Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Bannon Out of White House, Back at Breitbart

Stephen Bannon left the White House on Friday. The former chief strategist wasted no time in securing a new position. He is back at his old job of executive chairman of Breitbart News, the crypto-fascist website. He lost a power struggle with General John Kelly, the new White House Chief of Staff, and the administration and Mr. Bannon have papered over the split. It will not, however, last. Make no mistake, he will use his position to attack the establishment Republicans at every opportunity.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, issued a statement on Friday that read in part, "White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve's last day. We are grateful for his service and wish him the best."

However, the New York Times noted, "Conservatives groused that they lost a key advocate inside the White House and worried aloud that Mr. Trump would shift left, while cheers erupted on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange when headlines about Mr. Bannon's ouster appeared. Both the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index and the Dow Jones industrial average immediately rose, though they ended the day slightly down."

Mr. Bannon, himself, told the Weekly Standard, "The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over. We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over. It'll be something else. And there'll be all kinds of fights, and there'll be good days and bad days, but that presidency is over."

He also said on Friday, "In many ways I think I can be more effective fighting from the outside for the agenda President Trump ran on. And anyone who stands in our way, we will go to war with."

Taken together, his comments sound positively medieval. "Our great, benevolent and good king is surrounded by evil advisers, and all our suffering is because of them. If only His Majesty knew . . . ."

The truth is a bit different. Mr. Trump has no real ideological foundation in what passes for his thinking. He is an almost empty vessel, although he does have reactionary instincts. Even his supporters say that he is often swayed by the last person with whom he spoke. The removal of Mr. Bannon from earshot means that his economic (white) nationalist point of view has been downgraded in the White House.

As the administration works to pass necessary legislation like the debt ceiling increase and the appropriations needed to run the government, Mr. Bannon will be leading the opposition on the right. Whatever the White House does will never be strong enough, right-wing enough to suit. Mr. Bannon knows that the most fun one can have in politics is being in helpless opposition. One can make whatever promises one wants because one will never be called to account for it. That's why the Republicans could repeal Obamacare 60+ times while Mr. Obama was in office with a veto pen at the ready, and now, they can't do it even once.

The Republican Party is fragmenting as this journal has said for years. The constituent parts of the Reagan coalition now have less in common than they did in the 1980s. The political equivalent of centrifugal force is kicking in. Mr. Bannon and his crew had their hands on the levers of power for a few months. After his departure from the White House, Mr. Bannon said, "Now I'm free. I've got my hands back on my weapons." The Republicans are now the party of the circular firing squad.

© Copyright 2017 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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