Saturday, August 19, 2017

Will Firing Steven Bannon Prove to Be Trump's Undoing?


For the record, I find Steve Bannon to be a foul and toxic individual whose view are often frightening.  Some have tried to argue that Bannon is responsible for unleashing the nastiest elements of Donald Trump's disturbed psyche.  I'd argue instead that Trump has been foul and disturbed for decades.  In Bannon Trump simply found a kindred spirit.  Having fired Bannon, some now predict that Bannon is going to "go nuclear" and that the number one casualty will be the Trump administration.  My only hope is that, if this occurs, that Mike Pence is among those mowed down by Bannon's quest for revenge.  Both Trump and Pence need to be removed from office and I suspects that Bannon knows where the bodies are buried as the saying goes.  The Atlantic has this on Bannon's suspected counterattack: 
In firing Steve Bannon, President Trump has lost his chief ideologue, the man who channeled his base and advocated for the populist-nationalist policies that helped propel Trump to victory.
But he has gained an unpredictable and potentially troublesome outside ally who has long experience running a media organization, and an even longer list of enemies with whom he has scores to settle both outside the administration and inside. “Steve is now unchained,” said a source close to Bannon. “Fully unchained.”
“He’s going nuclear,” said another friend. “You have no idea. This is gonna be really fucking bad.”
Bannon had in recent days mused about leaving, according to people who have spoken with him; he has expressed to friends that he feels the administration is failing and is a sinking ship. And last week, he told people in a meeting that he would have 10 times more influence outside the White House than inside it.
Already, Breitbart is on a war footing. “It may turn out to be the beginning of the end for the Trump administration, the moment Donald Trump became Arnold Schwarzenegger,” editor Joel Pollak wrote on Friday, referring to the actor-turned-California governor, who won office as a populist outsider and exited with a 23 percent approval rating. Another friend of Bannon’s doubted this: “Why would he help them from the outside at this point? Run the outside group and then Jared Kushner takes credit?” Two sources close to Bannon said that he has for some time complained about Kushner being an issue in the Russia investigation; one of the sources said Bannon regards Kushner as “the weak link” in the White House when it comes to the investigation.
Bannon’s animus towards the “globalists” in the administration is well known. Now, from the outside, he no longer has any reason to play nice. . . . “when Steve feels the Trump administration is wrong, will he point to the people he has the inside knowledge about who are pushing for certain policies? I assume he will.”
Bannon’s exit will be extremely consequential to the inner workings of the White House, which has been marked by infighting between his nationalist faction and the more moderate influences who have been brought in. In his departure, the nationalists lose their leader while some of Trump’s key campaign promises—the border wall, for example—still go unfulfilled. Bannon famously kept a whiteboard full of those promises in his office, checking them off as they were fulfilled.
I suspect that Bannon will satisfy his love of blood sport and the already dysfunctional Trump administration will be further rocked by incoming fire from Bannon and his white nationalist followers.  That said, the sooner the Trump administration is destroyed and driven from office, the better for America.

2 comments:

Stephen said...

Would Paul Ryan be any better than Pence? I think we need to wait for a new Congress (January 2019)—alas!

Michael-in-Norfolk said...

I very mush dislike Ryan, but at least he is not an avowed Christofascist.