Bannon Banned

BANNON OUT AT WHITE HOUSE

“Dance with the one that brung ya,” is always good advice in politics. Elected officials must represent the people who elected them, and the guy whose mission it was to speak for those people inside the Trump White House was Steve Bannon. It was Bannon’s self-chosen task to fight what he called “the Deep State,” the entrenched political interests in Washington opposed to any fundamental change in U.S. policy. Bannon understood, better than almost anyone in D.C., that the kind of voters who made the difference for Trump in last year’s election — swinging formerly “blue” states like Pennsylvania and Michigan into the GOP column for the first time in nearly 30 years — wanted a drastic change to the status quo. Bannon spoke of “economic nationalism” as the basis of Trump’s appeal to disaffected white working-class voters, and he understood that the liberal media — determined to defend the bipartisan globalist/welfare-state policy agenda — would wage an all-out war against the Trump administration. It was therefore perhaps inevitable that Bannon would become a casualty in that war:

Steve Bannon, President Trump’s chief strategist, will leave his position at the White House after eight months on the job, the White House said on Friday.
The announcement came on his last day in the administration, the White House noted, announcing that Trump and chief of staff John Kelly had jointly arrived at the decision. They decided his last day would be today, according to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.
Bannon’s exit will cap off a period of upheaval for the West Wing that has already seen the ouster of Trump’s chief of staff, press secretary, communications director, and several national security staffers.
As the former head of Breitbart, a fiery news outlet, Bannon had long drawn the ire of Democrats who viewed him as sympathetic to the “alt-right” movement. Calls for his resignation grew louder in the wake of racially motivated violence in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend.
Kelly, who took over from Reince Priebus last month, bristled at Bannon’s unorthodox style from the beginning, sources familiar with the situation have said. Kelly suspected Bannon was responsible for a series of negative stories about national security adviser H.R. McMaster, with whom Bannon had feuded over ideological differences.
Those sources have also said Bannon’s position as chief strategist came with an ill-defined portfolio that likely left his job duties unclear to Kelly.

Reports are that Bannon will return to Breitbart.com and “go ‘thermonuclear’ against ‘globalists’ that Bannon and his friends believe are ruining the Trump administration, and by extension, America.” This is good news, insofar as Bannon will be more effective outside the White House than inside an administration where he had reportedly been “marginalized” by his enemies, but it is a bad omen for Trump’s prospects of keeping his promise to “Make America Great Again.”

The media’s smear against Bannon as a proponent of “white supremacy” or “white nationalism” is easily refuted. David Horowitz mourned Bannon’s departure from the White House as a “sad day” and, if you know anything about Horowitz, you know how much he loathes racism.

Hmmm . . .