Posted on 01/06/2018 4:36:13 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
President Donald Trump's official statement about Steve Bannon -- the lack of exclamation points made it seem as if it might not be 100 percent his own words - is welcome. The president distanced himself from his former aide and included this dig: "We have many great Republican members of Congress and candidates who are very supportive of the Make America Great Again agenda. Like me, they love the United States of America and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down."
The "burn it down" temper was Bannon's calling card. He described himself to Ron Radosh as a "Leninist." Once upon a time, that was the sort of thing Republicans despised, but never mind. He famously boasted of making Breibart the platform for the alt-right, and he seemed to relish chaos and disruption for its own sake. Roy Moore's appeal was purely as an arsonist. If you can believe the new Michael Wolff book (and there are reasons to take it with a few grains of salt), it was Bannon's idea to issue the original travel ban on a Friday evening -- to cause maximum confusion and, in Bannon's words, "so the snowflakes would show up at the airports and riot." As for the other pond scum Bannon has promoted -- Paul Nehlen and Milo Yiannopoulos, among others -- they have a funny habit of sounding like fascists.
Bannon imagined himself as the grand strategist of populism and scourge of the "deep state." His run as Trotsky lasted for 18 months, from August 2016, when Trump named him chief executive to his campaign, until Wednesday, when Bannon was declared a non-entity. He's fortunate that the real Lenin doesn't call the shots here or his fall would have been a bit more unpleasant.
Bannon's exile from Trump's trusted circle is encouraging, but there are many reasons to keep the champagne corked.
First, as Erick Erickson points out, Trump has a long history of anathematizing people only to welcome them back when they flatter him.
Second, to imagine that Bannon's estrangement means the nationalist, protectionist strain of Trumpism is vanquished is dubious. Trump has few consistent beliefs, but he does seem to have been banging the protectionist drum for decades. Even in the 1980s, Trump was convinced that Japan was eating our lunch. Perhaps that won't result in tearing up any actual trade agreements (other than the Trans-Pacific Partnership), but Bannon was hardly the only protectionist voice in the administration. Nor should we imagine that without Bannon's advice, episodes like Charlottesville are less likely. Trump has an itchy Twitter finger for ethnic/racial/sexual controversy, and as long as it jazzes his base, he'll keep it up.
Third, Trump's reasons for dumping Bannon have nothing to do with Bannon's rottenness. It isn't as if Trump woke up yesterday and realized that Bannon's efforts to primary every sitting Republican senator (save Ted Cruz) would be harmful to the party and the country. Nor did he watch Bannon defend a child molester and conclude, "OK, now he's really gone off the deep end." That would have been the moment to say, as he only said yesterday, that when Bannon was fired, "he not only lost his job, he lost his mind." No, even after the abuse accusations against Moore (which Breitbart's editor admitted post hoc were "credible"), Trump took Bannon's advice and endorsed Moore, dragging the Republican National Committee after him.
Trump's anger at Bannon is -- surprise! -- purely personal. He dissed the princess ("dumb as a brick") and the prince ('treasonous").
Even in his fury, President Trump did not so much rebut the accusations (and this is not meant as an endorsement of anything in Wolff's book) as shoot the messenger. Again, the president didn't say, "What an outrageous and false thing to say!" Instead, he took aim at Bannon for not being a winner. "Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating 17 candidates. ... Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn't as easy as I make it look." Perhaps not, but Trump fails to grapple with the fact that winning isn't a moral measure. Steve Bannon would not have been less objectionable if Moore had won.
Bannon did claim to be the Svengali responsible for Trump's victory, and that clearly irritated the president, but Bannon's unseemly self-promotion is the very least of his sins. His influence on the conservative movement has been morally putrid. And it was so long before he unburdened himself to Michael Wolff.
We sure do.
I posted here repeatedly a year ago that Trump had six months to decide whether or not to dispose of the GOP and bulldoze a path for MAGApedes to run for 435 House seats and 34 Senate seats in 2018.
Obviously, he's had a lot on his mind, but he's clearly decided to throw his lot in with the Republican scum. Perhaps he thinks a new movement will arise on its own. Perhaps a 70-year old man can't envision being a wrecking ball.
Anyway, the most we can hope for now is an infusion of MAGA from the GOP nominating process for the Fall.
All of these Bannon haters have to realize that there may be a feud going on between him and Trump but they are still marching in the same direction.
Where did they go?? I have not seen one newspaper report nor anything on the boob tub.
The ONLY thing that happened around here was over in Anniston, Alabama. Their newsrag is the Anniston Star. It has LOOOOONNNNNGGGGGG been called the Anniston RED Star. The mob that runs it is the Ayers family. They are as leftist as can be. Stalin is a conservative compared to that Obama, Klinton butt kissing mob. Headlines there this past week or so is that the Ahole from that family that runs the paper, who is probably in his late 70s, early 80s, a REAL leftist, so slimy that he leaves a slime trail anywhere he walks, was charged by two former newspaper female employees with assault, one where he grabbed one and pulled her down over his lap and spanked!!!! her for what he said was misconduct. There was a former male employee who witnessed one of the assaults and spoke up about it when it broke open. He admitted doing it and said he would not resign.
Well, the pressure must have got pretty bad because yesterday he hung up his blood dripping, hate for anything America, Alabama, conservative, Christian, gun owners, hate pen. He is Mr. Love Illegals, Mr. Love bringing in muzzies, Mr. LEFT, resigned. Always wrote obammy was the greatest president that ever lived, always slammed Reagan even after he died. He is so left, that he some years back sold the paper to the NY Slimes, to get money to run the rag.
The only newspaper that I know of that calls me two or three times a week wanting to know if I will take the rag if they give me like 2 of the six days they print, free, stuff like that. They don't print one day to try to save money. The place bleeds money. I don't know how they keep the doors open. Go to some stores, grocery type on a Sunday and you might find one of their begger employees trying to give away the paper. One day when we were about to leave home, this guy drives up, gets out, walks up to me and introduces himself as the head of the circulation department of the Red Star. He said he has a great deal for me if I want the paper. Said I could have first two weeks free for each of three months if I would take the paper!!! Two of four weeks free, then I'd get deals as the subscription went along. I told him NO THANKS, that as long as Ayers and that leftist mob run the paper, he could not give me four weeks free. I told him I did not have any birds or cats to line their dump boxes with, thus I had no need for the rag. I told him my mother got that paper as far back as the 1950s and my mom was no kind of radical one way or the other, and finally she stopped taking it becaue of all the leftist op eds, leftis supporting, Christian, America, military, BS banging in it. Nope, didn't want the rag. IT IS GO DANGED GREAT THIS SLIME BALL IS GONE!! Though, I see no change down there. Someone in his slime ball crime family still runs the mob.
So Roy Moore is a child molester? Where’s the proof, Mona?
This is an excellent suggestion!:
Why doesn’t Steve Bannon start a website called Bannon.com, and prove to everybody how smart he is?
I’m sure all the best writers and web videographers will flock to it.
Or not.
But at least he won’t be riding to fame and glory on another man’s name, (for once).
Bannon wants to get rid of Mitch, Trump doesn’t.
We can’t get recess appointments because Mitch won’t allow.
We can’t get complete Obamacare repeal, Mitch brought McCain back for the negative deciding vote.
Mitch won’t change the 60 vote rule so we have to use reconcilliation.
Its Bannon who is pushing for the wall not Chamber of Commerce GOPE like Mitch, he would vote for DACA Bannon is against it.
At least Bannon deserves to be heard from, just because Wolff says Bannon says something doesn’t mean its true of not out of context. Bannon did help Trump get elected, I know I worked for the campaign, and he boosted the Conservative turnout, and Breitbart positive coverage is part of the reason Trump beat the MSM.
Give Sloppy Steve his day in court.
Less is not more. More is more. I am worried that the deplorables will be cut out of representation in the party, once again.
Bannon was, I-I just can’t even describe what Bannon was for having trusted Wolff. If the man aspired to higher office, this event that has just transpired should disabuse him of any notion that he should do so.
The thing is, though, that he is still one of ours, and one of the few who, along with Sessions, takes economic nationalism and the concept of borders, seriously.
The GOPe seems to once again be trying to pivot away from the interests of the very people who put them in office and they are going to try to drag Trump along with them. That is just a plain and simple fact. You know it, you’ve seen this how many times before??
People are not perfect. Sometimes they are downright stupid. We need a mechanism for calling people on their crap and coming to an agreement about what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behavior instead of simply instituting a circular firing squad when they p*ss off the wrong person.
The way people are talking you would think that Bannon co-wrote the book instead of being screwed over by it, and certainly the knives are out for this guy. The GOPe glee at all of this is a little hard to stomach.
Great actors
The RINOs and never Trumpers still despise Bannon so he can’t be all bad.
Anybody can want anything. What matters is a person’s ability to advance their cause. Trump is advancing his MAGA agenda, and Bannon has needlessly and traitorously undercut him with the access and quotes he gave to Wolff. Bannon can be against McConnell all he wants to be, but the results of his disloyal actions have strengthened McConnell’s hand.
Bannon and Trump are heading in the same direction. I hope this feud ends soon and they can make nicey nicey.
Given the choice of Bannon and Company v. Mona and Company, I’d take Bannon any day.
Mona is the female Billy Kristol.
Is there a reason we should be reading the female version of Bill Kristol? Another one who thinks only enervated, well-bred, weak-kneed, wishy-washy neocons should be president.
You forgot "easily manipulated".
Has public safety gotten visibly worse since Warren has been re-elected?
It’s amazing how many people have been outed as fools and Beltway swamp creatures since this election.
Agree with that. President Trump speaks to the Repugnantans that support the MAGA agenda and him in Congress. Hell, you can count them on all your digits out of the 500+ that are there. Not good odds.
I think maybe President Trump and Bannon are playing some more of that 3D chess everyone talks about. Bannon is loose to kick some butt outside on the MSM and now being on the outs with PDJT, he may be able to hear some things.
No, it’s fine.
Mona is a NeverTrumper who participated in the National Review’s Never Trump issue.
She - and EVERY ONE who participated - should be banned from FR.
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