The Patriot Post® · The Knives Are Out for Steve Bannon
Like many other avocations where longevity depends on popularity and who you know, the person who’s on top of the political world one day may find himself likened to the gum scraped off a shoe just weeks later. In February, TIME magazine called President Donald Trump’s chief strategist Steve Bannon “The Great Manipulator,” but in less than two months’ time Bannon reportedly has lost Trump’s ear to son-in-law Jared Kushner. Reports on the “White House civil war” indicate that the battle between Bannon and Kushner seems to be turning in the latter’s favor. Kushner seeming desires to be involved in all facets of government — which in the eyes of political observers is the embrace of a more conventional approach as opposed to the populist agenda Bannon was pushing.
Perhaps a little bit of the anger from Trump is about Bannon stealing the spotlight from him in the initial weeks of his administration, but if you believe the insider pundits like those at the Washington Post, it’s mainly about both re-election and the Trump kids maintaining the “family brand.” “The fundamental assessment is that if they want to win the White House in 2020, they’re not going to do it the way they did in 2016, because the family brand would not sustain the collateral damage,” the Post records one well-connected Republican operative saying — speaking on the condition of anonymity, of course, to discuss the president’s family. “It would be so protectionist, nationalist and backward-looking that they’d only be able to build (Trump hotels) in Oklahoma City or the Ozarks.”
It may be the insistence on keeping the Trump name viable as a business entity that has led the president to gravitate away from his populist pledges. In recent days Trump has pulled back from campaign pledges to brand China as a currency manipulator (for good reason) and to replace Janet Yellen as the head of the Federal Reserve. If you believe Politico’s Josh Dawsey and Ben White, “Executives say they expect the end result [of their newfound influence] to be policies more in line with Wall Street’s way of thinking on immigration, infrastructure and especially trade, where Trump has taken a go-slow approach to tariffs and other punitive measures.”
As one who runs the government like a business, Trump seems less than amused with the distraction of the Kushner vs. Bannon struggle, telling the New York Post, “Steve is a good guy, but I told them to straighten it out or I will.”
While it’s become something of a parlor game to figure out how well each salvo in this internecine Trump administration war has been received, there is a perception being created that his presidency is drifting along in a rudderless fashion. While Trump has succeeded in getting his department heads in place and placing Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, it came at high political cost: Many of his cabinet nominees were only appointed by the bare Republican majority in the Senate, and the Gorsuch confirmation required the so-called “nuclear option” to secure. On the other hand, his first major legislative initiative stalled in the House when conservative members of his party revolted against an unpopular health care proposal they deemed to be too much like the entitlement it was supposed to replace.
That health care fight is a key barometer of where middle America may stand when it comes to Trump’s embracing Wall Street titans while Steve Bannon is thrown under the bus. One of those titans is former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn, who’s now director of Trump’s National Economic Council. Trump’s supporters howled over Ted Cruz’s connections to Goldman Sachs. Surely Cohn’s influence must be alarming.
As for Bannon, he did himself no favors with his tough talk and threats to the conservative House Freedom Caucus, but it can also be convincingly argued that, without Bannon, Trump would be the third Republican White House loser in a row. Bannon kept Trump on his America-first, Main Street populist message long enough to shock a nation by winning the presidency.
Rush Limbaugh echoed this sentiment, noting who has perpetuated this anti-Bannon narrative: “Remember my old adage, the Democrats will always tell us who they fear by trying to take them out. … Believe me, they don’t want to get rid of Bannon ‘cause it’s gonna help Trump. They don’t want to force Bannon out of there 'cause it’s gonna make Trump a better president.”
Put another way, if something bad happens to the Red Team in this political season, those who root for the Blue Team aren’t altruistic enough to hope for a fair result, because for them it’s all about regaining Congress in 2018 and making Trump a one-term president.
Yet it’s because of this Red Team/Blue Team mentality that Americans have grown deeply cynical about the intersection of politics and big business, since those on the axis between our political and financial centers seem to win no matter who has control of the body politic. Trump’s increasing willingness to adopt the policies favored by Wall Street titans is surely worrisome to Trump’s most hardcore populist supporters, and with good reason. We learned last decade that certain entities can receive government bailouts because they are “too big to fail” while thousands of our friends and neighbors lost jobs, businesses and livelihoods because they had much less say in national affairs. If Bannon goes, it’s going to be a victory for those who long for a “conventional” White House to preserve the status quo.
Not even three months ago, the newly inaugurated Donald Trump said:
> For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left, and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.
> Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.
> That all changes — starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment. It belongs to you.
That moment was brought in no small part from the efforts of Steve Bannon and his representation of the millions of voters who shook off their apathy, cynicism and distrust of the system long enough to become Trump supporters. But when you lose the long-ago laid-off Ohio factory worker, the furloughed West Virginia coal miner, or the Wisconsin housewife who saw the effect Scott Walker had on her state and believed Trump could work the same magic on a national scale, then you lose your shot for repeat success. As the old saying goes, you should dance with the one that brought you.