By Jennifer Rubin
August 20, 2017
Hours after his departure from the White
House was announced, Stephen K. Bannon gave a crazed interview to the Weekly Standard, sounding more like a B
movie actor in a gangster movie than an ex-White House adviser or media baron.
“The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” he said. “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.” Then it got really weird. “I
feel jacked up,” he declared. “Now I’m free. I’ve got my hands back on my
weapons. Someone said, ‘it’s Bannon the Barbarian.’ I am definitely going to
crush the opposition. There’s no doubt. I built a f***ing machine at Breitbart.
And now I’m about to go back, knowing what I know, and we’re about to rev that
machine up. And rev it up we will do.” The mixture of grandiosity,
irrationality and aggressiveness is stunning, a reminder that many people who
reached the White House this year never should have been in positions of power.
Looking
ahead, Bannon may prove more destructive to Republicans and helpful to
Democrats than he could ever have been inside the White House. Granted, at the
White House he leaked and backstabbed, but he was not at liberty to say
publicly whatever nutty idea or nasty attack came into his head (at least not
until last week, when he freely popped off to whomever would listen). There are
no less than six serious worries that should plague President Trump and
Republicans.
First,
the shotgun marriage of Breitbart’s white nationalism and traditional
Republican policy and sensibilities will be under severe strain. Some from
Trump’s base may side with Breitbart and Bannon, looking at the president as a
sellout. Others will take their fury out on the GOP House and Senate, trying to
dislodge them in primaries or simply stay home in November 2018. Trump’s base
was already shrinking (although he denied it) before this; now it may be
subdivided even further. Given how unpalatable Trump is to Democrats and
independents, he’ll now be left with Republicans — but only those not alienated
before (#NeverTrumpers) or turned off by the post-Bannon White House. Neither
Trump nor the GOP majorities can survive with only a fraction of a minority
party.
Second, we do not know what Bannon knows
about the Russia scandal. It is not known if he is the source of leaks
regarding Jared Kushner’s meetings with Russians, but Bannon certainly would
have every incentive to share with prosecutors and congressional committees
whatever he knows. As Rosie Gray at the Atlantic wrote, “Two
sources close to Bannon said that he has for some time complained about Kushner
being an issue in the Russia investigation; one of the sources said Bannon
regards Kushner as ‘the weak link’ in the White House when it comes to the
investigation. Bannon’s animus towards the ‘globalists’ in the
administration is well known. Now, from the outside, he no longer has any
reason to play nice.”
Third,
while Bannon’s xenophobic, isolationist and nativist brand of populism may have
limited appeal, he certainly knows that the ossified right-wing agenda (tax
cuts for the rich, cuts to entitlements) is even less popular. In this battle
against the right wing he’ll be able to make common cause with Democrats to
oppose what remains of the GOP’s agenda, especially tax reform. Breitbart and
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) may sound an awful lot alike when it comes to
the power of the big banks, trade, corporate welfare and the Goldman
Sachs-dominated Cabinet. The Trump coalition that elected him, already frayed,
may be pulled apart at the seams. This points to an uncomfortable truth
for Republicans: Neither the Bannon-Trump mishmash of populism nor the
right-wing leftovers from the 1980s are a viable approach for a national party
in 2017. If Democrats can resist the pull too far to their left, they will have
a vast expanse from center left to center right from which to pick up votes in
the midterms.
Fourth, Bannon has told biographer Joshua Green he
is “going to war for Trump against his opponents — on Capitol Hill,
in the media, and in corporate America.” That certainly includes his old
nemeses within the administration. While Bannon might
argue that Trump’s pro-business allies are leading him astray or betraying
populism, that is hard to do over a sustained period of time without suggesting
the president is weak or easily duped. At some point Trump will invariably fail
to follow the Bannon-Breitbart line (e.g. by seeking big tax cuts for the
rich). Will he then be branded as an apostate? Inevitably this kind of “help”
from outside true believers becomes a critique of a fallen leader.
Fifth, if
the Russia investigation does turn up damaging information on the president or
his inner circle, Bannon may very well seek to separate himself entirely from
Trump, taking the populist base with him and quietly or not so quietly pushing
impeachment fever along. One could imagine a sizable bipartisan majority (every
Democrat, disgusted mainstream Republicans, GOP opportunists courting the
Bannon base) in the House and Senate feeling sufficiently liberated politically
to undertake impeachment and/or to push for Trump’s resignation. Without Bannon
and the host of misfits (Sean Spicer, Anthony Scaramucci, Michael Flynn, Reince
Priebus) in the West Wing, the “only” thing standing between Republicans and a
normal presidency is Trump. That’s plenty of incentive, especially if Trump’s
polling is near the 30 percent mark, for Republicans to dump Trump.
Sixth,
does anyone really believe Trump will be a two-term president? Perhaps he limps
through until the midterms in 2018. He mightsurvive potential indictment and
impeachment, and duck demands (from Congress or the special prosecutor) to
reveal financial information he desperately wants to keep under wraps.
Nevertheless, his political apparatus and his coalition have disintegrated,
business leaders are abandoning him, and he has become a social pariah (as
Kennedy Center Honorees’ boycott of the awards forced him to stay away and
charities cancel events at his hotel). If he keeps this up he’ll be hit where
he is most vulnerable — in the wallet. Meanwhile, looking to 2020, mainstream
Republicans who deluded themselves in 2016 will not be able to convince
themselves that Trump is good for their causes or for the country. Why
would he even risk a humiliating defeat (or victory, sentencing him to four
more years of scrutiny) in 2020? In essence Trump is looking more and more like
a lame duck (in the first year of his presidency!), someone whose weakness
invites challengers within his own party, third-party rivals and congressional
resistance (already high) to his agenda.
In sum,
Bannon’s departure has the capacity to accelerate the centrifugal forces in the
GOP, erode Trump’s base, deprive him of political support to ward off the
Russia investigators and ultimately guarantee that at
most he’ll be a
one-term president.
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