Democracy in America | Bannon fodder

Steve Bannon is ousted as the president’s chief strategist

He may yet prove more effective outside the White House

By J.F. | WASHINGTON, DC

THE statement was short and bland: “White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day. We are grateful for his service and wish him the best.” As with most such statements, this one concealed more than it revealed. According to President Donald Trump, there was nothing mutual about the separation: he had decided to remove his nationalist chief strategist. Mr Bannon’s camp insisted that in fact their man had resigned 11 days ago and that the events of Charlottesville had delayed the announcement. Signs that the relationship between the two men was not as harmonious as it used to be had emerged on Tuesday, when the strongest defence of Mr Bannon that Mr Trump could muster was to call him a “friend”, and “not a racist”, but warned that “we’ll see what happens with Mr Bannon.”

Of all the senior aides who have left Mr Trump’s White House over the past few weeks, this was the most surprising. Sean Spicer and Reince Priebus were creatures of the Republican National Committee: their loyalty was to a political party rather than to Mr Trump himself, which in Trumpworld made them suspect. Anthony Scaramucci was loyal to Mr Trump but bad at his job: he lasted, as he put it on a recent late-night appearance, about as long as a carton of milk.

Mr Bannon is a different creature entirely. Before joining Mr Trump’s campaign last August, he ran Breitbart, a right-wing news site that he proudly called “the platform for the alt-right”. His sharp-edged nationalism and hostility toward what he calls “the permanent political class” defined Mr Trump’s campaign and his presidency. He loves to needle liberals and is very good at it. “Darkness is good,” enthused Mr Bannon soon after Mr Trump’s election elevated him to his position as the president’s chief strategist. “Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power.”

His time at the White House was not smooth. He clashed with what he called “globalists” in the administration, which seemed to encompass all those who did not share his yearning to limit legal immigration and his belief that the West was under siege. Negative stories about H.R. McMaster, the national security advisor who booted Mr Bannon from the national security council’s principals committee, began to appear on Breitbart. He had no shortage of internal enemies: one unnamed official told Politico, “No one liked him. People didn't know what he did other than stab his colleagues in the back.” Though Mr Bannon entered government vowing to turn the Republicans into the party of the working and middle classes, he and his boss have no signature policy achievements after eight months in office. Instead, Mr Bannon proved adroit at making enemies. Many—particularly on the left—will be glad to see him go.

Precisely why he left remains a mystery. But there seem to be two likely reasons. The first possibility is that he committed the same crime as Mr Scaramucci: hogging headlines. Early in his presidency Mr Trump was said to be incensed at the raft of stories and images depicting Mr Bannon as the power behind the throne. Mr Bannon assumed a lower profile. He managed to survive the palace coup that ousted Messrs Spicer, Priebus and Scaramucci. Recently, however, he gave a bizarre interview to a lefty outlet, the American Prospect, in which he called the far-right “clowns”, urged Democrats to keep harping on about “race and identity” and mused over whom he was trying to oust and which colleagues he disliked. Perhaps most damagingly, he said in the interview that “there’s no military solution” to North Korea. (James Mattis, the defence secretary, rebutted the remarks about North Korea.) Mr Trump was also reportedly incensed at the credit his strategist received for winning the election in a recent book by Joshua Green.

Another possibility is that Mr Trump believes that firing Mr Bannon will somehow compensate for his disastrous handling of last weekend’s deadly riots in Charlottesville. Some have urged Mr Trump to apologise for equating Nazis with those who protest Nazism. Alas, Mr Trump appears temperamentally incapable of apologising. But firing Mr Bannon would let him tell critics, “See? I just sacked the guy you kept calling a racist.” Trump-friendly media outlets could then argue that Mr Bannon’s firing shows the administration has turned a corner on race, and that those who still claim that the president sympathises with the far-right will just never be satisfied.

The real reason may be some combination of the two. Firing Mr Bannon gets rid of someone who does not play well with others, thus making the White House run more smoothly. It also makes it look as though the president is rejecting the far-right without having to actually reject the far-right. Mr Trump seems sufficiently wedded to Mr Bannon’s brand of grievance-driven nationalism. His Tuesday press conference, after all, achieved Bannonism’s highest aim: it made the right people angry.

In the end, Mr Bannon may prove a more effective advocate for his worldview freed from the strictures of the White House—particularly under John Kelly, the new chief of staff who was hired to impose discipline. He was unsuccessful at enacting policy, but he is an adept shin-kicker and rabble-rouser. He is rumoured to be considering a new media venture with the Mercer family, conservative billionaires who supported several of his enterprises, including Breitbart, before he joined the Trump campaign. Mr Bannon may be out of the White House. But Bannonism is likely to remain a powerful force in American politics for some time.

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