Trump's new chief strategist once described Modi's win as part of global revolt

United States President-elect Donald Trump’s newly named chief strategist Steve Bannon once described Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s victory in the 2014 elections as part of a “global revolt” against the prevailing system.

“I think you’re going to see it in Latin America, I think you’re going to see it in Asia, I think you’ve already seen it in India,” Bannon told a small Vatican audience via skype in the summer of 2014.

“Modi’s great victory was very much based on these Reaganesque principles, so I think this is a global revolt, and we are very fortunate and proud to be the news site that is reporting that throughout the world,” he said, according to the transcripts of his Skype address released by Buzzfeed.

Bannon said there is global reaction to centralised government. “Whether that government is in Beijing or that government is in Washington or that government is in Brussels. So we are the platform for the voice of that,” he said.

“I’m not justifying Vladimir Putin and the kleptocracy that he represents, because he eventually is the state capitalist of kleptocracy. However, we the Judeo-Christian West really have to look at what he’s talking about as far as traditionalism goes -- particularly the sense of where it supports the underpinnings of nationalism -- and I happen to think that the individual sovereignty of a country is a good thing and a strong thing,” he had said.

“I think strong countries and strong nationalist movements in countries make strong neighbours, and that is really the building blocks that built Western Europe and the US, and I think it’s what can see us forward,” he added.

He had described Putin as an interesting character.

“He’s also very, very, very intelligent. I can see this in the US where he’s playing very strongly to social conservatives about his message about more traditional values, so I think it’s something that we have to be very much on guard of,” he said.

Responding to a question, he had advocated a very aggressive stance against radical Islam. “I realise there are other aspects that are not as militant and not as aggressive and that’s fine,” he had said.

Image: Donald Trump's new strategist Steve Bannon pictured backstage during a campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, US. Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters