Bannon: Always the Rebel

by Keith Koffler

He helped engineer one of the greatest upsets in political history—the election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States. Now, after a short and turbulent tenure in the White House, Steve Bannon is working on the outside to propel forward his populist agenda even when it puts him at odds with the Trump administration. Unafraid to speak the truth and unwilling to back down, Bannon has made headlines in recent months for slamming the Trump administration's approach to North Korea and China, backing controversial Senate candidate Roy Moore at all costs, and calling members of Trump's circle—including Trump's son Don Jr. and his son-in-law Jared Kushner—"treasonous" for meeting with Russians during the election.

What is Steve Bannon trying to achieve? Is he a political genius with a promising ideology, or a muckraker without allegiances?

In Always the Rebel , veteran White House reporter Keith Koffler sits down for hours of interviews with Steve Bannon and gets the embattled former White House advisor talking about his plans, his current thinking about the Trump White House, and the reasons he's still fighting.

"Keith Koffler's book will help you understand why Steve Bannon still matters, and why he is one of the most powerful and important men outside the Oval Office." —SEBASTIAN GORKA, Ph.D., former deputy assistant to President Trump, author of Defeating Jihad, and chief strategist of the Make America Great Again Coalition.

Genres: Politics, Biography, Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

Published November 13, 2017

Reviews

[Alex Nelson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is more a hiogiography than a biography, Koffler is more an apologist than investigator. Consequently, Bannon is seen as Boswell views "that most illustrious life" of Johnson. (Koffler names a few reviewers of Bannon's "films" and harshly criticizes the reviewers, which betrays Koffler's bias.)

The arrangement of material is a difficult task with someone like Bannon, who clearly goes through very distinct periods of life and changes his beliefs on many things (as we all do). Although a chronological ordering might seem best, it fails to capture the change over time when there is much change (as is the case with Bannon). The other obvious approach, which Koffler takes after the first couple chapters, is to organize material around concepts. This only works if the author can adequately present the changes, influences, and events which impact the subject...which Koffler does not do satisfactorily, for whatever reason. Some of it is beyond his control (e.g., the relationship between Andrew Breitbart and Steve Bannon cannot be adequately explored because Breitbart is dead, and it is unlikely there is an extensive written record of the two interacting), other is apparently lazy research (e.g., Bannon's naval career is unsatisfactorily discussed, the whole Karachi debacle untouched, Koffler takes Bannon at Bannon's word far too often for comfort, etc.).

Despite dedicating an entire chapter to Bannon's "Generation Zero" and the impact Strauss & Howe had on Bannon's worldview, there's something lackluster about summarizing Bannon's worldview in the single phrase "Bannon had long been convinced that history moves in cycles, ...". Yes, he probably acquired that opinion after reading Arnold Toynbee, the historian he quoted so frequently while at University his college room mates still remember it. (Bannon also spoke on the college radio and dedicated the Grateful Dead's "Unbroken Chain" to Toynbee soon after the historian passed away.) It's hard to explain how Koffler missed this, without suggesting inadequate research.

More apologetics come when Koffler suggests, erroneously, that "The egalitarian-minded Boomers demanded that bankers lend money to minorities and other 'oppressed' groups to buy houses, regardless of their ability to afford a house." Very rudimentary research would have confirmed this is not the case, which leads one to wonder why is this even in here? Sadly inexcusable errors like these raise the thought, if the author gets these very-easily-researched-issues wrong, how can the author handle thornier issues and apparent inconsistencies in Bannon's life?

There is some new, presumably factual, information given in this book, e.g., Bannon's (apparent) alcoholism in the early '90s, or more touchingly Bannon as a father. But even here, there's clear issue with Koffler's handling of materials, glossing over Bannon's abusing his second wife as evidenced by the police report and attempting to undermine the notion there ever was abuse by dismissing the second wife as someone who didn't appear in court (Koffler neglects to mention the second wife did not appear because Bannon's lawyer threatened her).

But probably what is more useful is the presentation of the semi-coherent reinvented past Bannon has told Koffler, which conveniently leaves out a lot of blemishes.

The style leaves much to be desired. It seems to be written below a sixth grade reading level (the Hobbit is more sophisticated). I'm always worried when I read a book, and realize "This sentence is poorly phrased" or "The paragraph could be organized better." I'm a mathematician, not a "literary feller".

On the whole, it's not worth the price it's currently being sold at. I wouldn't recommend buying it for less than $5, and once you read it...you won't really need or want to re-read it. So, y'know, the public library is a good place to check it out. Don't buy it.

[Byrne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book would work better as an edited interview than as a biography. As it is, it’s basically the same background info that’s already available, plus some interview quotes, plus some awkwardly fawning narrative commentary.

It’s okay to write a biography of someone you really admire, but that doesn’t really work for a biography of a bomb-thrower. The whole point of the pugilistic style is to make an extreme enough claim that you provoke an argument; just agreeing with everything is actually rude. It’s like playing a poker game, folding every single hand, and congratulating your opponent on his flawless game. Sad!

What the world needs is a Bannon biography from someone who totally disagrees with him and makes no pretense towards neutrality. Probably a #nevertrump-er

[Plusilikefrogs · Rating 1 out of 5]

Embarrassingly sycophantic. Was less informative about who Bannon is, and more about who Bannon thinks he is (someone should tell Scarramucci that he was wrong, Keith Koffler is obviously helping Bannon stroke his “ego”). If you’re interested in pro-Bannon propaganda — several points in this book are contradicted by his own statements elsewhere — go for it, but all this will have served me is with the ability to say I’ve read it to Brietbart fanboys ... yay.
Tl;dr — I was prepared to stare at this yawning abyss and the only thing that yawned was me

[Christopher Blosser · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading Koffler's Bannon: Always the Rebel -- some things do much to explain the Bannon of today. Discovering, for example, that he was schooled in an all-male Catholic military academy, Benedictine High School; that he gave up a lucrative job with Philip Morris right out of college to join and serve seven years in the Navy; that he forsook and rejected the radical turn of the Democratic Party during the 60's and 70's to embrace the conservative revolution of Ronald Reagan and had a stint as a promising and successful conservative documentary filmmaker.

The book carries a number of surprises as well:

-- that he grew up in a old-school pious and patriotic Democrat family "“wild about Jack Kennedy, more so than most Richmond Catholics,";

-- that he was opposed to the Vietnam War;

-- his loathing for the objectivist libertarianism of Ayn Rand ("the thing that turned me off and reinforced my belief in the working people [was reading Ayn Rand]");

-- the admirable force of will on his part to quit drinking cold turkey one night when he realized it had become too much of an impediment;

Most of all I was struck by his (by all appearances) genuine religiosity, citing among the six books that are most important to him Ross Fuller's The Brotherhood of the Common Life and Its Influence , Thomas a Kempis' target=_blank>The Imitation of Christ and The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola -- whose "examen" he practices daily and assisted in his quitting the bottle.

For those curious bibliophiles, the other three books are Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ; Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Christopher Lasch's The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy . In what I found to be the most interesting part of this book, Bannon, via interviews with Koffler, goes into detail as to why each of these are important and have informed his present worldview).

Chapters 8 through 10 in particular do a decent job of conveying what exactly drives Stephen Bannon philosophically and ideologically -- hint, contra the popular depiction and/or demonization, it's not "racism" but rather a principled patriotism and a concern for the working man (as opposed to the wealthy "elites"). Oddly, I strongly suspect if you shared any number of Bannon's more reflective comments on the state of society -- the plight of the middle class, the corrupt and morally-ambivalent state of the "too big to fail" banks on Wall Street and sheer abnegation of responsibility and morality that precipitated the 2008 economic collapse -- without disclosing their source, he would have the sympathetic ear and support of the "99 percenter" movement.

Indeed, what Koffler also lays out is how Bannon's concern of the middle class falls into line with his desire to reinstate American "economic nationalism":

“For much of American history, essentially through World War II, the United States followed what today might be dismissed as a “protectionist” trade program, starting with America’s two most distinguished protectionists, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. Under the American System, the United States sought to protect its industries from overseas competition, particularly when it came to manufacturing.

Moreover, protectionism was Republican orthodoxy. It was Democrats, especially Southern Democrats, who wanted free trade, so that they could better export cotton and other agricultural products, and import lower cost (if there were lower tariffs) foreign manufactured goods. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, signed two tariff bills during the Civil War, and protectionism remained standard Republican policy through Herbert Hoover. [...]

"American economic nationalism is the birthright of, intellectually, not just conservatives, but the nation—from Alexander Hamilton to Jackson, Clay, Polk, Lincoln, all the way up to Teddy Roosevelt,” Bannon said. “The American System is laid out by Henry Clay. And by the way, they said that the most radical idea, as bad as anything that came out of the French Revolution, was free trade. The American System -- the first Trump guys were Hamilton, Jackson, Clay, Polk, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. A group of people that believed in American economic nationalism."

At the same time, Koffler gives some recognition to his flaws (his fiery temper, for one) while doing away with some of the sketchier rumors surrounding him (ex. the New York Times' histrionic fit over Bannon's making a reference to "deeply taboo, Nazi-affiliated thinker, Julius Evola", or what I think the author proves to be demonstrably specious claims of racism, anti-semitism or anti-Muslim. Consider:

“The people that go after Islam qua Islam — it’s not Islam as a faith” that is the problem, Bannon asserted. “If you study Sufism [as Bannon has done], and particularly the eternal struggle that Islam calls for, I think that’s fine. It’s a path to enlightenment or a path to God…just like Judaism’s got its path, just like Christianity’s got its path. It’s not for anybody to determine what path an individual takes.” The path represents an “individuals’ understanding that the interior practice of the presence of God is the one thing that will separate…their [interior] life from exterior life. Everybody has to come to that through their own work.”

In that regard, “Islam, in fact, has a very powerful tradition,” he said. “One of the reasons for Jihad is that inner work on oneself,” Bannon said, referring to the concept of an individual’s internal struggle, not a rationale for attacking nonbelievers."

Of course, to recognize Bannon's (in some ways) laudable concerns is not to suggest that the reader feel compelled to agree with his functional political strategizing.

For example, in Koffler's account of Bannon's taking over Breitbart.com and indulging the whims of Milo Yiannopolous, he actually comes across as being rather naive about the alt-right ("The alt right, when it began, with Milo, at least I saw it, was just young, kind of almost libertarians, that were radical, you know, almost like patriots. These guys were the guys that kind of came from the chat boards, etc. And I said, they’re going to be an amazing innovative force”) -- reluctant to take notice of its more seedier, devious and problematic elements (see Angela Nagel's Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-Right) and dismissing it outright ("All that [racist] crap gets burned out over time").

Nor in the final chapters of the book did I find myself able to comprehend Bannon's enthusiasm for and early political investment in the Tea Party and Sarah Palin (see John Heilemann's Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime) -- or his admiration for Donald Trump ("There’s a phrase I’m going to use that will shock you, that you never thought anybody would put together: Donald Trump and moral courage. I have never seen someone I admire more than Trump").

What is particularly baffling is how Bannon is portrayed by the author (and in many ways portrays himself in interviews) as being on the side of the worker and critical of the financial elites solely intent on making a profit, yet seems completely oblivious not only to Trump's history of shady and unethical business practices, but also the myriad ways in which Trump is exploiting his presidency for personal gain, for himself as well as his family. The sheer absence of any acknowledgement of this on the part of Bannon is striking.

All in all, I found Bannon: Always the Rebel interesting reading, especially if one has any interest in learning about Stephen Bannon the man -- as opposed to, say, Bannon as portrayed by the media and his critics.

[Tom Hartung · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bannon, Always the Rebel is a biography of Steve Bannon, written by Keith Koffler and published in 2017. It covers his whole life, from his birth up through his time as Chief Strategist at the White House.

Bannon, Always the Rebel is one of the nearly twenty books about politicians I read in the summer of 2019 while researching a book about incumbents, candidates, and other politicians.

I am giving the book 3 of 5 stars because, although it is informative and enlightening, it is less comprehensive than the other books I read for this project. The author verifies this is intentional, writing in the Introduction that "This, then, is Bannon's story in brief" [p. 3, emphasis added].

One of the most interesting things I learned about Steve from the book is that he and I both grew up in Richmond, Virginia. In fact, he is just one year older than me, so both of us, and our families, lived there at the same time. However, while I went to public school at Huguenot, he went to Catholic School at Benedictine. I quickly recognized the name of the military academy because some of my friends in the neighborhood also went to school there - so that was an unexpected connection.

The most important thing I learned from Bannon, Always the Rebel is that Steve Bannon is well-read - and especially fond of history. Examples of his favorite books are The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Kempis and The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon.

Concerned that America is on track to suffer a fate similar to that of the once great Roman empire, Steve is alarmed by some of the changes currently taking place in American culture. This concern is at the root of his nationalistic populism, and it is why he has aligned himself with the Tea Party and worked with politicians like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump.

Bannon believed that if America was going to retrieve its traditional culture, then the Tea Party had to succeed, because the Tea Party, in fact, was that culture, the dominant American culture of 1776 through the 1950s. "It's the voice of the working man and woman in this country," Bannon said during a February 2010 appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News show. "It's the decent people who fight our wars, who run our civic organizations, who are the backbone of this country."
— From Bannon, Always the Rebel, by Keith Koffler, p. 116 [emphasis in original].

In his book Fire and Fury, Inside the Trump White House author Michael Wolff states "The paradox of the Trump presidency was that it was both the most ideologically driven and the least" [p. 177]. It is widely acknowledged that Donald Trump has little or no ideology. Bannon, Always the Rebel makes it obvious that Steve provided what Donald lacks in this regard.

After reading Keith Koffler's book about Steve Bannon, I created a profile for Steve and included his spiritual portrait in my ebook Visualizing Politicians' Personalities, 2019 Incumbents and Candidates. I based the abstract image of Steve's personality in the ebook on this book, so it of course contains more about Bannon, Always the Rebel - in case you are interested.

[Carlos · Rating 2 out of 5]

At a certain point, every politician aspiring to run for higher office (usually a head of state position) either writes a biography (read: has it ghostwritten) or has a book written about them. These books are generally easy to read and serve as presentable summaries of their respective platforms.

This book is essentially Bannon's platform in simple form. No real surprises here. Nothing you couldn't find out from reading print articles elsewhere.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent book. I learned more about Steve Bannon, but this definitely reads like an extended profile piece by a superfan. Koffler spends the entire book extolling the virtues of Bannon, but never really exams any flaws in the character of the man; only superficial criticisms. However, I'd recommend the book for a quick read and good background on Bannon.

[David Harestad · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought the wrong book, this one is laughably apologetic and written for the fanboys. Whats even more ridiculous are the chapters about the evil, nihilistic globalists, and how Trump is NOT a representative of these. Oh lord..

Still, you learn a bit about the ideology Bannon represents and the way he thinks, maybe 20% more than whats on Wikipedia.

[Donald White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very enlightening material. I would recommend this to my liberal friends and relatives, but it is too real for understanding in narrow socialistic views.

[Gary Moreau · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess I need to change up my newsfeeds. I really didn’t want to read this book and, in retrospect, I didn’t want to for all the wrong reasons. I had taken the bait. I had taken at face value the portrayal of Steve Bannon as ogre-supreme.

According to this account, he is a bit raw, speaks his mind, and can come of as more than a bit opinionated. Not the kind of personality I would normally like to spend a lot of time with. But he seems to come by it honestly, if by honest you mean that he is well informed and genuine in his convictions. That doesn’t make him right, but it does mean he should be allowed to speak, which not all in the media seem to agree with.

The book does offer some informative context on the Tea Party and the Trump victory. And I think the explanations ring fairly true, at least here in the traditionally blue Midwest that tilted the Electoral College in a new and unexpected way and put Trump in office.

He didn’t sell me on the Trump agenda or the Bannon dream, if you will, and the reason is the same reason no one in the blue party has yet convinced me that we have it right, either. What Bannon offers is a digital, all or nothing, agenda. And that, to me, is the problem with every national politician today.

I do believe that the working people in the US have been left behind and that what Bannon calls the corporate and Washington elite, the former of which I was a member of at a modest level for a long time, have been given – or allowed to take – too much power and to use it selfishly. I don’t, however, share his conviction that American culture is or should be an evangelical Christian culture. (I am neither atheist nor agnostic.) Those trade-offs are just too simple.

This book is sure to polarize readers just as Donna Brazile’s book, which I liked very much, and Hillary Clinton’s book, which I haven’t and don’t plan to read, did before it. That doesn’t mean that we have to align at the poles, however.

That doesn’t mean we all have to be “moderates,” either. I am not. I am a socialist and would readily admit that if Lenin hadn’t completely darkened the ideology, Marx had some reasonably good ideas.

Nor do I think most Americans want to be “in the middle,” as the media dismissively refers to those of us not beating the drums of cultural and ideological war. I don’t believe we should pursue an agenda that excludes anyone, whatever economic class, educational background, ethnic or racial background, sexual orientation, or cultural alignment they represent. What it means to be American, in my mind, is first and foremost to believe in the principle of fair play for everyone.

In the end, I think this is probably a book we should all read. That’s what getting informed, which all citizens of a true democracy have an obligation to do, is all about.

[Robert Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author, Keith Koffler, states in his introduction to the book that his goal is to “demystify Stephen Bannon, to separate the real man from the caricatures, and to explain his brand of conservative populism.” He categorically states that “Western civilization today is under siege," in Bannon’s view, "from within and without.”

Bannon is best known for his contributions to the Trump campaign, especially where his appeal zoomed in on the populist movement. But he is an intellectual and successful businessman.

After four years at a Catholic military academy, he enrolled at Virginia Tech to study architecture. When he graduated, he joined the Navy and then enlisted in the Harvard Business School in 1983. In one acquisition he purchased the royalty rights to some TV shows—in a fluke, he acquired the royalties to Seinfeld.

These days Bannon believes in making money and faults the banks and other cash brokers, not because of their profits, but because of their abnegation of responsibility to the people who had entrusted them with their hard-earned cash. The elites are placing their interests first and screwing the poor and middle-class. If things get too bad, the affluent wait for a bailout which is a form of socialism for the rich, Bannon opines.

Bannon thinks “the left is distracted with its protests and its fear-mongering and its hatred of Trump that it is missing where Trump is quietly advancing his policies." Bannon lays claim to “laying the groundwork” for Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change accords.

Koffler probably gives Bannon too much credit for his work at the Whitehouse. Afterall, he was no friend of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner—they thought he was a bit radical. Moreover, applying hindsight, Banner was not that loyal to Trump.

[Ana Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

BATR732ehd

A very interesting way to get to understand the idiosyncrasy of a rather enigmatic political figure that prefers to be behind the scene... Still there are aspects of his persona that are not easy to follow. Amazing wide spectrum experience.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great read. If you need some direction in your life, pick this up.

[Preacher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very fair handed account of Steve Bannon of the 2 biographies of him I have read this was definitely the better of the 2.

[Bobby Daugherty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty much a brief overview of his career and beliefs.

[Aarav Balsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful if you want to know more about Bannon.

Really short. Can finish in one day.

[Martin]

Basically the book is just one long eulogy to Steve Bannon; the great genius, workaholic and indomitable fighter for western values and culture. Inspite of throwing some light on his history; views and character, sometimes inadvertently, the book In summary is a Fox News segment on the finer details of turd polishing.

[Allen DeGrange · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it.