Meet the scary Italian fascist thinker approvingly cited by Steve Bannon

Meet the scary Italian fascist thinker approvingly cited by Steve Bannon

"What is it about Evola that so excites white nationalists? Per the Times, he was a leading influence on the government of Italian fascist Benito Mussolini, who was particularly attracted to Evola’s ideas about race. University of Montana Professor Richard Drake explains to the Times that Evola’s ideal society was organized by “hierarchy, caste, monarchy, race, myth, religion and ritual,” instead of the liberal order that valued diversity, tolerance and liberty. Most appealing to Bannon — who is a self-described “Leninist” who wants to “destroy” the state — is Evola’s belief that creating change is “not a question of contesting and polemicizing, but of blowing everything up.” While Evola was a key influence on Mussolini, the Times notes that he eventually found the Italian fascists to be too compromising, and he saw the ideal “traditionalist” regime to be the one found in Hitler’s Germany."