Det store spørgsmål efter valget af Donald Trump er, hvad verden kan vente sig af den nye amerikanske præsident. Usikkerheden har ikke alene at gøre med dealmindelige afvigelser mellem valgkampsretorik og praktisk politik, men må siges at være større en normalt – dels fordi Trump ikke tilhører de politiske establishment, men snarere har sit mandat i kraft af sin opposition til denne klasse, men mest fordi han ikke fremstår helt konsekvent i sine udsagn.

Med Trumps valg af rådgivere, falder imidlertid flere brikker på plads, og det klart mest interessante indtil videre, er valget av Steve Bannon som chefstrateg og seniorrådgiver.

I lighed med The Donald selv, er Bannon ikke rekrutteret fra den politiske klasse. Inden han overtog ledelsen af Trumps valgkamp i august, var han mest kendt som bestyrelsesformand Breitbart (endnu tidligere var han marineofficer og investeringsforvalter i Goldman Sachs). Det konservative amerikanske netmagasin har haft voldsom succes siden starten i 2007, og er blevet det vigtigste talerør for Det Nye Højre i USA (the alt-right), som i begyndelsen manifesterede sig blandt andet gennem Tea Party-bevægelsen.

De norske medier har de seneste dage fremstillet Bannon som yderliggående, højreekstrem, højreradikal, antisemit, racist, hvid-magt-talsmand, djævel, flammekaster, hævngerrig, ækel, pitbull og charlatan. Så volodsomme har udladningerne været, at man bliver overbevist om, at han må være helt ok.

Bannons politiske ideer har imidlertid ikke vært kendt i detaljer. Det var derfor lidt af et scoop, da det amerikanske medieselskab Buzzfeed tirsdag offentliggjorde en tale han holdt via Skype under en konference arrangeret af Human Dignity Institute i Vatikanet i sommeren 2014, for derefter at besvare spørgsmål fra forsamlingen.

Bannon fremlægger her et noget, der nærmer sig et helhedssyn på verden, som omfatter både historiske, økonomiske/finansielle og moralske/religiøse aspekter. Man får associationer til en type intellektuel som Gianroberto Casaleggio, Beppe Grillos nu afdøde strateg. Deres tanker er dog langt fra sammenfaldende. Bannon fremstår som et mix af en populist og en klassisk konservativ. Det sidste er i vore dage så sjældent, at man dårligt kan genkende en, når man ser ham – man aner faktisk ikke, hvad det betyder.

Bannons tænkning er, at dagens kapitalisme er i krise. En opfattelse han deler med respektable økonomer som ikke på nogen måde er anti-kapitalistiske. Kapitalismen før jerntæppets fald er derimod godartet:

The underlying principle is an enlightened form of capitalism, that capitalism really gave us the wherewithal. It kind of organized and built the materials needed to support, whether it’s the Soviet Union, England, the United States, and eventually to take back continental Europe and to beat back a barbaric empire in the Far East.

That capitalism really generated tremendous wealth. And that wealth was really distributed among a middle class, a rising middle class, people who come from really working-class environments and created what we really call a Pax Americana.

I følge Bannon er noget er efterfølgende gået galt. Problemet er sammensat. Det er både økonomisk, civilisatorisk og spirituelt.

[W]e’re starting now in the 21st century, which I believe, strongly, is a crisis both of our church, a crisis of our faith, a crisis of the West, a crisis of capitalism.

Now, what I mean by that specifically: I think that you’re seeing three kinds of converging tendencies: One is a form of capitalism that is taken away from the underlying spiritual and moral foundations of Christianity and, really, Judeo-Christian belief.

Bannon ser to usunde former for kapitalisme som nu udfolder sig. Der kan udvikles for meget stat og “venne-kapitalisme”:

One is state-sponsored capitalism. And that’s the capitalism you see in China and Russia. I believe it’s what Holy Father [Pope Francis] has seen for most of his life in places like Argentina, where you have this kind of crony capitalism of people that are involved with these military powers-that-be in the government, and it forms a brutal form of capitalism that is really about creating wealth and creating value for a very small subset of people.

Eller for lidt stat, hvilket får giver hensynsløsheden overfor andre frit spil:

The second form of capitalism that I feel is almost as disturbing, is what I call the Ayn Rand or the Objectivist School of libertarian capitalism. And, look, I’m a big believer in a lot of libertarianism.

[T]hat form of capitalism is quite different when you really look at it to what I call the “enlightened capitalism” of the Judeo-Christian West. It is a capitalism that really looks to make people commodities, and to objectify people, and to use them almost — as many of the precepts of Marx — and that is a form of capitalism, particularly to a younger generation [that] they’re really finding quite attractive.

Barbariet truer Vesten, og Bannon anser kristendommen som en af måderne det kan afbødes på. Men tingenes tilstand er ikke god:

The other tendency is an immense secularization of the West. And I know we’ve talked about secularization for a long time, but if you look at younger people, especially millennials under 30, the overwhelming drive of popular culture is to absolutely secularize this rising iteration.

Now that call converges with something we have to face, and it’s a very unpleasant topic, but we are in an outright war against jihadist Islamic fascism. And this war is, I think, metastasizing far quicker than governments can handle it.

Efter otte år med en administration, som ikke kan få sig selv til at bruge ordet “islam” om islamisk terrorisme, er der noget befriende over en præsidentrådgiver in spe, der åbent taler om jihadistisk islamsk fascisme.

Bannon slår til lyd for en kapitalisme med et kristent værdigrundlag, og lægger sig hermed tæt op ad den katolske kirkes sociale doktrin, som har været model for de moderne velfærdsstater.

So I think the discussion of, should we put a cap on wealth creation and distribution? It’s something that should be at the heart of every Christian that is a capitalist — “What is the purpose of whatever I’m doing with this wealth? What is the purpose of what I’m doing with the ability that God has given us, that divine providence has given us to actually be a creator of jobs and a creator of wealth?”

I think it really behooves all of us to really take a hard look and make sure that we are reinvesting that back into positive things.

Bannon er bekymret for kombinationen af kapitalismens vaklende moralske grundlag og truslen fra islam:

And so I think we are in a crisis of the underpinnings of capitalism, and on top of that we’re now, I believe, at the beginning stages of a global war against Islamic fascism.

Er dette ikke en meget velkommen og befriende afveksling fra meget af det, der er kommet fra Wahington de seneste ti år?

På spørgsmål fra salen uddyber han den rolle, de kristne værdier spiller i en tidligere fase af kapitalismen:

One thing I want to make sure of, if you look at the leaders of capitalism at that time, when capitalism was I believe at its highest flower and spreading its benefits to most of mankind, almost all of those capitalists were strong believers in the Judeo-Christian West. They were either active participants in the Jewish faith, they were active participants in the Christians’ faith, and they took their beliefs, and the underpinnings of their beliefs was manifested in the work they did.

Siden forsvandt dette, og virkningen udeblev ikke:

And I think that’s incredibly important and something that would really become unmoored. I can see this on Wall Street today — I can see this with the securitization of everything is that, everything is looked at as a securitization opportunity. People are looked at as commodities. I don’t believe that our forefathers had that same belief.

Der er en global Tea Party-bevægelse igang, siger Bannon efter at ahve besvaret et spørgsmål om Breitbart. Man ser lignende tegn i Storbritannien og Frankrig. To år efter han udtalte dette, kan vi se, at han fik ret.

The central thing that binds that all together is a center-right populist movement of really the middle class, the working men and women in the world who are just tired of being dictated to by what we call the party of Davos. A group of kind of — we’re not conspiracy-theory guys, but there’s certainly — and I could see this when I worked at Goldman Sachs — there are people in New York that feel closer to people in London and in Berlin than they do to people in Kansas and in Colorado, and they have more of this elite mentality that they’re going to dictate to everybody how the world’s going to be run.

Almindelige mennesker siger nej til disse diktater, fortsætter Bannon.

Ligesom den vigtigste kamp i Storbritannien foregår i det konservative parti, er det hos Republikanerne kampen står i USA. Partiet er splittet mellem to strømninger: pengefolk og populister.

The tea party in the United States’ biggest fight is with the the Republican establishment, which is really a collection of crony capitalists that feel that they have a different set of rules of how they’re going to comport themselves and how they’re going to run things.

Det er populisterne som har de bedste argumenter:

And the theme is middle-class and working-class people — they’re saying, “Hey, I’m working harder than I’ve ever worked. I’m getting less benefits than I’m ever getting through this, I’m incurring less wealth myself, and I’m seeing a system of fat cats who say they’re conservative and say they back capitalist principles, but all they’re doing is binding with corporatists.”

Hen imod slutningen af spørgerunden går Bannon langt i at hævde, at dem, som trak i trådene i finansbranchen før den globale finanskrise i 2008, burde have været gjort retligt ansvarlige. Bankernes ledelseslag burde aldrig have fået lov til at blive siddende, da bankerne blev reddet. Den lange krise er en væsentlig årsag til det folkelige oprør, tilføjer han. Bankerne må vende tilbage til deres kerneopgaver, som er udlån til reel økonomisk virksomhed. Man forstår, hvorfor Wall Streets foretrukne kandidat til præsidentvalget var Hillary Clinton.

Breitbart handler om opposition til den korrupte kapitalisme, sagde Bannon – i 2014. I dag er han blevet rådgiver for den kommende præsident. Hvordan vil denne parti-interne konflikt udspille sig med Trump som præsident? Vil det gamle establishment udmanøvrere Trump og genvinde kontrollen, eller vil det lykkes Trump at spille sine kort på en sådan måde, at han kan føre partiet i mere populistisk retning? Udfaldet får konsekvenser for hele verden.

Bannon er i udgangspunktet kritisk over for Putin, men han mener at den russiske præsident gør noget rigtigt:

I’m not justifying Vladimir Putin and the kleptocracy that he represents, because he eventually is the state capitalist of kleptocracy. However, we the Judeo-Christian West really have to look at what he’s talking about as far as traditionalism goes — particularly the sense of where it supports the underpinnings of nationalism — and I happen to think that the individual sovereignty of a country is a good thing and a strong thing. I think strong countries and strong nationalist movements in countries make strong neighbors, and that is really the building blocks that built Western Europe and the United States, and I think it’s what can see us forward.

Stillet overfor islam bør fløjlshandskerne derimod tages af:

I believe you should take a very, very, very aggressive stance against radical Islam. And I realize there are other aspects that are not as militant and not as aggressive and that’s fine.

If you look back at the long history of the Judeo-Christian West struggle against Islam, I believe that our forefathers kept their stance, and I think they did the right thing.

For tilhængerne af den multikulturelle ideologi, kanman altså godt se, at Bannon er djævelen selv. Vi andre bliver tværtimod beroliget. For selv om man ikke skulle være enig i alt, hvad han siger, så fremstår Bannon som en reflekteret, afbalanceret og fornuftig mand – stik imod den karrikatur, der i disse dage bliver kolporteret på alle mainstrem-kanaler.