. He explained the link between nationalism and white supremacy that was realized under the Nazi regime.

“The Nazis are white nationalists; they’re not just white supremacists,” he said.

In the same interview, Bannon said that President Donald Trump was fighting for a “populist, economic nationalist agenda.” People have long been accusing Bannon and other members of the Trump administration of racism, but they are forgetting that fascism also focused on a nationalist economic system. Nationalism, as explained by Bannon, includes a tariff on overseas imports intended to protect American industry; a national bank; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other infrastructure elements.

“What he is fighting for … is tariffs, a central bank, infrastructure bailouts and federalized schools,” Glenn said. “That is the American system that he just quoted.”

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

GLENN: Where does America go from here?

We are at a crossroads. And we have more things that are coming our way -- economic troubles. We have more decisions to make, and there's a lot of things that the media is just not paying attention to.

Last night, on 60 Minutes, Steve Bannon -- they did an interview with Steve Bannon. And you're going to hear a lot of talk about it. Probably not with you. But you'll hear talk about it with radio and television. And the media will have the story all wrong. Because what they're going to focus on is Steve Bannon and racism.

They want to focus -- and Charlie Rose did this. They wanted to focus on immigration and racism and everything else. I want you to listen to what he said here. Because the media won't. And somebody needs to point this out. Listen.

VOICE: There's no path to citizenship. No path to a green card. And no amnesty. Amnesty is non-negotiable.

VOICE: America was in the eyes of so many people. And it's what people respect America for, it is people have been able to come here, find a place, contribute to the economy. That's what immigration has been in America.

And you seem to want to turn it around and stop it.

VOICE: You couldn't be more dead wrong. America was built on her citizens.

VOICE: We're all immigrants, except for the Native Americans who were here.

VOICE: America was built -- this is the thing of the left: Charlie, that's beneath you.

America is built on her citizens. Look at the 19th century. What built America is called the American system. From Hamilton, to Polk, to Henry Clay, to Lincoln, to the Roosevelts. A system of protection of our manufacturing. Financial system that lends to manufacturers. Okay? And a control of our borders. Economic nationalism is what this country was built on. The American system. Right? We go back to that. We look after our own. We look after our citizens. We look after our manufacturing base, and guess what, this country is going to be greater, more united, more powerful than it's every been. This is not astrophysics.

GLENN: So as I'm watching this last night, I'm thinking to myself, "Is anybody noticing what he's just done?" He starts out with something like, "Amnesty is off the table."

And there's a lot of conservatives -- and I'm one of them. I don't agree with amnesty. However, we have to have a discussion on what do we do? What does an actual plan look like going forward?

So we get stopped there. But we're not listening to what he's saying. Remember, he's talking about white supremacists. White nationalists.

The Nazis are white nationalists. They're not just white supremacists. And that's where this is getting lost. You just stop at the white part.

Well, those guys are racist. Okay. Well, that's kind of a big deal.

But that's not all the Nazis are. They're white nationalists. So Donald Trump or Bannon or whoever -- I don't know. He may be racist. He may not be racist. I don't think the president is a racist.

I've -- I've heard that when you speculate on the president and if he's a racist or not, you get into trouble. Well, that was the last one. Everybody can speculate on this one.

I do know this: That the president and Steve Bannon do believe in economic nationalism. What is that?

You know, it's -- it's strange because I've never heard from conservatives say, "You know, Alexander Hamilton and Polk -- well, Polk was great." The Polk talk I've missed. And then to hear, Polk, Clay, Hamilton, FDR, Lincoln.

Okay. Wait a minute. Hang on just a second. You'll notice he called it the American system. The American system is Henry Clay's system. Now, this is what he said built America. The American system is three parts: One, a tariff on other countries to protect all American industry. Two, a national Federal Reserve Bank. A national bank. Three, federal subsidies for roads, canals, infrastructure. And, by the way, Hamilton added one extra and that was public schools. An American federal public school.

So if you are sitting here listening to him, I want you to know what he is fighting for and what the president -- he says -- at least he says the president is fighting for is tariffs, a central bank, infrastructure bailouts, and federalized schools.

That is the American system that he just quoted. You know who is for that? Socialists. In particular, national socialists.

And the -- the third thing to add to that would be supremacists. White, black, it doesn't matter. People who believe that they are better than everyone else, and they can form a nationalized system that will control everything. It usually ends up being, well, we've got to get rid of some of these inferior people.

That is what Bannon is pushing for. That is what nationalism and the American system actually means.

GLENN: It's really interesting, this economic nationalism that Steve Bannon was talking about on 60 Minutes. And I want you to understand that white nationalism, the -- the racist part, is only half of it. That's only half.

The reason why -- the reason why the Nazis are so spooky is, they have the ability, through a nationalized government of every strong centralized government, to kill everybody they disagree with. That's the problem.

You know, Bill the Nazi down the street is a problem. I don't like Bill the Nazi. I don't know Bill the Nazi. And I want my kids to stay away from Bill the Nazi. But Bill the Nazi is not rounding people up, because he doesn't have the government to do it.

STU: You need that infrastructure to be able to accomplish those tasks. That's why we argue for small government all the time.

GLENN: Correct. Yes.

So you can say, "Well, I disagree with all that, that racist part." But if you're not paying attention to the nationalist part, that's a problem. That's a real problem.

STU: It's -- it creates the conditions that terrible things like that, like the Holocaust are possible. Right? Now, obviously we're not talking about the exact same system here. But it's that strain of nationalism that led in Germany and many other places.

GLENN: With the Nazis here in America, you are talking about exactly the same strain. You're not talking about it with Bannon, per se.

STU: No.

GLENN: I don't know if -- I don't want to say that Bannon is a racist, you know, or a white supremacist at all. I don't think he is. But --

STU: He --

GLENN: He is playing footsy with those people and only condemning half of the ideology. And the scary part of the ideology is having the conditions to where you can force that ideology on others. And that's the nationalist part.

STU: One of the things Bannon did before he came into the political eye was he worked for a company, I think it was World of Warcraft, the video game. And in there, you mine for fake video game gold. And he started working for a company that hired farms of people to mine the fake video game gold and sell the gold -- the fake gold, to people for real money that played the game.

So they would have people go in by the thousands and play the game to get these credits, right? And sell the credits to people who liked playing the game, but didn't want to work so hard for the credits. And they'd pay money for them.

Now, the business was a complete disaster, as many of his have been. And it fell apart in a sort of catastrophe situation. However, the interesting part of it was that was where he sort of found the fuel. Because that gaming community was so insular and so passionate, that he found, those sort of quirky weird movements could provide a lot of fuel for a much larger movement. And that's where it's believed he got the idea to bring in the movements like the alt-right and take the energy that they had through these really passionate niche sort of beliefs, to drive a candidate, if he could -- if he could find -- if he could convince them that this candidate was friendly to them.

GLENN: See, here's the problem with this, is the average person is being driven right into the arms of -- of these spooky people, quite honestly. Driven right into them. And I don't think most people understand how that is happening.

Can we play cut three? Mike Lee. Mike Lee is fighting for religious freedom. And the reason why this is happening is -- something we're going to address next hour, that happened on Capitol Hill, where senators were questioning a person's Catholicism and saying, "I'm not sure if you're qualified to be able to serve in the federal government," because you are a Catholic.

It was crazy. Now, listen to what the warning is here from Mike Lee.

MIKE: Another one of my colleagues, he even went so far as to ask Professor Barrett to confess her faith under oath in the committee.

"What's an orthodox Catholic," this committee member asked. "Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?" If these remarks had been some sort of bizarre, one time aberration, I probably would have passed them over, in silence.

But I feel compelled to speak out. Because I wonder whether a pattern might be emerging, a pattern of a hostility toward people of faith who come before this body.

Just a few months ago, another eminently qualified nominee, Russell Vought appeared before the Budget Committee to be considered for a post at the Office of Management and Budget.

One of my Senate colleagues used his time to question this nominee. Not about managements. Not about management or about budgets, but about the nominee's evangelical Christian beliefs.

"In your judgment," asked this senator, "Do you think that people who are not Christians are going to be condemned?"

Now, Mr. Vought explained to the committee that he is an evangelical Christian and that he adheres to the beliefs espoused by evangelical Christians. But that apparently wasn't good enough for the questioner who later stated that he would vote against Mr. Vought's nomination because he was not -- and I quote, what this country is supposed to be about.

This is disturbing. This is not what the country is supposed to be about. Some sort of inquiry into one's religious beliefs, as a condition precedent for holding office in the United States government. These strange questions have nothing to do with the nominee's competence or patriotism, or ability to serve among and for Americans of different faiths, equally.

In fact, they have little to do with this life at all. Instead, they have to do with the afterlife, what comes after we die, in this life.

To my knowledge, the ONB and the Seventh Circuit have no jurisdiction over that. This country is divided enough. Millions of Americans feel that Washington, DC, and the dominant culture despise them. And how could they not when they see their leaders sitting here, grilling patriotic citizens about their faith, like inquisitors? How could they not feel like their values are not welcomed in this chamber, within this government?

Religious freedom is of deep concern to me, as a Mormon.

GLENN: Did you hear what he just said, that people feel like their leaders despise them.

This is a very dangerous seed to plant. And, quite honestly, both parties -- and not just on religious terms -- you know and I know, Mitch McConnell, he doesn't like you.

The people who are the upper ends of the party, they don't like you. They're embarrassed by you. That is a dangerous seed to plant.

And they've been planting those seeds in Washington for a while. And that's what gives people like Bannon and white nationalists, black nationalists, Antifa -- it gives them the opportunity to grow, because you need a protector. We need to change that culture.

Why the Declaration of Independence still matters — Part 2: The Declaration's structure and purpose

From the moment the 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson arrived at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1776, he was on the radical side. That caused John Adams to like him immediately. Then the Congress stuck Jefferson and Adams together on the five-man committee to write a formal statement justifying a break with Great Britain, and their mutual admiration society began.

Jefferson thought Adams should write the Declaration. But Adams protested, saying, “It can't come from me because I'm obnoxious and disliked." Adams reasoned that Jefferson was not obnoxious or disliked, therefore he should write it. Plus, he flattered Jefferson, by telling him he was a great writer. It was a master class in passing the buck.

So, over the next 17 days, Jefferson holed up in his room, applying his lawyer skills to the ideas of the Enlightenment. He borrowed freely from existing documents like the Virginia Declaration of Rights. He later wrote that “he was not striving for originality of principle or sentiment." Instead, he hoped his words served as “an expression of the American mind."

It's safe to say he achieved his goal.

The five-man committee changed about 25 percent of Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration before submitting it to Congress. Then, Congress altered about one-fifth of that draft. But most of the final Declaration's words are Jefferson's, including the most famous passage — the Preamble — which Congress left intact. The result is nothing less than America's mission statement, the words that ultimately bind the nation together. And words that we desperately need to rediscover because of our boiling partisan rage.

The Declaration is brilliant in structure and purpose. It was designed for multiple audiences: the King of Great Britain, the colonists, and the world. And it was designed for multiple purposes: rallying the troops, gaining foreign allies, and announcing the creation of a new country.

The Declaration is structured in five sections: the Introduction, Preamble, the Body composed of two parts, and the Conclusion. It's basically the most genius breakup letter ever written.

In the Introduction, step 1 is the notification — I think we need to break up. And to be fair, I feel I owe you an explanation...

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…

The Continental Congress felt they were entitled by “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" to “dissolve the political bands," but they needed to prove the legitimacy of their cause. They were defying the world's most powerful nation and needed to motivate foreign allies to join the effort. So, they set their struggle within the entire “Course of human events." They're saying, this is no petty political spat — this is a major event in world history.

Step 2 is declaring what you believe in, your standards — Here's what I'm looking for in a healthy relationship...

This is the most famous part of the Declaration; the part school children recite — the Preamble:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That's as much as many Americans know of the Declaration. But the Preamble is the DNA of our nation, and it really needs to be taken as a whole:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The Preamble takes us through a logical progression: All men are created equal; God gives all humans certain inherent rights that cannot be denied; these include the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; to protect those rights, we have governments set up; but when a government fails to protect our inherent rights, people have the right to change or replace it.

Government is only there to protect the rights of mankind. They don't have any power unless we give it to them. That was an extraordinarily radical concept then and we're drifting away from it now.

The Preamble is the justification for revolution. But note how they don't mention Great Britain yet. And again, note how they frame it within a universal context. These are fundamental principles, not just squabbling between neighbors. These are the principles that make the Declaration just as relevant today. It's not just a dusty parchment that applied in 1776.

Step 3 is laying out your case — Here's why things didn't work out between us. It's not me, it's you...

This is Part 1 of the Body of the Declaration. It's the section where Jefferson gets to flex his lawyer muscles by listing 27 grievances against the British crown. This is the specific proof of their right to rebellion:

He has obstructed the administration of justice...

For imposing taxes on us without our consent...

For suspending our own legislatures...

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us...

Again, Congress presented these “causes which impel them to separation" in universal terms to appeal to an international audience. It's like they were saying, by joining our fight you'll be joining mankind's overall fight against tyranny.

Step 4 is demonstrating the actions you took — I really tried to make this relationship work, and here's how...

This is Part 2 of the Body. It explains how the colonists attempted to plead their case directly to the British people, only to have the door slammed in their face:

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury...

They too have been deaf to the voice of justice... We must, therefore... hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

This basically wrapped up America's argument for independence — we haven't been treated justly, we tried to talk to you about it, but since you refuse to listen and things are only getting worse, we're done here.

Step 5 is stating your intent — So, I think it's best if we go our separate ways. And my decision is final...

This is the powerful Conclusion. If people know any part of the Declaration besides the Preamble, this is it:

...that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved...

They left no room for doubt. The relationship was over, and America was going to reboot, on its own, with all the rights of an independent nation.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The message was clear — this was no pitchfork mob. These were serious men who had carefully thought through the issues before taking action. They were putting everything on the line for this cause.

The Declaration of Independence is a landmark in the history of democracy because it was the first formal statement of a people announcing their right to choose their own government. That seems so obvious to us now, but in 1776 it was radical and unprecedented.

In 1825, Jefferson wrote that the purpose of the Declaration was “not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of… but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm… to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take."

You're not going to do better than the Declaration of Independence. Sure, it worked as a means of breaking away from Great Britain, but its genius is that its principles of equality, inherent rights, and self-government work for all time — as long as we actually know and pursue those principles.

Why the Declaration of Independence still matters — Part 1: The Declaration and slavery

Patrick Perkins / Unsplash

On June 7, 1776, the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania State House, better known today as Independence Hall. Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee introduced a motion calling for the colonies' independence. The “Lee Resolution" was short and sweet:

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

Intense debate followed, and the Congress voted 7 to 5 (with New York abstaining) to postpone a vote on Lee's Resolution. They called a recess for three weeks. In the meantime, the delegates felt they needed to explain what they were doing in writing. So, before the recess, they appointed a five-man committee to come up with a formal statement justifying a break with Great Britain. They appointed two men from New England — Roger Sherman and John Adams; two from the middle colonies — Robert Livingston and Benjamin Franklin; and one Southerner — Thomas Jefferson. The responsibility for writing what would become the Declaration of Independence fell to Jefferson.

In the rotunda of the National Archives building in Washington, D.C., there are three original documents on permanent display: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence. These are the three pillars of the United States, yet America barely seems to know them anymore. We need to get reacquainted — quickly.

In a letter to his friend John Adams in 1816, Jefferson wrote: “I like the dreams of the future, better than the history of the past."

America used to be a forward-looking nation of dreamers. We still are in spots, but the national attitude that we hear broadcast loudest across media is not looking toward the future with optimism and hope. In late 2017, a national poll found 59% of Americans think we are currently at the “lowest point in our nation's history that they can remember."

America spends far too much time looking to the past for blame and excuse. And let's be honest, even the Right is often more concerned with “owning the left" than helping point anyone toward the practical principles of the Declaration of Independence. America has clearly lost touch with who we are as a nation. We have a national identity crisis.

The Declaration of Independence is America's thesis statement, and without it America doesn't exist.

It is urgent that we get reacquainted with the Declaration of Independence because postmodernism would have us believe that we've evolved beyond the America of our founding documents, and thus they're irrelevant to the present and the future. But the Declaration of Independence is America's thesis statement, and without it America doesn't exist.

Today, much of the nation is so addicted to partisan indignation that "day-to-day" indignation isn't enough to feed the addiction. So, we're reaching into America's past to help us get our fix. In 2016, Democrats in the Louisiana state legislature tabled a bill that would have required fourth through sixth graders to recite the opening lines of the Declaration. They didn't table it because they thought it would be too difficult or too patriotic. They tabled it because the requirement would include the phrase “all men are created equal" and the progressives in the Louisiana legislature didn't want the children to have to recite a lie. Representative Barbara Norton said, “One thing that I do know is, all men are not created equal. When I think back in 1776, July the fourth, African Americans were slaves. And for you to bring a bill to request that our children will recite the Declaration, I think it's a little bit unfair to us. To ask our children to recite something that's not the truth. And for you to ask those children to repeat the Declaration stating that all men's are free. I think that's unfair."

Remarkable — an elected representative saying it wouldn't be fair for students to have to recite the Declaration because “all men are not created equal." Another Louisiana Democrat explained that the government born out of the Declaration “was used against races of people." I guess they missed that part in school where they might have learned that the same government later made slavery illegal and amended the Constitution to guarantee all men equal protection under the law. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were an admission of guilt by the nation regarding slavery, and an effort to right the wrongs.

Yet, the progressive logic goes something like this: many of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, including Thomas Jefferson who wrote it, owned slaves; slavery is evil; therefore, the Declaration of Independence is not valid because it was created by evil slave owners.

It's a sad reality that the left has a very hard time appreciating the universal merits of the Declaration of Independence because they're so hung up on the long-dead issue of slavery. And just to be clear — because people love to take things out of context — of course slavery was horrible. Yes, it is a total stain on our history. But defending the Declaration of Independence is not an effort to excuse any aspect of slavery.

Okay then, people might say, how could the Founders approve the phrase “All men are created equal," when many of them owned slaves? How did they miss that?

They didn't miss it. In fact, Thomas Jefferson included an anti-slavery passage in his first draft of the Declaration. The paragraph blasted King George for condoning slavery and preventing the American Colonies from passing legislation to ban slavery:

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights to life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere... Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.

We don't say “execrable" that much anymore. It means, utterly detestable, abominable, abhorrent — basically very bad.

Jefferson was upset when Georgia and North Carolina threw up the biggest resistance to that paragraph. Ultimately, those two states twisted Congress' arm to delete the paragraph.

Still, how could a man calling the slave trade “execrable" be a slaveowner himself? No doubt about it, Jefferson was a flawed human being. He even had slaves from his estate in Virginia attending him while he was in Philadelphia, in the very apartment where he was writing the Declaration.

Many of the Southern Founders deeply believed in the principles of the Declaration yet couldn't bring themselves to upend the basis of their livelihood. By 1806, Virginia law made it more difficult for slave owners to free their slaves, especially if the owner had significant debts as Jefferson did.

At the same time, the Founders were not idiots. They understood the ramifications of signing on to the principles described so eloquently in the Declaration. They understood that logically, slavery would eventually have to be abolished in America because it was unjust, and the words they were committing to paper said as much. Remember, John Adams was on the committee of five that worked on the Declaration and he later said that the Revolution would never be complete until the slaves were free.

Also, the same generation that signed the Declaration started the process of abolition by banning the importation of slaves in 1807. Jefferson was President at the time and he urged Congress to pass the law.

America has an obvious road map that, as a nation, we're not consulting often enough.

The Declaration took a major step toward crippling the institution of slavery. It made the argument for the first time about the fundamental rights of all humans which completely undermined slavery. Planting the seeds to end slavery is not nearly commendable enough for leftist critics, but you can't discount the fact that the seeds were planted. It's like they started an expiration clock for slavery by approving the Declaration. Everything that happened almost a century later to end slavery, and then a century after that with the Civil Rights movement, flowed from the principles voiced in the Declaration.

Ironically for a movement that calls itself progressive, it is obsessed with retrying and judging the past over and over. Progressives consider this a better use of time than actually putting past abuses in the rearview and striving not to be defined by ancestral failures.

It can be very constructive to look to the past, but not when it's used to flog each other in the present. Examining history is useful in providing a road map for the future. And America has an obvious road map that, as a nation, we're not consulting often enough. But it's right there, the original, under glass. The ink is fading, but the words won't die — as long as we continue to discuss them.

'Good Morning Texas' gives exclusive preview of Mercury One museum

Screen shot from Good Morning Texas

Mercury One is holding a special exhibition over the 4th of July weekend, using hundreds of artifacts, documents and augmented reality experiences to showcase the history of slavery — including slavery today — and a path forward. Good Morning Texas reporter Paige McCoy Smith went through the exhibit for an exclusive preview with Mercury One's chief operating officer Michael Little on Tuesday.

Watch the video below to see the full preview.

Click here to purchase tickets to the museum (running from July 4 - 7).

Antifascist mob goes FULL fascist in Portland

Over the weekend, journalist Andy Ngo and several other apparent right-leaning people were brutally beaten by masked-gangs of Antifa protesters in Portland, Oregon. Short for "antifascist," Antifa claims to be fighting for social justice and tolerance — by forcibly and violently silencing anyone with opposing opinions. Ngo, who was kicked, punched, and sprayed with an unknown substance, is currently still in the hospital with a "brain bleed" as a result of the savage attack. Watch the video to get the details from Glenn.

Glenn's Show Prep