Steve Bannon did not publish a thousand insane bits of racist bullshit and take off his flip-flops just to get treated like he wasn’t the secret ruler of the universe, dammit. Sure, the first 100 days of the new Reich have showcased exactly no big legislative wins, but that’s not important. There have been executive orders to sign. Departments to disorganize. Offices to deoperationalate … deoperatationinize … deoper … to make work bad.
Just look at all he’s accomplished in such a short time. The executive branch is effectively non-functional, the do-nothing Congress doing less than ever, and every autocrat out there who ever chaffed at US leadership has determined that this is Get Away With Anything Free time. For the modern radical right anarchist, that’s what winning looks like.
No one even seems to appreciate how helpful it was for America’s Real President to use his media assets to attack the speaker of the House in the middle of delicate negotiations. The failure to recognize the fruits of Bannon’s genius is not going down well with Trump’s brain.
The man credited with honing Donald Trump’s populist message and guiding him into the White House has grown frustrated amid continued infighting in the West Wing, so much so that in recent weeks a top donor had to convince him to stay in his position.
And that was before this Kushner coup, or Coup-shner, removed Bannon from his proper role on the NSC as that guy who pushes the little model ships and planes around with a long stick. Now he’s really upset. So much so, that if he doesn’t get to break something else soon, he just might decide to quit.
For his part, Bannon is still showing no signs that he’s willing to be sidelined within the West Wing. On the contrary, the former media executive threatened to quit earlier this week if he was removed from his seat on the NSC, according to multiple reports.
The fight between Bannon and Kusher is like a magic marker line down the center of Trump’s brain. On the one side are the forces that want to kick over all the sandcastles, simply because destruction is fun, chaos is cool, and hey … look at all the little ants scurry! On the other side is team Profit.
From the beginning, Bannon’s take-no-prisoners style of populism and his openly stated desire to “deconstruct the administrative state” have clashed with Kushner’s more technocratic approach to government.
For awhile, both these ideas lived together easily enough. After all, turning a vital government function into wood pulp is just the flip side of creating opportunities for some private group to step in and do that thing government used to do—at a price. Team tear-it-down and Team sell-it-off could, and already have, join together for a lot of destruction in a hurry.
Only these two teams have an inherent disconnect when it comes to the big, orange spider-toddler at the center of the web. One team can hand over nice little checks filled with sweet, sweet dollar signs. The other team can only respond by holding up placards showing widespread public love, or if not love, at least grudging admiration, or if not grudging admiration, some good old-fashioned fear.
One of these teams has been under-performing. And it’s not the profit guys.
Kushner reportedly told colleagues recently that Bannon’s nationalist agenda was hurting Trump. He was also concerned that the former executive chairman of the far-right Breitbart News brought out some of Trump’s worst qualities.
Even Rasmussen’s poll, which is apparently conducted only at Trump rallies, can’t disguise the steep dip in support. Plus, Bannon has been unable to come up with a distraction on the Russia front that’s good for more than a week. Meanwhile, Kushner keeps Trump centered on what his team views as important—making the rubes lie down so they can be more effectively fleeced.
At the moment, Bannon is unwilling to leave the palace. Mostly because Trump’s major funders are paying him to stay put.
Republican mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, a longtime Bannon confidante who became a prominent Trump supporter during the campaign, urged Bannon not to resign. “Rebekah Mercer prevailed upon him to stay,” said one person familiar with the situation.
It’s not clear how many zeros Mercer used to spell “urged,” but for the moment Bannon continues to sit in his Way Better Than That Stupid Oval Office and plot his revenge.
For how long? Watch the Breitbart headlines to see how many darts he throws at the guy in the office next door.