Closed Society Foundation

Bannon to open far-right think tank

The two presidents gave a speech after their negotiation in front of the White House. Even if they were working hard to sell as a victory the pure fact that after many hours of negotiation they agreed to continue the negotiations, the two guys couldn’t have been more different. US leader Donald Trump used an overly-simplified langue: limited vocabulary, short sentences and strong accent on some of the very basic words in order to make the message pass through.

But even if European Commission President Jean-Clause Juncker spoke with a light French accent revealing he’s not a native speaker, he looked far more eloquent and intelligent with well-composed sentences and finely chosen expressions. One could really see the difference between a real politician and an outsider, who made his success by telling again the real politicians.

As Trump proves it over and again, one can easily win elections by shouting oversimplified lies against certain groups of the society, but when it comes to actual governance and diplomacy, the emotional rhetoric is simply not sufficient anymore. Even if he arrived in a hostile environment, the political veteran and wise Juncker easily achieved what he wanted. Trump might try to sell the “deal of the no-deal” as his victory, but in fact it is Juncker who won. Not only this battle, but precious time for the EU to work out its trade policy and not to be suffocated by retaliatory taxes and customs.

But we just can’t lie back cheering over the triumph of classical European politics. Trump’s media strategist and ally-enemy-ally Steve Bannon announced to open a far-right think tank in Brussels in order to prepare for the 2019 European Parliament elections. In an interview to the Daily Beast, he blatantly explained that the aims to promote an alternative for American financier-philanthrope and the populist’s favourite scapegoat George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, which promotes the values of liberal democracy. Bannon is willing to give election advice to Eurosceptic and far-right parties.

God save us from Bannon’s strategical media advice because he is hilarious. He has already proved itself to get elected the most incompetent and less trustworthy president of American history. In my nightmares, I see Marine Le Pen, the Spitzenkandidat of a new far-right political group to taking Juncker’s chair over. Referring to his German family ties, she would hire Nigel Farage as her chief of cabinet, who would soon kick out Martin Selmayr from his highly disputed position of secretary general. The delegation from the AfD would change offices with the remaining CDU MEPs, given the German far-right significantly outnumber the Christian Democrats. Hungarian government party Fidesz and their Polish friend Law and Justice would join the new far-right EP political group, just like the Italian MEPs representing the Lega or 5 Stelle and the Dutch populists spreading the words of Geert Wilders. At the first plenary, they propose full membership to Turkey, hoping that with the new MEPs from Erdogan’s AKP they would get the two-thirds majority in the Parliament, just copying the well-working Hungarian recipe.

But it’s time to stop here because I have good news. Far-right and/or populist parties can achieve impressive results if backed by witty and immoral media caesars like Bannon. But their success story stops at the night when the election victory is announced. They build their promises on selfishness and hatred, which is of course very appealing for the human nature. But this mentality prevents them from cooperation and compromise, which is the basis of well-functioning politics. No matter how genius he is, Bannon’s “Closed Society Foundation” won’t be able to reconcile the populists and promoters of illiberal democracy and make them work together in peace. Therefore they won’t ever be able to govern Europe. Just like Trump is unable to lead the US.