Breitbart News Is A White Nationalist Website: Feel Free To Sue Us

Sure, it's been less than a week since Donald J. Trump became president-elect of the United States. But his administration-to-be has already sparked enough weird twists, surreal turns, conspiracies and double-dealings to fill a season's worth of one of those "Real Housewife" TV shows.

If you thought Trump's decision to select Stephen Bannon, former executive chairman of Breitbart News, to be a Trump White House counselor and strategist was ill-advised, let me introduce the next step in this escalating campaign of presidential-level trolling. According to The Hill, Breitbart News is promising to sue a major media organization for referring to the company as a white nationalist website:

"Breitbart News Network, a pro-America, conservative website, is preparing a multi-million dollar lawsuit against a major media company for its baseless and defamatory claim that Breitbart News is a ‘white nationalist website,’” the statement reads.

"Breitbart News cannot allow such vicious racial lies to go unchallenged, especially by cynical, politically-motivated competitors seeking to diminish its 42 million monthly readers and its number one in the world political Facebook page. Breitbart News rejects racism in all its varied and ugly forms. Always has, always will," the statement continues.

"The diversity of the company’s news coverage and its staff continue to embody Andrew Breitbart’s colorblind, distinctly American commitment to ‘E pluribus unum’—out of many, one."

Now to be fair, Breitbart News is not exclusively a white nationalist website. It also includes plenty of racism and misogyny as well as the occasional actual news story. And I also don't think that the Breitbart News editors and reporters are all white nationalists. I think for the most part they just play the part because it's good for business.

I also don't believe there's much of a chance Breitbart News would actually sue a major media company. Because the last thing it wants to is defend its editorial mix in a court of law. This statement is all about bluster mixed in with a modest attempt to scare off some criticism. It's an effort to bully smaller publications into normalizing their behavior and portraying it as somehow just being part of the normal universe of political reporting.

I can't speak for any other media site - major or not - but we aren't intimidated. Breitbart News is a white nationalist website and I'd feel intellectually dishonest if I described it any other way. If they don't like it, this is a free country and anyone can sure anyone for just about any reason.

But until we receive the court papers, this headline stands.