Earlier today, New Yorker announced that Steve Bannon would be headlining their forthcoming festival.
The former Donald Trump chief strategist and Breitbart affiliate sticks out among the rest of the lineup, which includes Jimmy Fallon, Bo Burnham, Boots Riley, John Krasinski, Jim Carrey, Haruki Murakami, and Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg alongside many more. Understandably, the reaction to this announcement has been overwhelmingly negative.
The New Yorker Festival will take place on Oct. 5 through to Oct. 7, with Bannon scheduled to be interviewed by New Yorker editor David Remnick. "I have every intention of asking him difficult questions and engaging in a serious and even combative conversation," Remnick explained. "The audience itself, by its presence, puts a certain pressure on a conversation that an interview alone doesn't do. You can't jump on and off the record."
Last year, Bannon was fired from the White House under a week after the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Before, during, and after his time in the White House he has been called everything from a white supremacist to "Sloppy Steve" by Trump himself. It's not shocking, then, that so many New Yorker readers are disappointed with the announcement.
