David Horowitz and Matthew Vadum pay tribute to Frontpage Magazine’s 2016 Man of the Year: Stephen K. Bannon, former Breitbart News Executive Chairman and current chief strategist to President-elect Donald Trump.

From Frontpage Magazine:

TIME magazine named Donald Trump “Person of the Year” for 2016, and we could have done the same. But this would have been to over-simplify a victory that millions of Americans believe has brought this nation back from the brink of destruction, and has done so against what seemed impossible odds. In the just completed election campaign, a vicious partisan press substituted character assassination for reporting and joined malicious Democrats in demonizing Trump and his supporters as racists, sexists, Islamophobes, xenophobes and religious bigots, while dismissing the candidate as “unfit to sit in the White House.”

From the outset Trump distinguished himself as a self-confident warrior who refused to be “politically correct.” Trump won the primaries and eventually the election because, unlike Republicans before him, he refused to be intimidated by leftist witch-hunters and their reputation-burning attacks.

But Trump’s very fearlessness, self-confidence and disregard for progressive bigotry – his indisputable strengths – came with a downside that threatened to undo him. Even as he responded to the defamation from whatever quarter it came, his campaign message was pushed into the background until it was in danger of being altogether lost. Questions began to be raised and not only by opponents. Could Trump be presidential? Could he stick to a winning message? Lackluster polling numbers sparked a panic among feckless Republicans who began demanding that Trump be replaced as the nominee. Even in the camp of the faithful, supporters began to wonder if their candidate was too thin-skinned and undisciplined to win, and – equally important – whether such a strong-willed individual could listen to a voice that was not his own. Could he ever trust and then avail himself of a counselor, who would focus his message and keep him on course?

The answer came within four months of the election when Trump, then trailing in the polls, shook up his team and made Stephen K. Bannon the CEO of his campaign.

Read the rest here at Frongpage.