Pollster and political analyst Pat Caddell joined Breitbart News Saturday SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon to discuss the fight that Americans face today against the global elites.

“Our elites live in a world where everything is comfortable for them,” Caddell said. “I believe that behind the mindset … is a belief that the country is in decline and their job is to manage the decline.”

Caddell said the elites in the United States have bought into the idea that China is on the inevitable rise to global hegemony, replacing the U.S., and it is their job to manage that rise peacefully.

“This is the whole Thucydides Trap thing, ” Bannon said, referring to the idea that a declining superior power’s paranoia about a rising power will drive them to war.

Bannon said that, according to that belief, “How you avoid war is to manage the decline and make sure you’re the junior partner, but steering the bigger partner to peace and prosperity.”

“That’s exactly what the elites in this country are doing,” he said. “Your elites want to manage the decline because they got theirs. You’re not in the room, you’re not in the deal.”

Caddell said that belief reveals a failure to appreciate the greatness of American exceptionalism.

“This country will not go gently into that good night of decline,” he said.

Caddell, who worked for both Democratic and Republican candidates, argued it’s not about being on the right or the left — it’s a fight for the future of America.

“This country is exceptional,” he said. “We dream and do the impossible and we have survived. And it would be an abomination before God for this country to go into the dark night. The whole world would suffer.”