Are the Nationalists Losing the War for Trump's White House?
Are the Nationalists Losing the War for Trump's White House?
Rosie Gray
Apr 14, 2017
No one symbolizes the populist nationalism on which Donald Trump ran more than White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, the former chairman of Breitbart News.
So Bannon’s newly precarious position in the administration—an ascendant, more centrist faction associated with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is trying to take him down--is about more than just Bannon the man. It is about id versus superego. It’s about the place of the hard right in the administration, and whether the movement spearheaded by Bannon can govern. And if Bannon goes, the backlash could be considerable. In fact, even with him still in the White House, that backlash has already begun, with some of Trump’s most vocal supporters becoming restive over his flip-flops on Syria, China, the Ex-Im bank and other issues.
“I think that Steve has come to be the symbol of keeping the flame of the Trump revolution in the White House,” said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump adviser. “So I would assume that there would be hysteria all over talk radio and conservative media were Steve not in the White House and the White House would be run by Democrats.” Nunberg specified that he was referring to Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic adviser, who is among Bannon’s greatest opponents and who has become a target of Bannon allies in the right-wing media.
“Bannon isn't a red line for me, but I'm already feeling apathetic,” said “new right” pro-Trump blogger and Twitter personality Mike Cernovich, who has recently been among those tweeting a #KeepBannon hashtag. (There’s also a related protest planned for outside the White House on Saturday.) “Messaging from Trump's administration sounds like what we'd have received from Mitt Romney. Trump's base won't turn on him as much as they'll check out.”
Bannon’s fall from grace began in earnest last week, when he was removed from the principals’ committee of the National Security Council. His position there had been controversial from the start, as political advisors do not normally serve on the committee. Bannon and his allies presented the move as not a demotion but instead just part of the plan, with Bannon telling me reports he had threatened to quit were “absurd.”
Since then, both Bannon and chief of staff Reince Priebus have been seen as in danger of losing their jobs. The two have formed an alliance under pressure after initially appearing to be at odds.
“Yeah, I think there’s gonna be a backlash,” said Lee Stranahan, a former Breitbart News reporter who quit the site after conflict with its Washington editor Matt Boyle. “What I’ve been trying to do is factually make people aware that there’s a solid reason for the backlash and it’s not just personality but ideology. Trump did not run on what Ivanka Trump and her circle of friends want.”
Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Cohn, and Dina Powell—the deputy national security advisor—have formed a rising center of power within the White House as Bannon’s position becomes more threatened. The Kushner-Cohn axis is seen as pushing Trump in a more centrist direction. According to a source close to the White House, Kushner and Cohn want to control the Chief of Staff position, “and they know there’s an expiration date on Reince’s forehead but they now realize Steve is a problem for them.” Bannon is “alone and he’s surrounded,” said longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone on MSNBC on Thursday.
Bannon and Kushner held a meeting last week that was intended to mend fences. And Bannon’s side, the source said, believed an agreement had been reached. But then Joe Scarborough, who Bannon allies believe is close with Kushner’s camp, repeatedly attacked Bannon on television and on Twitter this week. And in the most troubling sign, Trump himself appeared to distance himself from Bannon in an interview with the New York Post, saying Bannon “was not involved in my campaign until very late” and emphasizing that he is his own strategist.
Bannon still has his job as of Friday. But even if he keeps it, the war against him both inside the West Wing and via the media has led to an unavoidable impression of imminent downfall. Daylight is even appearing between him and the young senior adviser for policy Stephen Miller, a former Jeff Sessions aide de camp who has been close with Bannon—and was the subject of a Politico story on Thursday calling him Trump’s new “favorite Steve.” (A senior White House official acknowledged to me that Miller is “sort of becoming his own power center.”)
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-house/523140/
