There were dire warnings about Steve Bannon - ugh! Bannon is a racist!

The Former Guy's chief strategist is racist. 
Bannon, the former head of the far-right web site Breitbart news, describes himself as an (evil!) leader of the ‘alt-right,’

Echo in stereo! Policy group The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights warned The Former Guy's administration about the danger of giving the ugly Steve Bannon any credibility.  

This following letter was sent to the media on November 16, 2016, and must be re-released!

Letter sent to The Former Guy- Donald J. Trump
To President-elect of the United States
Trump Tower
725 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Dear President-elect (Former Guy):

We are writing to you on behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200 national advocacy organizations that, together, represent tens of millions of Americans from all walks of life. 

Since its founding in 1950, The Leadership Conference has played a vital role in every debate over legislation affecting civil and human rights. We are writing today on a matter of great concern to our organizations and to the nation as a whole. 

We strongly urge you to reconsider your appointment of Stephen K. Bannon as your chief strategist and senior counselor in the White House.

As many news sources have documented in the past week, Mr. Bannon has a history of expressing alarmingly biased and uncivil views that demean women, the LGBT community, and religious groups. And as the executive chairman of Breitbart LLC, he turned the website Breitbart.com into what he described as “the platform for the alt-right,”[i] a movement that includes and is heavily shaped by white supremacists, anti-Semites, anti-Muslims, nativists, and other political extremists who are more dedicated to destroying our system than they are to improving it.[ii]

Whether – as his former editor-in-chief recently speculated – Mr. Bannon is simply pandering to a radical and extremist constituency in order to increase his political influence or whether he personally holds these views,.[iii] it ultimately makes little difference. Either way, his presence in the White House will undermine and discredit the pledge you made last week to “be President for all Americans.” (Maine Writer- Is this lie among the Lie Library in the litany of those quoted by The Former Guy?)

It is especially problematic at a time when many communities are facing a dramatic increase in hate crimes and other forms of racial and ethnic harassment.[iv]

As representatives of a coalition with a long history of working with both parties in Washington, we know very well that political opponents in this town have to occasionally put strong rhetoric aside and work together to advance the public interest or to simply keep the government running. “Strange bedfellows” can accomplish truly remarkable things in Washington. Make no mistake, our organizations have been alarmed by and will strongly oppose many of your policy proposals – on the merits, and in good faith. It is our sincere hope that we can find areas where we might be able to work together to improve the lives of all Americans.

Doing so, however, requires a certain level of trust and the belief that despite our differences, we all share certain common values: that all Americans deserve a chance to live up to their potential, that our cultural diversity is a source of strength and not a weakness, and that our government has an important role to play in improving our lives. Mr. Bannon’s record of, at best, catering to people who do not share these values will make it significantly more difficult for the communities we represent to develop trust in your administration as we move forward.

We cannot recall a previous instance in which The Leadership Conference weighed in on a presidential appointment that was not subject to the Senate confirmation process. The Bannon appointment, however, carries with it implications that go far beyond normal internal staffing matters, and will significantly affect not only your presidency but the broader interests of the American public. We strongly urge you to reconsider it.

Thank you for considering our views. If you would like to continue discussing this, please contact Wade Henderson, President and CEO of The Leadership Conference, at (202) 466-3311.

Sincerely,
9to5, National Association of Working Women
African American Ministers In Action (AAMIA)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
American Federation of Teachers
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Anti-Defamaton League
Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF)
Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC
Asian Pacific Americans Labor Alliance
Association of University Centers on Disabilities
Bend the Arc
Black Women’s Roundtable I
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Center for Responsible Lending
Coalition for Disability Health Equity
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
Coalition of Labor Unon Women
Coalition on Human Needs
Council of Korean Americans
Demos
Do Justice and Fitting the Description
Equal Justice Society
Family Equality Council
Franciscan Action Network
Globe Women Research & Education Institute
Hindu American Foundation
International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
League of United Latin American Citizens
MALDEF
NAACP
NAACP LDF
National Action Network
National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE)
National Asian Pacific American Bar Association
National Asian Pacific American Families Against Substance Abuse
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum
National Association of Social Workers
National Black Justice Coalition
National CAPACD
National Center for Transgender Equality
National Coalition on Black Civic Participation
National Collaborative for Health Equity
National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA)
National Council of Churches
National Council of Jewish Women
National Council of La Raza
National Education Association
National Employment Law Project
National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC)
National Immigration Law Center
National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund
National Partnership for Women & Families
National Urban League
National Women’s Law Center
OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates
Poverty & Race Research Action Council
Project Vote
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
Restaurant Opportunities Center United
Sikh American Legal Defense & Education Fund (SALDEF)
South Asian Bar Association
South Asian Bar Association of North America
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
United We Dream Network
Voices for Progress
West Michigan Hindu Temple
Women’s Equality Coalition Greater Kansas City
Women’s Intercultural Network (WIN)
World Without Genocide
YWCA USA
Hindu American Foundation

[i] Sarah Posner, “How Donald Trump’s New Campaign Chief Created an Online Haven for White Nationalists,” Mother Jones, Aug. 22, 2016 at http://bit.ly/2g2oQgC.

[ii] See, e.g., “Alt Right: A Primer about the New White Supremacy,” Anti-Defamation League, at http://bit.ly/2g2rfb9.

[iii] Ben Shapiro, “3 Thoughts on Steve Bannon as White House ‘Chief Strategist,’” The Daily Wire, Nov. 14, 2016 at http://bit.ly/2g2un6O.

[iv] See, e.g., Azadeh Ansari, “FBI: Hate crimes spike, most sharply against Muslims,” CNN.com, Nov. 15, 2016, at http://cnn.it/2g2ooPI; Editorial, “Hateful acts are on the rise, and it’s Trump’s responsibility to take a stand,” Washington Post, Nov. 17, 2016, at http://wpo.st/fz0F2.

Racism is evil - Charlottesville Strong

The rise and fall of the alt-right echo opinion by Jack Hunter published in the newspaper the Washington Examiner

Maine Writer ~ Public rally instructions 101: Raise awareness!  Charlottesville was a tragically modern version of the Civil War and the violence exposed the evil intentions of the "alt-right".

Alt-right evil definition at this link

The less than 40 or so assorted (IMO: evil) racists that showed up for Unite the Right 2 rally in Washington, D.C., on Sunday represented, in all likelihood, the swan song for a movement that appeared to be riding high two years ago, and was severely diminished after the awful spectacle in Charlottesville, Va., last year, and did little more than flail one last time in Washington DC, on Sunday. Who knew “the Right” had less than 50 people in it?

Thankfully, these cretins are done. But as we bid them adieu, let’s recall how this monstrosity happened in the first place.

Hunter described the "alt-right" and the hate group's rise

In May 2016, I took Breitbart provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos to task for championing a new and often misunderstood movement called the “alt-right,” which he had recently dedicated 3,500 words to promoting in his essay “ An Establishment Conservative’s Guide to the Alt-Right.” (MaineWriter:  Brietbart-barfcart)

Jack Hunter said the alt-right was an inherently racist movement with white nationalism at its core. Yiannopoulos got mad that I would dare suggest such a thing (to which I also responded).

Yiannopoulos — arguably the highest-profile alt-right advocate to date and gateway drug for so many young people who dabbled with it — wrote, glowingly, (and, IMO, dangerously!) along with Breitbart co-author Allum Bokhari, that, “the alt-right has a youthful energy and jarring, taboo-defying rhetoric that have boosted its membership and made it impossible to ignore.”

Sounds exciting, right? I guess “taboo-defying” is one way to explain explicit racism in 2018.

While denying the alt-right was inherently racist, Yiannopoulos would also say things like, “The alt-right believe that some degree of separation between peoples is necessary for a culture to be preserved.” He also wrote, “The alt-right’s intellectuals would also argue that culture is inseparable from race.”

It’s not hard to connect those dots and figure out where they lead.

And who were the alt-right’s “intellectuals” according to Yiannopoulos? He listed Richard Spencer as one, who would later become famous for being a “nazi” who got punched in the face.

Yiannopoulos called Spencer a “renegade” long before anyone knew his name. Who doesn’t want to be a renegade? Yiannopoulos even joined him for karaoke while alt-right members gave Nazi salutes and was caught exchanging friendly emails with sites like the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer, as revealed by BuzzFeed last year.

Yiannopoulos would eventually severely diminish himself last year after making controversial comments about pedophilia, but the damage in elevating the alt-right had already been done.

While most of the young people I encountered in my libertarian and conservative circles stayed away from this garbage, I would come across some at conferences and online who tried to convince me either that the alt-right wasn’t really racist, usually parroting Yiannopoulos’ rhetoric, or worse, that racism — or the allegedly more respectable “racialism” — wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

These types of conversations and thinking seem to explode online, where it was hard to go on social media without encountering it, or at least in the conservative bubble, though it was by no means confined to that bubble.

This phenomenon lasted, with some ebbs and flows, generally right up until the alt-right decided to hold its first real event in Charlottesville on August 11, 2017.

The alt-right’s fall

After well over a year of trolling people on Twitter, the mostly faceless alt-right had planned a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, to supposedly protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

One of the most memorable video clips of that event showed young, white men with Tiki torches and “fashy” haircuts, chanting, “ Jews will not replace us.” What Jews or replacing people had to do with Lee is anyone’s guess.

The Lee statue was merely an excuse, not a cause, for racists to gather and promote their venom.

Though intended to advance their movement, what Charlottesville actually accomplished was showing America and the world — many of who had still never heard the term “alt-right” or were still confused about what it actually was (thanks, Milo) — that it was just the same old KKK and neo-Nazis of yesteryear trying to repackage themselves.

After a sea of swastikas and Confederate flags flashed across their television and computer screens, combined with violence in the streets, including the killing of anti-racist protester Heather Heyer, the country looked on in horror.

How could this be happening in the modern-day United States? Was this even America anymore?

The trolls had emerged from behind their keyboards and no one liked what they saw.

Not only young people who had once flirted with this stuff, but older conservatives who might have once thought “alt-right” meant merely being against the Republican establishment, (I spoke to a number of older conservatives who made that mistake pre-Charlottesville, and though it might be controversial, I would even generally include former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon in this category) now knew unequivocally what “alt-right” meant and rejected it soundly.

It’s one thing to hear liberals call conservatives of any stripe “Nazi” and assume it’s the typical leftist tactic of calling anyone who disagrees with them racist. It’s quite another to see Nazi flags and "Sieg Heil" salutes flaunted openly in an American city.

Post-Charlottesville, that flurry of racist, anti-Semitic, misogynist, and homophobic online activity that for so long had sullied the Internet at a higher level than anyone would have ever anticipated, dissipated to a significant degree.

If being alt-right had seemed titillating or edgy months prior, being associated in any way, or certainly any supportive way, with what went down in Charlottesville became something closer to kryptonite, with a number of alt-righters even losing their jobs over their participation. Anti-racist online activists began to troll alt-righters instead of the other way around for a change.

What others had tried to obscure, Charlottesville had shown clearly: Being alt-right meant being racist, period.

The alt-right’s tombstone

A year ago, more than a thousand alt-right activists showed up in Charlottesville with Nazi and Confederate flags for a confrontation that would be the death knell of their movement.

On Sunday, less than 40 alt-right activists showed up in Washington, D.C., this time with only American flags, which were eventually taken from them by the police. In fact, organizer Jason Kessler pleading with the cops to please let him carry his flag might have been the only thing he actually protested the whole day.

It was pathetic.

For well more than two years, various racists had latched on to Trump, with the president sometimes helping their cause, however intentionally or unintentionally ( something Hillary Clinton did too). With the aid of promoters like Yiannopoulos, Spencer, and others, the alt-right was an unfortunate but substantial phenomenon the American Right had to contend with. For a time, both the Left and the alt-right were eager to portray this racist movement as the Right, for obvious reasons.

Alt-righters will no doubt continue to exaggerate their numbers and influence, and liberals will unquestionably try to say every right-leaning individual of any stripe is alt-right. While Yiannopoulos was last seen selling vitamin supplements on Alex Jones’ Infowars (and had quit promoting the alt-right altogether some time ago) and Spencer has been reduced to beggingfor legal fees, these and other figures will still be around in some fashion.

But they won’t matter like they once did, or at least appeared to. Whatever momentum the alt-right movement once had, real or imagined, simply doesn’t exist anymore. This has been true for months now, but Sunday was the finis.

A movement that once advertised itself as new and exciting imploded the moment it revealed itself to be the same old racism, both deplorable and stale. Can you imagine anything more hilarious and sad than a Unite the Right 3 next year? Don’t count on that happening.

Americans - patriotic Americans and those of us of all stripes- should be glad this unfortunate chapter in U.S. politics and history is over — especially conservatives. (IMO Jack Hunter is blocking a bit of reality here.  39% of Republicans continue to irresponsibly support Donald Trump. Those who continue to back this evil and illegally elected Trumpzi tyrant are, in all honesty, the alt-right in sheep's clothing. Racism is evil and the alt-right must be shown the reflection of their hideous intentions by revealing them for what they are - Nazis.)

Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner 's Beltway Confidential blog. He is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.