Steve Bannon, former chief strategist to President Trump, offered rare praise for Democratic socialist candidates, calling them “very smart” for sidestepping Trump as a central campaign issue. In an interview with Politico, Bannon argued that these left-wing insurgents are running as anti-establishment figures rather than focusing on the president—a strategy he likened to the early Tea Party movement.
“They campaign as anti-establishment. Very smartly, if you look at their campaigning, they’re not really even campaigning on Trump,” Bannon said. “He gets a mention. But they’re very much like the Tea Party, like old Breitbart. They’re going against the Democratic establishment.”
Bannon described the messaging of these candidates as “sophisticated” and said it “clearly resonates” beyond the coasts. His comments come as a wave of democratic socialist candidates have scored primary victories, including Melat Kiros, who unseated 15-term Rep. Dina DeGette in Colorado’s 1st District on Tuesday. That win followed three New York congressional candidates with ties to democratic socialism winning their primaries last week.
Some Democratic leaders have downplayed the trend as limited to New York, but Bannon dismissed that as wishful thinking. “They’re a national power,” he said of the democratic socialists. “They have worked below the surface to perfect a ground game and a canvassing operation. It’s too late for the Democrats to recreate that.”
Bannon accused Democrats of being “asleep” to the threat, while Republicans are taking it “extremely seriously.” He warned that if the GOP does not adapt, it could face losses similar to the ongoing internal divisions over Trump’s SAVE Act that have stalled a key defense bill.
The former Trump adviser argued that the political landscape has shifted, with voters demanding radical change. “You have to be absolutely relentless. People, it’s not about talk anymore, it’s about action,” he said. “You have to show people very specifically what you’re prepared to do to both stem this threat and to break the oligarchs and the big tech guys and to provide true opportunities.”
Bannon added that the concentration of capital in the United States has left 80% of the population with little stake in the capitalist system. “You must be prepared to make radical changes to our system, and you must be prepared to stand in the breach, and to basically beat these people down, not just at the polls, but by government policy,” he said.
Earlier this month, Bannon predicted Republicans would lose the Senate majority in November and warned that democratic socialists could be in “ultimate power” within three to five years if their momentum continues unchecked. His comments highlight a growing recognition among conservatives that the left’s grassroots organizing—similar to the Tea Party’s rise in 2010—poses a long-term threat to both parties.
The rise of democratic socialist candidates comes amid broader debates over economic inequality and corporate influence, with figures like Bannon—once a key architect of Trump’s populist message—now seeing parallels in the left’s anti-establishment fervor. As the 2024 cycle heats up, the question remains whether either party can channel this energy without fracturing further.
