![]() ![]() That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal. Even if that means praising an article in Mother Jones.īy signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from Mother Jones and our partners. He just wants to be seen as the tip of the spear challenging China. As I argued in the piece, it is impossible to understand where this movement is going without seeing China at the center of it.īannon doesn’t care about being seen as a warmonger, conspiracist, or white nationalist. Whatever Bannon’s reasons for opposing China, he has made it the focal point of the MAGA movement’s next act. (These claims are unproven and Guo strenuously disputes them.) Despite being a focal part of Bannon’s anti-China crusade, he has targeted other China hawks and was accused in multiple lawsuits of being a Chinese agent posing as a CCP critic. ![]() Guo himself is a curious figure in all of this. This “New Federal State of China” has not actually done much besides spread conspiracy theories, but it remains a signature part of Bannon and Guo’s propaganda. Alongside Guo, he has pushed for regime change in China (while mocking “neocons” who argue for the same elsewhere) and even co-founded a government-in-exile that awaits the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party. To Bannon, nothing is more of a compliment than being described as nearly unhinged in his obsession with China. “It’s one of the focal points of my life.” I’ve been doing this for years,” he said in one episode. He’s crowed in the podcast about being labeled a “Superhawk” in Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin’s book, Chaos Under Heaven, which covers the Trump administration’s China policy. “I don’t think in my experience I’ve found someone who is further right when it comes to being a China hawk than Bannon,” Justin Horowitz, a Media Matters for America researcher, told me.īannon loves having this reputation. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) fail to win his seal of approval even when arguing for similar policies toward Taiwan and other issues. Later in the piece, I mention how even relatively hawkish Republicans like Rep. As I wrote, “Bannon can take any subject-from George Floyd’s murder to Trump’s 2020 election loss-and turn it into a galaxy-brain plot, with China as the source of all ills.”Īs the mainstream discourse about China in the United States has turned more pessimistic and combative (due in no small part to China’s worsening authoritarianism), Bannon stands alone as a hawk among hawks. Such a positive reaction is a bit odd given that I described Bannon’s podcast, War Room, as a clearinghouse for conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, coronavirus vaccines, and China. He also told Guo the story was the “best article ever written about me,” according to messages obtained by my colleague Dan Friedman, who wrote an extensive profile of Guo last week. On Gettr, the social media platform bankrolled by Bannon’s patron, Guo Wengui, he wrote, “Mother Jones Magazine assessment is WarRoom: Pandemic is the gathering place for anti-Communist, anti-CCP fighters - damn right!!!!” Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.Ī weird thing happened in the hours after I published a story about Steve Bannon’s podcast and its relentless anti-China crusade.
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