America's Great Divide: Steve Bannon (first interview) | FRONTLINE

After the 2016 election I was really curious as to how Trump could be elected. Most of my peers brushed it off as dumb, racist white people, but I really wanted to understand. Especially since I had family who had voted for him who I don't consider to be dumb or racist. I'm from the coast and live in the city. When taking a road trip through the Midwest, it hit me that people from the rust belt and rural areas had to vote for his message. Honestly it was depressing to see the decaying factories and poverty stricken areas. He was giving them hope and was going to fight for them. Anyway, I may be wrong but that's just my perspective. Someone posted this video here yesterday with Steve Bannon explaining the populist movement and how Trump came to be president. There are multiple parts and this video is over two hours long but worth the watch. I'm not normally one to watch a video over half an hour and especially not Steve Bannon, but it's quite fascinating to hear this story and perspective. [this video]

I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong. PBS generally has been some of the best news / reporting I’ve seen. That said, it’s still driven by ideology — “good” being defined by someone. You can see it in the titles of their documentaries and programming. If you go through their programming objectively and put yourselves in the mindset the opposing side it becomes rather clear. This includes things like portraying nationalism as bad or Christianity as evil (see some of their frontline documentaries) While the bias is there. PBS is generally one of the least bias in the space, I think that’s what makes it so frustrating. A slight improvement in breadth and depth would make it amazing. I also have to give credit to pbs for often releasing full-length interviews. I’ve really appreciated watching hours long interviews with various people about a specific topic. See “Putin files” [link] [link] or Steve bannons interview on frontline. [this video]

Lol this is why Trump was elected… it’s what makes the “establishment” of both parties oppose him. It’s why we are constantly reminded by the economist that “republicans and trump are racists”. Steve Bannon actually explains this quite well in a PBS Frontline interview [this video] It’s infuriating to constantly have the Economist pushing the idea “the country is racist” or “so and so is racist” for many years now. Only to point out what most people know - a poor person in west Virginia is likely to be white, and have more in common with a poor black person from DC than a wealthy white person from DC.