Unless you’re a neo-Nazi, being compared to genocidal maniac Adolf Hitler isn’t normally taken as a compliment, but that’s how Steve Bannon meant it after comparing Donald Trump’s golden escalator moment to some of Hitler’s best-performing propaganda films.
According to a new book from New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters, Bannon was enthralled with Trump’s choice to ride down a golden escalator at Trump Tower to announce his presidential run in 2015. Peters, who collected hundreds of interviews from people working in Trump’s camp at the time — including, presumably, Bannon himself — said that Trump’s former campaign manager thought of the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will during Trump’s ostentatious announcement.
“He thought to himself, ‘That’s Hitler!'” Peters wrote (via Mediaite). “He meant it as a compliment. As a documentarian himself who had studied and admired Riefenstahl’s work, Bannon saw some of her visual techniques in Trump’s production.”
Leni Riefenstahl is the German filmmaker noted for producing most of Hitler’s propaganda films before and during World War II. Peters explains that Riefenstahl often preferred to show the dictator towering over his subjects, placing him on a “higher plane” and making him feel “superhuman.”
“Bannon thought that Trump’s entrance looked strikingly similar and that he was witnessing someone with an uncanny sense for manipulating public perception,” Peters wrote.
Liking a Nazi filmmaker’s work and thinking comparing someone to Hitler is a compliment is a weird stance for someone who likes to claim they’re not anti-Semitic or a white nationalist — but it’s totally in line with someone who lists Satan and Darth Vader as his personal heroes.
(Via Mediaite)