Far-right agitator Steve Bannon accused the left of spewing “dangerous rhetoric”, a comment which earned him the title of “monstrous gaslighter” by online observers who were quick to point to examples of his own problematic history with inciting violence.
“On media, it’s getting more and more frantic,” began the former Trump advisor on a Tuesday episode of his podcast.
He’d noted earlier in the segment how the tightening races of Republican candidates in the upcoming midterms is causing the other side to “throw guys under the bus”.
“It’s getting more and more, you know, I think dangerous rhetoric pointed at Republicans and MAGA,” he said to his Pandemic War Room guest Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
“What would be your recommendation? How do we tone down that rhetoric on the left who obviously when they see the House and Senate, state legislatures, school boards slipping away from their grasps are only going to get more and more desperate.”
The comments from Mr Bannon — who once labelled the FBI the “gestapo” — triggered an onslaught of pushback from online commentators who were easily able to cast back into the deep well of instances where the alt-right figure had more directly called for violence against “the other side”.
“Trump-pardoned grifter Steve Bannon, who fuels civil war declarations from Trump supporters almost every day, turned on the gaslight, claiming it was the left,” tweeted one user, while another noted that, “Bannon’s level of gaslighting is so monstrous. I can never get used to it.”
Another commenter called back to the infamous moment in 2020 when Mr Bannon was given a permanent boot from Twitter after he called for Dr Anthony Fauci and FBI director Christopher Wray's heads to be displayed “on pikes” outside the White House.
“Bannon (about the left): I think dangerous rhetoric pointed at Republicans & MAGA Also Bannon: put their heads on pikes,” wrote the Twitter user in response to the alt-right podcast host’s comments.
The narrative pushed by Mr Bannon of a so-called Republican witch hunt being carried out by the left is one that has become a hot topic in far-right circles of recent.
Earlier this month, while attending a Michigan rally that was headlined by former president Donald Trump, Georgia congresswoman and Q-Anon sympathiser Marjorie Taylor Greene made similar proclamations while addressing a crowd of voters.
“I’m not going to mince words with you all,” the Republican lawmaker began. “Democrats want Republicans dead, and they’ve already started the killings.”
“Joe Biden has declared every freedom-loving American an enemy of the state,” she added, calling back to the US president’s primetime address from earlier this fall where he warned of “extreme MAGA philosophy” being comparable to “semi-fascism”.
The victimisation trope pushed by right-wing figures is one that flies in the face of recent data. In 2021, the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that instances of domestic extremist terrorism are on the rise on both sides of the spectrum, but violent far-right incidents “were significantly more likely to be lethal, both in terms of weapon choice and number of resulting fatalities”.
And just this past spring, a white supremacist who was self-purportedly motivated by the far-right “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory carried out a deadly assault on a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people.
Mr Bannon’s comments about fears of left-wing attacks are also particularly remarkable considering the report from Vice News which found that the former Trump advisor had urged his followers on Facebook to “take action” just one day before a violent mob of the former president’s supporters descended on the Capitol in an attempt to halt the certification of the 2020 election.
