He risks having no base from which to build, no prospect for governance.
In the wake of Stephen Bannon’s firing, it has become almost inconceivable that President Trump can avoid a one-term fate. This isn’t because he sacked Bannon but because of what that action tells us about his leadership. In celebrating Bannon’s dismissal, The Wall Street Journal wrote in an editorial: “Trump can’t govern with a Breitbart coalition. Does he see that?” True enough. But he also can’t govern without the Breitbart constituency—his core constituency—in his coalition. The bigger question is: Does he see that?
It’s beginning to appear that Trump doesn’t see much of anything with precision or clarity when it comes to the fundamental question of how to govern based on how he campaigned. He is merely a battery of impulses, devoid of any philosophical coherence or intellectual consistency.
Indeed, it’s difficult to recall any president of recent memory who was so clearly winging it in the Oval Office. Think of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, both of whom made huge mistakes that cost them the White House. But both knew precisely what they wanted to accomplish and how to go about accomplishing it.
.. Further, that agenda had to give a majority of Americans a sense that
- the economy was sound and growing,
- that unnecessary foreign wars would be avoided,
- that domestic tranquility would prevail,
- that the mass immigration of recent years would be curtailed,
- that the health care mess would be fixed, and that
- infrastructure needs would be addressed.
Consider some of the elements of conventional wisdom that he smashed during the campaign.
- Immigration
- Foreign Policy
- Trade
The important point about these issues is that they all cut across partisan lines. That’s what allowed Trump to forge a nontraditional coalition that provided him a slim margin of victory—but only in the Electoral College. His challenge was to turn this electoral coalition into a governing one.
.. What we see in these defeats and stalled initiatives is an incapacity on the part of the president to nudge and herd legislators, to mold voter sentiment into waves of political energy, to fashion a dialectic of political action, or to offer a coherent vision of the state of the country and where he wishes to take it. Everything is ad hoc. No major action seems related to any other action. In a job that calls for a political chess master, Trump displays hardly sufficient skills and attentiveness for a game of political checkers.
.. It’s telling, but not surprising, that Trump couldn’t manage his White House staff in such a way as to maintain a secure place on the team for the man most responsible for charting his path to the White House. This isn’t to say that Bannon should have been given outsized influence within West Wing councils, merely that his voice needed to be heard and his connection to Trump’s core constituency respected.
But that’s not the way Trump operates—another sign of a man who, over his head at the top of the global power structure, is winging it.
Bannon’s departure has huge implications for the U.S.-China relationship
“Bannon’s particular unique idea was that this is a civilizational challenge,” said Michael Pillsbury, who met with Bannon regularly on China over the past year. “His warning is, if they surpass us, they will have earned the privilege of redesigning the world order.”
.. Bannon believes the United States needs a long-term strategy for maintaining advantage over China similar to what Marshall helped devise for the Soviet Union, while acknowledging that the China challenge is much harder.
.. Behind the scenes, Bannon had been busily operationalizing his plan to win the economic war with China. He spent 50 percent of his time on China, he liked to tell colleagues. Several of his China agenda items will continue to have advocates, including National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
.. he was opposed by other top officials, including National Economic Director Gary Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
.. The Chinese government has also cultivated close ties with Jared Kushner and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, with the help of former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
.. The Kushner-Kissinger view holds that the U.S.-China relationship is too complex and important to risk throwing into disarray. They advocate cooperation over confrontation and integration over isolation. China shares that view and wants to set forth a new model of great power relations based on mutual respect and noninterference.
In Bannon’s view, the liberal international order the United States led since World War II has ceased to work in America’s interests. The theory that bringing China into that structure would transform China has failed and now the Chinese government abuses those systems to siphon huge amounts of wealth, technology and know-how from the United States and its partners, he believes.
He also sees a new China policy as a pillar of his plan to reorient American politics around economic nationalism. He views the rebalancing of the U.S.-China economic relationship as key to returning manufacturing jobs to the United States and vice-versa.
.. One of Bannon’s final acts before leaving the administration was to announce in an interview that to him, “the economic war with China is everything.” He argued the United States must marshal all elements of national power to confront China in various spheres or yield world hegemony.
“Bannon’s particular unique idea was that this is a civilizational challenge,” said Michael Pillsbury, who met with Bannon regularly on China over the past year. “His warning is, if they surpass us, they will have earned the privilege of redesigning the world order.”
Bannon: ‘No administration in history has been so divided’
Aug. 20 (UPI) — Steve Bannon, who left his job as U.S. President Donald Trump’s chief strategist Friday, says “no administration in history has been so divided among itself.”
In an interview with The Washington Post Saturday, Bannon said, “If the Republican Party on Capitol Hill gets behind the president on his plans and not theirs, it will all be sweetness and light, be one big happy family.”
But he also said he doesn’t expect some Republican leaders to suddenly back Trump’s plans for taxes, trade and a border wall.
“No administration in history has been so divided among itself about the direction about where it should go,” Bannon said.
Report: Ivanka Trump Helped Push Steve Bannon out of the White House
A Daily Mail report cites sources giving Ivanka Trump credit for forcing Steve Bannon out of the White House.
The article references “Washington sources” that Trump’s daughter Ivanka pushed out Bannon because of his “far-right views” clashing with her Jewish faith.
Bannon’s departure, the Daily Mail reports, was “done to save the Presidency,” according to a source close to Ivanka Trump, claiming that Bannon leaving “changes everything” with the Trump presidency.
But according to a report from Axios reporter Jonathan Swan, Bannon had not “meaningfully advised the president about his response to Charlottesville,” although the pair spoke on the phone over the weekend.
.. Bannon also decried the white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and KKK members as “losers … a fringe element” that needed to be “crushed” during an interview with The American Prospect.
“These guys are a collection of clowns,” Bannon added, blaming the media for raising their profile.