Steve Bannon tries to sleaze his way into European far-right, they tell him to go home

Poor Sloppy Steve. After losing his Rasputian status with Trump and the Mercers, he tried to peddle his off-brand fascism with nationalist Europeans. But it turns out even these unsavory characters think the only thing Bannon is good at is making things worse.

The London Free Press reports that Alexander Gauland, co-chairman of Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany party bluntly rejected Bannon's cock-eyed proposal to form a pan-European coalition of ultraconservative groups:

"We're not in America," Gauland told Der Westen, a news website in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. "The interests of the anti-establishment parties in Europe are quite divergent." The German politician also reportedly declared that Bannon "will not succeed in forging an alliance of the like-minded for the European elections."

The French nationalists don't want want anything to do with the Ugly American, either:

"Bannon is American and has no place in a European political party," Ji(C)rime Riviire, the international spokesman for the French far-right party National Rally, told Politico. "We reject any supranational entity and are not participating in the creation of anything with Bannon."

Cornell European government expert Christopher Way explains:

"Part of why Bannon's project won't succeed is a failure to recognize the diversity of European right-wing populist parties. Getting them on the same page is like herding cats," he said. "I don't see any reason he should succeed when they haven't managed to coalesce themselves."

What can he do now? With limited options, Bannon is trying to ingratiate himself with his former boss by making a pro-Trump documentary. Good luck with that.

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