It’s nearing midnight as Steve Bannon pushes past the bluegrass band in his living room
and through a crowd of Republican congressmen, political operatives, and a few stray Duck Dynasty cast members.
He’s trying to make his way back to the SiriusXM Patriot radio show,
broadcasting live from a cramped corner of the 14-room townhouse he occupies
a stone’s throw from the Supreme Court.
It’s late February, the annual CPAC is in full swing, and Bannon, as usual,
is the whirlwind at the center of the action.
Bannon is the executive chairman of Breitbart News,
the crusading right-wing populist website that’s a lineal descendant of the Drudge Report
(its late founder, Andrew Breitbart, spent years apprenticing with Matt Drudge)
and a haven for people who think Fox News is too polite and restrained.
He’d spent the day at CPAC among the conservative faithful,
zipping back and forth between his SiriusXM booth and an unlikely pair of guests he was squiring around:
Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain’s right-wing UKIP party,
and Phil Robertson, the bandanna’d, ayatollah-bearded Duck Dynasty patriarch who was accepting a free-speech award.
“Honey badger don’t give a s---” is the Breitbart motto
Bannon, an ex-Goldman Sachs banker, is the sort of character who would stand out anywhere,
but especially in the drab environs of Washington.
A mile-a-minute talker who thrums with energy, his sentences speed off ahead of him
and spin out into great pileups of nouns, verbs, and grins.
With his swept-back blond hair and partiality to cargo shorts and flip-flops,
he looks like Jeff Spicoli after a few decades of hard living, and he employs “dude” just as readily.
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The website, which Breitbart News Network CEO Solov says draws 21 million unique users a month,
has often managed to inject these narratives into the broader discourse.
It was Breitbart News, for example, that first drew attention
to the child migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border last summer
that killed any chance of Congress passing immigration reform.
“They have an incredible eye for an important story, particular ones
that are important to conservatives and Republicans,” says Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican.
“They’ve become extraordinarily influential. Radio talk show hosts are reading Breitbart every day.
You can feel it when they interview you.”
Lately, the site has championed Trump’s presidential candidacy,
helping to coalesce a splinter faction of conservatives
irate over Fox News’ treatment of the Republican frontrunner.
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