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This Ad Shows How Trump's New CEO Really Thinks

by Chris Tognotti

There's only two-and-a-half months or so left until the 2016 presidential election, and things are rapidly getting every bit as hot as you would've expected. Whether it's the Clinton campaign accusing Republican nominee Donald Trump of being a "puppet for the Kremlin," or the Trump campaign stoking baseless conspiracy theories about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's physical health, the barbs have been flying. And on Tuesday, the political world got a preview of things to come — a new Democratic ad revealed the Donald Trump attack plan, and that's to tie him to every single inflammatory headline run by his controversial new campaign CEO's publication.

If you didn't hear the news last week, the Trump campaign underwent a major transformation: out with campaign chief Paul Manafort, and in with new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and new campaign CEO Steve Bannon. It marked the second major reshuffle of his candidacy, following when Corey Lewandowski was (ostensibly) fired from his job as campaign manager back in June.

But it was the Bannon hire that sent ripples through the world of political media, both in left-wing and establishment conservative circles. That's because Bannon was plucked from one of the most heavily trafficked far-right websites on the internet — Breitbart.com, so named for its late founder Andrew Breitbart. Which means there's now a litany of inflammatory articles, headlines, and content that's inextricably linked to Trump and his campaign, much of it reinforcing the very same negative associations people already had with the GOP nominee. And clearly, the Democrats are hoping to press that advantage.

The ad consists strictly of headlines that the site ran under Bannon's leadership, read aloud by a pair of slightly incredulous young people. They run the gamut from sexist, to anti-gay, to anti-Semitic — namely, the infamous "renegade Jew" headline directed at conservative writer Bill Kristol. Simply put, it's a short, to-the-point, slickly produced ad that's likely to leave anyone unfamiliar with Bannon and his career with a pretty strong impression.

Some of the headlines are incredibly deferential or fawning towards Trump, and that's been in keeping with their heavily pro-Trump message since his campaign began. Ultra-conservative writer and former Breitbart editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro resigned from the site earlier this year after the Michelle Fields and Trump run-in, and blasted Bannon for turning the hard-right outlet into "Trump's personal Pravda."

In short, Bannon has risen to prominence, all the way to a prized role in the Trump campaign, while sitting atop a metaphorical mountain of awful, a slew of baggage that he isn't going to able to avoid now that he's signed on to help run a major party presidential campaign. Nor will Trump be able to avoid it — at least, not if the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party have anything to say about it.

Image: The Democrats/YouTube