Steve Bannon warns that women are going to 'take charge of society'
- Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is reportedly terrified of the #MeToo movement - and thinks Oprah Winfrey poses an existential threat to President Donald Trump.
- "Women are gonna take charge of society. And they couldn't juxtapose a better villain than Trump. He is the patriarch," he told journalist Joshua Green.
Steve Bannon is reportedly terrified of the #MeToo movement - and thinks Oprah Winfrey poses an existential threat to President Donald Trump.
In the new paperback edition of his book "Devil's Bargain," journalist Joshua Green writes that Bannon, the former Trump campaign chairman and White House chief strategist, "thought Oprah might represent an existential threat to Trump's presidency if she decided to campaign for Democrats in 2018."
But, Green wrote, Bannon believes the most powerful backlash to Trump is bigger than Winfrey, who's been the subject of much 2020 speculation. He's most concerned by the women-led wave of liberal, anti-Trump activism, fueled by the #MeToo movement.
"The anti-patriarchy movement is going to undo ten thousand years of recorded history," Bannon told Green. "You watch. The time has come. Women are gonna take charge of society. And they couldn't juxtapose a better villain than Trump. He is the patriarch."
Bannon made these comments after watching Winfrey deliver an impassioned speech at the 2018 Golden Globes, in which she lauded the #MeToo movement and delivered a call to arms against racial and gender-based injustice in front of an audience dressed in black to recognize victims of sexual misconduct.
"This is a definitional moment in the culture," Bannon told Green of the Hollywood awards ceremony. "It'll never be the same going forward."
Bannon reportedly believes that upcoming elections in 2018 and 2020 will be a referendum not just on political conservatism, but on historical power imbalances.
"The 2020 election, he was suddenly sure, wouldn't be merely the Democrats versus the Republicans, but the Patriarchy versus the Matriarchy," Green wrote. "And right now, Oprah was winning."