Just like everyone on 'Game of Thrones,' Steve Bannon also thinks 'Winter is coming'
In case you weren't anxious enough, one of the most powerful people in the free world believes that catastrophe is just around the bend, and says so—just like everyone on HBO's Game of Thrones.
But really.
Steve Bannon—who already counts, on the record, Satan and Darth Vader as aspirational figures—is now speaking like a Game of Thrones character.
White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is a big fan of The Fourth Turning, a book and theory of American history organized around cycles of prosperity and danger, the New York Times report Sunday.
"History is seasonal, and winter is coming,” the book warns, as if this were an episode of Game of Thrones.
It's unclear what Bannon's ideology truly is, though it's clearly some bizarro blend of economic nationalism, white nationalism, populism, isolationism, and Leninism (again: his words, not ours). Either way, his outlook can be generally categorized as frightening, and The Fourth Turning explains why.
According to authors Neil Howe and William Strauss, a crisis—kind of like the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression—is just around the corner. Civic institutions could crumble at any moment.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that the world is in the beginning state of a crisis that it can’t avoid," Bannon told The New York Times.
Bannon predicts that America will likely head to war with China and the Middle East sometime in the next ten years. For the advisor, The Fourth Turning confirms his darkest suspicions.
"History is seasonal, and winter is coming,” the book warns, as if this were an episode of Game of Thrones.
Bannon was recently removed from the National Security Council, in a move that some see as a sign of the advisor's waning power and/or liberal wishful thinking. But like so many other Game of Thrones characters, one of which he's turning into, the ones who stay alive never stick to the bottom of the scoreboard for too long. To that end, here's hoping he doesn't get his hands on any dragons before 2020.
Topics Game Of Thrones
Heather was the Web Trends reporter at Mashable NYC. Prior to joining Mashable, Heather wrote regularly for UPROXX and GOOD Magazine, was published in The Daily Dot and VICE, and had her work featured in Entertainment Weekly, Jezebel, Mic, and Gawker. She loves small terrible dogs and responsible driving. Follow her on Twitter @wear_a_helmet.
