That mystique -- and controversy -- still cling to the movie producer, investor, and political adviser. With his one-time employer Donald Trump now in the fight for his electoral life, and Bannon embroiled not only in a fraud case but the uproar of the discovery of a computer alleged to be Hunter Biden’s, now is an opportune time to revisit Bannon and look for that vital spark imparted on the 2016 Trump candidacy through the lens of Errol Morris's interview documentary American Dharma.

While earlier iterations of Klan activism had or sought a more cooperative relationship to one or more levels of government, be they local or, in the case of the second revival Klan harassing Quakers to make them purchase war bonds, even federal, the post-Vietnam Klan groups sought a more adversarial relationship — even as some among them, like David Duke, sought political office. Belew established linkages and a history that connects older forms of white power ideology in the United States, like the Klan and its revivals, and newer, like sects among the militia movement. 

But in some respects, this may be among the least of the political impacts of social media. Above and beyond Trump’s tweets and his circumvention of traditional media, there is a much more profound but much subtler effect that plays upon certain psychological and social proclivities in America today and that is changing politics generally and has already changed our political leadership. And while this is by no means Trump-specific, it has a very strong affinity for the right wing. 

Okay, everybody who thinks the Tea Party and the other rightwing nuts and bolts in Congress have learned a difficult but valuable lesson, take one step forward.  Not so fast. The far right’s immediate reaction to overwhelming rejection of Tea Party priorities by the American public has been to take a step back, shake their heads a little and get ready for the next fight in January.  And make no mistake: there will be another fight in January.

The Tea Party’s brand of patented loose cannon obstructionism is too threatening to a GOP still reeling from the election flop. The ouster of the Tea Party hardliners and desertions by GOP bigwigs from the movement was hardly the first rumbling that the lights are dimming for the Tea Party. A year earlier, polls showed that far more Americans had an unfavorable view of the Tea Party than when it roared on the scene a couple of years earlier. The disaffection cut across all lines and that included many conservatives. 

In an interview with The Root, Mark Potok, one of the country's leading experts on hate groups, said that the day after President Obama was elected there were so many new people expressing interest in white supremacist groups that websites for some of those groups actually crashed. Among the groups mentioned by Potok, who serves as director of publications at the Southern Poverty Law Center, were Stormfront, a popular online message board for the white supremacist movement, and the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), which has been called "the white-collar Klan."