Chief White House strategist Steve Bannon has been fired — or as close to it as anyone in Washington gets. In other words, he will not be employed in the Trump administration anymore. And I’m sure that a lot of people are happy about this — especially liberals like myself. But I don’t much care — largely because it doesn’t much matter.
The truth of the matter is that Steve Bannon didn’t have much power in the White House. But who does? Watching what went on regarding the Charlottesville, Virginia Protest this last week shows this. On Saturday, Trump came out with a statement that cast blame widely. Trump condemned violence “on many sides.” He notably did not call out the neo-Nazis, KKK, and other white supremacists.
His advisers were very concerned about this, so they got him to read a prepared statement on Monday that mollified most people, even though even it was offensive. But Trump can only act like an adult for so long, and on Tuesday, he said things that made his remarks on Saturday look like something Abraham Lincoln said.
Trump Doesn’t Listen to His Advisers
Trump is immune to his advisers. The only thing that seems to affect what Trump thinks is Fox News. In fact, some reporting suggests that his advisers try to get on the racist fear-mongering network just so they can get his attention. So it doesn’t much matter who walks the halls of the White House.
That’s probably more true of Steve Bannon than anyone. Bannon is a vile person. But he had a number of ideas that were good. For example, he wanted Trump to propose a trillion dollar infrastructure bill. And Bannon wanted Trump to raise taxes on the rich. Sure: Bannon only cared about white people. But he did care about them. He wanted to help the white working class. And the truth is that infrastructure spending and taxing the rich would have helped the poor and middle classes of all races.
Steve Bannon Had Some Good Ideas
So Steve Bannon was a nationalist. But he offered both the good and the bad sides of that ideology. Trump, of course, only followed one half of Bannon’s ideology. And that was the bad side of it. So we got all the racism. We got all the belligerent talk. But there was nothing to offset it. The rest of it was the standard Republican platform: take from the poor and give to rich. Pollute on the poor to make the rich richer. Basically: do anything that will further enrich the rich.
What I find remarkable is that Steve Bannon is seen as worse than Trump. The only way you can think that is if you think the rich don’t have it good enough in this country. Steve Bannon actually offers beliefs that compensate for his vile nationalism and bigotry.
Trump Is Worse Than Bannon
It says a lot about our country that the mainstream press take it as a given that economic populism is bad. Note: economic populism is popular. Yet we all put up with a press consisting of upper class reporters pushing an upper class agenda.
I would take a Steve Bannon presidency before a Donald Trump presidency any day. This should be conventional wisdom. But sadly, if Donald Trump were more like Bannon — that is to say: less horrible — he probably wouldn’t have become president.
My fellow Americans: will you ever wake up?
I’m torn. As Taibbi put it: “The intellectual leader of the alt-right movement is no genius – nobody with his political views could be – but neither is he an idiot. He’s one of the few people in that White House with even a primitive grasp of long-term strategy.”
Since he was one of the few administration officials capable of tying shoes without a YouTube instructional video, I’m glad he’s out. I don’t want this administration to succeed at any of its horrid agendas. OTOH, since his agenda was both less and more catastrophic (depending on the issue) than what the rest of these dim-witted gargoyles are up to, his presence probably helped keep the White House an unholy infighting mess.
Bannon’s a grimly fascinating character, like something from Bibeau’s book. (Although in that book he was not the Bannon we know, for satiric purposes.) Most Republican operatives seem to have no convictions at all. Bannon, while being an utter soulless monster, does appear to have vividly grim beliefs on how the world should be run. He’s a little Ayn Rand-y in that way.
Yes, Bannon was wonderful in Paul’s book. He was kind of a natural food guy. I love that image. If only he would now go on to do that. Instead, I assume he will go back to Breitbart. And I expect that it is going to be pretty hard on the White House.
I don’t think the White House will change because Trump is Trump. If Bannon had any power, then Trump would have been different. At very least, Trump would have gotten behind his tax reform idea. Because it wasn’t actually that great. It would have raised taxes on the super rich but lowered them on the simply rich. But it would have been good politics. Of course, it would have raised taxes on Trump, and he would never allow that.
Yes…and no. For all that Bannon talked the talk his chances of getting any of that populism past the Gilded Age lickspittles in the Freedum Kaukus were utterly nil. So he would have to concentrate on the “bad” parts of his Nazism to keep the base CHUDs happy. And he’s more organized and focused the Orange Foolius, so he would have been more effective.
I do agree that the celebration for his defenestration is ridiculous. This is still a Trump Administration and a GOP-controlled government, so all this “let’s party like it’s 1899” horror show shit will go on. It’s quite unfortunate that the social and political structure of the U.S. is hardwired so that the comfortable suburban and rural white people who put the Trump\GOP turd in the nation’s pocket are guaranteed to sail effortlessly past the hardship and misery their boys will visit on as many of Those People as they can. Would that these sonsofbitches could get it good and hard as they deserve. Perhaps then the idiot “conservative” voters would be forced to realize the consequences of electing deliberately ignorant racist feudalists.
But the U.S. was designed by racist oligarchs; favoring rich white guys is kinda baked into our system. I mean…the liberty and justice for all thing is nice. But tell me with a straight face the Madison and Jefferson and Washington would have included darkies and wimmens and smelly poors in that “all”? Wouldn’t bet all the money in my pocket on that. The advances the U.S. has made from being a Rich White Boy club have always been viciously contested and, wherever possible, reversed. There’s never been a penalty – a serious, change-my-beliefs kind of penalty – for being an asshole to out groups in this country. At worst you might have to live with pressing 1 for English, or sit next to some grubby prole in public.
So Bannon,Trump? Machts nichts. The GOP is the Party of Stooging For Plutocrats. Bannon was never actually going to change that, regardless of what he claimed.
I agree. I do think that Bannon is better than Trump. But that says very little. I’m just making a broader point about populism. The truth is, I don’t trust people like Bannon. It’s the same for libertarians. Sure: there are a number of things they believe that I agree with. But when it comes down to it, the things that they believe in most strongly — the things they will fight the hardest for — are the things I hate. With libertarians it is always that they believe in ending the Drug War, but 99 percent of their effort is put toward reducing taxes on the rich. In Bannon’s case, I don’t doubt that he believes in a big infrastructure bill, but banning Muslims from this country is what he’s really focused on.
“Charleston, Virginia”
Charlottesville, please. Charleston’s racial terrorism was two years ago.
Ugh. Sorry!
I’ve pimped the aged, wise “Toronto Star” columnist Rick Salutin before. I cannot praise his column this week highly enough:
“All people who strive for high political office are probably somewhat crazy. If you were well-adjusted, why would you want that much power? And humans are generally weird: instinct-based mammals who wear clothes, believe their reason is dominant etc.”
Yep.
Absolutely. I’m a nervous wreck with the power I have. I couldn’t deal with more. And I wouldn’t want more. Unless you are a sociopath, more power means more responsibility. I’m not that certain about anything.
Why didn’t you provide a link?
Oh, sure: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2017/08/24/what-a-relief-donald-trump-is-merely-crazy-salutin.html
I didn’t provide it because I didn’t know if you’d like it. I don’t always agree with Mr. Salutin. Yet I always respect him. Anybody his age, who’s been in journalism that long, who can still be optimistic about the future, is worth taking seriously. If some 22-year-old tells me young voters are gonna change the world, eh, I’m not so sure. If an old journalist who’s never gotten Friedman money says it, I listen.