The recent decision by the New Yorker to disinvite former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon from an event left me a little perturbed.

Don’t get me wrong, Bannon’s views on race, economics and politics in general are disgusting yet few people would seriously deny that the man who was until recently Donald Trump’s right hand man has not had a major impact on the political climate we inhabit today.

If we are ever going to understand this moment in history and overcome it then what better way than to hear directly from one of its chief architects?

The argument against this is that Bannon and those of his ilk are not worthy of the air they would breathe and have no right to take a stage where civilised debate is supposed to be occurring.

Journalist Rob Arthur even compared it to trying to have a conversation with flat-Earthers but when I pointed out that this was clearly a false analogy he doubled down and asserted that nationalists like Bannon were inciting murder; quite a claim!

I have some sympathy with this because while not directly inciting violence these nationalists are all of a sudden very quiet when it comes to condemning those who act out in the name of their ideology.

The answer, however, is not to ignore them, stick your fingers in your ears and hope they go away.

Doing so normalises that behaviour and I can’t bear to see it go unchallenged. The Economist agrees and upheld its own invite to Bannon stating that “the future of open societies will not be secured by like-minded people speaking to each other in an echo chamber, but by subjecting ideas and individuals from all sides to rigorous questioning and debate”.

Too right.

Bannon’s own views will not change as a result of the discussion but the more that his ideology is subjected to critique and ridicule the less likely it is that others will feel inclined to follow his lead.

We can’t alter the political climate as it exists today but we should do everything we can to shape it for tomorrow.