Study: ‘Bannon Wing’ Represents ‘Major Part of Modern’ GOP

Steve Bannon (Credit Image: © Aude Guerrucci/CNP via ZUMA Wire)

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon’s economic-nationalist, non-interventionist, and pro-assimilation agenda is on the ascent, and what FiveThirtyEight dubbed the “Bannon Wing” represents a “major part of the modern Republican Party.”

Further, “Bannon-ism,” according to the report, is in “nearly every Republican voter.” And it may offer Republicans the best chance to expand its coalition in a general election by attracting blue-collar Democrats and politically unaffiliated or unengaged voters of all backgrounds like Donald Trump did in 2016.

FiveThirtyEight defined the “Bannon wing” of the GOP as a more “populist, nationalist,” and non-interventionist wing of the GOP. The study pointed out that, more specifically, the “Bannon wing” consists of “Trump voters who are pro-police, against free trade, against the U.S. playing an active role (militarily and diplomatically) in the international community, strongly against illegal immigration, and in favor of more infrastructure spending.” FiveThirtyEight used five questions from the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to more specifically define the Bannon wing:

1. They are for or against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. (Which we’ll use as a proxy for free trade.)
   2. The U.S. should send troops to help the United Nations uphold international law.2 (Involvement in the international community.)
   3. The U.S. government should identify and deport immigrants in the country illegally. (Illegal immigration.)
   4. Their local police should receive a grade of A (excellent), B (above average), C (average), D (below average) or F (poor).
   5. Their state government should increase spending on infrastructure. (Infrastructure spending.)

FiveThirtyEight noted that “perhaps the most telling sign that Bannon’s positions represent a major part of the modern Republican Party is the percentage of Trump voters who disagree with all of the five key Bannon-esque policy stances listed above. It’s less than 2 percent.”

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The study found that Republicans agreed with many core aspects of “Bannon-ism” and approximately 15% of all Trump voters agreed with all five of the tenets as defined by FiveThirtyEight, based on questions from the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. {snip}

The outlet found that Bannon “represented a clear ideological wing within the Trump White House and in the GOP electorate more broadly.” Bannon-ism allowed Trump to appeal to various groups in the GOP primary and attract non-Republicans in the general election. In addition, Trump will need the support from the “Bannon wing” to fend off potential primary challengers in 2020, according to the report.

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In an interview with the Economist, Bannon fought for his worldview and called out China (“Let’s go screw up One Belt One Road”) and “the elites in Silicon Valley and Wall Street — they’re a bunch of globalists who have forgotten their fellow Americans.”

“I want the world to look back in 100 years and say, their mercantilist, Confucian system lost,” he said. “The Judeo-Christian liberal West won.”

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