This anti-left focus was illustrated by Bannons telling responses to the 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing bailouts. Despite his Goldman Sachs past, he repeatedly harkened back to those events as if they radicalized him, aptly noting that they constituted unconscionable crony capitalism in a country where the middle class is struggling. He even expressed worry about young people, noting 70 percent of our college graduates are either unemployed or underemployedwere in a crisis.
Yet the big banks were never the focus of his animus.
"Goldman Sachs isnt the firm it once was when I worked for it, he explained in a gentle 2010 critique, but is still one of the building blocks of our capitalist society."
In contrast, the following autumn, when protesters outraged by the bailouts descended on Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, inspiring a movement that took hold around the country, Bannon did make the Occupy movement the subject of a hostile film.
Released just prior to Election 2012, it savaged the protests. After making the Occupy movie, when you finish watching the film, you want to take a hot shower, he said that October. You want to go home and shower because youve just spent an hour and fifteen minutes with the greasiest, dirtiest people you will ever see.