“Bannon seems to be both very religious and a staunch capitalist, two things Evola didn’t believe in,” said Cas Mudde, a professor at the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia.įrancesco Germinario, a historian at the Luigi Micheletti Foundation specializing in far-right movements, went even further. His current popularity has several experts perplexed. Yes, the thinker was a virulent anti-Semite and Nazi sympathizer who influenced far-right movements in Italy from the 1950s until his death in 1974, but shouldn’t his contempt for Christianity make him an unlikely hero for those purporting to defend “Judeo-Christian” values?Įnd the Plague of Secret Parenting Emily Oster But few have discussed the fundamental oddity of Evola serving as an intellectual inspiration for the alt-right. References to Evola abounded on websites such as Breitbart News, The Daily Stormer, and well before The New York Times noted the Bannon-Evola connection earlier this month. What he did not mention is that Evola hated not only Jews, but Christianity, too. He also mentioned the late Julius Evola, a far-right Italian philosopher popular with the American alt-right movement.

He spoke about the need to defend the values of the “Judeo-Christian West”-a term he used 11 times-against crony capitalism and libertarian capitalism, secularization, and Islam. In the summer of 2014, years before he became the White House chief strategist, Steve Bannon gave a lecture via Skype at a conference held inside the Vatican.

Evola introduction to magic