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When White House appointee Steve Bannon painted progressive women as a bunch of "dykes" who don't "have husbands" or "love their children," he really meant it in a more "endearing" and "jovial" way.
So says a guy who knows him well, Breitbart senior editor at large Joel Pollak. Bannon's specific quote came during a radio discussion in 2011 of women's lib heroes like Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin and how they interrupt the “progressive narrative.” Here’s Bannon:
“That’s why there’s the unintended consequences of the women’s liberation movement. That, in fact, the women that would lead this country would be feminine, they would be pro-family, they would have husbands, they would love their children. They wouldn’t be a bunch of dykes that came from the Seven Sisters schools up in New England.”
(**My transcription here differs from the original transcription—to my ear, Bannon adds they “would be feminine” and here’s the audio.)
Anyway, clearly liberal women and dykes don't "love their children." Obvs. But Breitbart's Pollak told NPR not to get bogged down in all that "political correctness" mumbo jumbo. Since LGBTQ people use the word "dyke" in non-derogatory ways, it's completely okay for straight guy Steve Bannon to throw it around as a slur—because that's totally the same thing.
I would defy you to find a person in the LGBTQ community who has not used that term, either in an endearing sense or in a flippant, jovial, colloquial sense. I don't think you can judge Steve Bannon's views. What you can judge him is how he's conducted himself at Breitbart, and he brought a gay, conservative journalist like Milo Yiannopoulos on board, and Milo has brought gay conservatives into the media, into the debate. At the Republican National Convention, Breitbart co-hosted a party for gay conservatives.
Oh, and did we forget to mention—Bannon knows gay people. Naturally, Pollak's defense of Bannon is completely male-centric. No mention of lesbians, only Bannon's support for a gay male journalist and GOProud, a now-defunct gay conservative organization founded and run by two gay men.
So it's not gay men, it's just dykes and liberal women (i.e. feminists), who are effectively one in their hatred for men.
Anyone else getting the sense that Bannon wasn't held enough as a child? Let that be a lesson to all those feminists out there who don't love their children.