Former President Donald Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon demanded people have more "Judeo-Christian" babies so these children could be "trained" in order to "save civilization."
Bannon made the remarks after Real America's Voice correspondent Ben Harnwell claimed "militant secularization" is responsible for an ongoing "fertility crisis" in France.
You can hear what Bannon said in the video below.
Steve Bannon just goes straight Adolph Hitler to complain about white Europeans not procreating enough: “If you want to save the Judeo-Christian west, if you want to save civilization, start by having babies. Simple. Let’s start there. We’ll train them up.” pic.twitter.com/Nr6mqQJm86
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) December 6, 2021
Noting French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel do not have children, Bannon offered his solution to Harnwell's complaint:
"Hey, if you want to save the Judeo-Christian west, if you want to save civilization, start by having babies. Simple. Stat there. We'll train them up. We'll get it done but let's start by having babies."
Bannon's remarks appear to be a reference to a report earlier this year from French state-owned international news television network France24, which noted the number of babies born in France in January "fell by 13 percent, the biggest drop in 45 years," a development researchers have linked, at least in part, to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
That's a significant turnabout from 2015, when a United Nations policy brief noted "France's total fertility rate (TFR) stabilized in the mid-1970s and has remained consistently at around 1.8–2.0 children per women ever since."
However, birth rates in France have declined for some time now, a fact The Economist reported on as early as 2018.
Bannon has for years embraced the White nationalist movement in the United States while pushing replacement theory, a conspiracy theory that states White European populations and their descendants are being demographically and culturally replaced with non-European peoples.
Indeed, Bannon has been accused of having a "Nazi problem" in the past, and his comments bring to mind the Lebensborn program, the Nazi Party's plan to increase Germany's declining birthrate of Aryan children by people classified as "racially pure" and "healthy" based on Nazi racial hygiene and health ideology.
His latest remarks have been widely condemned, with many pointing out they are further evidence of his White supremacist views.
White women aren't having enough babies and that is at the heart of why the GOP and the Christian right are so hell bent on making abortion illegal. It all boils down to preserving white supremacy. https://t.co/n9mS7MKodl
— Say no to fascism (@SuziePerkins6) December 6, 2021
Bannon is a flat out racist nut job.
https://t.co/2wkMbqEByV
— Weaver95 🔋💻 (@weaverXP) December 6, 2021
How would you like to be a child who was deliberately brought into the world solely to bring about white supremacist fascism?😨 How about being their neighbor? It's outright full-blown, open Nazism.
🤮😱🤬
2-tweet thread: https://t.co/3oblQ5dl1h
— BillCody (@BillCody) December 6, 2021
Have babies so we can recruit them, train them and radicalize them is the most honest thing he's said yet.
Sure let me endanger my health to bring forth a life that you will pervert into taking someone else's life. That sounds awesome. https://t.co/Sbn4blUI5B
— JaneKnowsBest (@JaneKn0wsBest) December 6, 2021
Part of the reason they have been trying to dump #RoeVsWade for years. ⬇️ Terrifying. Sure would be nice if Bannon was actually being held for his part in the #Insurrection instead of sharing more hate. https://t.co/0cHpdktz0R
— Michele D (@mdoher10) December 6, 2021
It's funny how he seems to think saying "Judeo-Christian" makes this any less Hitlerian (bc of the Judeo part) or less racist, just bc he didn't say white, specifically using that word... https://t.co/7lYjyHs3yw
— Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) December 6, 2021
What a nasty piece of work. https://t.co/0yF0Cu2HxN
— B. L. A. (@BL_St1) December 6, 2021
And this is why @GOP want to stop abortions and force women to birth: white population and cheap labor force/prison pipeline. They don't care about the child after, they just want the numbers. Human capital, as Trump's econ advisor Kevin Hassett called us. https://t.co/VWbxG75j62
— Blueberry Dawn: #VoteBlue (@DawnBlueberry) December 6, 2021
The hate coming from Bannon’s mouth is shocking. And it sounds so smooth. https://t.co/MUFmR6V31A
— Mary Theresa McCombe (@Mtmccombe) December 6, 2021
Bannon's remarks come amid significant legal trouble.
Bannon was recently charged with contempt of Congess for refusing to cooperate with a House investigation into the January 6 insurrection, a fact he has claimed is evidence of a smear plot against him.
The House Select Committee believes Bannon has useful information crucial to the investigation, in particular relating to his involvement in a meeting with Trump allies at a Washington hotel the evening before the attack.
Prosecutors have criticized Bannon, saying he is trying to make his case a trial by media “rather than in court.”
The prosecution’s comments came after Bannon’s defense requested the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office unseal all evidence in the case, including grand jury testimony.
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@BillAckman/Twitter