Raging against The Enlightment: The ideology Of Steve Bannon

Abstract

Based on the categories of cultural sociology, the text analyses how Steve Bannon, considered the principal ideologist of the Donald Trump government, has constructed powerful narratives based on binary simplifications of political conflict, purifying the groups that supposedly embody 'real America' - nationalist, white and Christian - and legitimizing the exclusion of all others. Since the political conflict does not refer solely to the control of material resources, but involves disputes over the constitution of cultural meaning, the article seeks to demonstrate how the ideology codified by Bannon, powerfully amplified in Trump's political performances, has been able to produce perverse effects on the contemporary democratic order.