I don’t think there is any significance to this feud. I think Bannon will run Trump’s 2020 campaign. This is drama like George Steinbrenner firing and hiring Billy Martin repeatedly.
I’ve yet to see anything in the George Mueller investigation that will hurt Trump.
* Funny to read all excited commentators trying to read complicated ideological disputes into typical personnel dramas that most of us have seen working in any other organizations.
This looks like a standard personnel drama, that happens when you have a few people with difficult personalities.
Bannon is such personality, as is Trump. When Bannon felt there wasn’t enough attention paid to him, or that people had slighted him – he started to create some kind of mischief.
Probably if job roles were reversed (not that Trump could even to contemplate working underneath somebody else), a similar story would have unfolded.
* Bannon didn’t win Trump the election, but he helped focus the campaign’s message into one that could resonate with all the right voters. For that he deserves recognition. Trump doesn’t seem to realize that it was his message that won the election, not him. Polls consistently showed that large numbers of his voters disliked him as a person and didn’t really trust him but voted for him anyway. Now he’s at 60% disapproval in Iowa and 52% approval in Mississippi. Not really a good place to be.
He needs to stop this shit. Focus on trade and immigration this year and forget about pointless tweet fights that the people hate and Paul Ryan’s retarded plan to cut Medicaid. Because otherwise you’re looking at a bloodbath in November and frankly I’m finding less and less reason to defend him as this garbage continues with no end in sight.
* I agree with Ann Coulter, Kris Kobach and others: Immigration is the number one issue. Lose on that, and all is lost. That’s why I supported Trump, despite the defects of his personality. (OK, I’ll admit I find the way he upsets Leftist race-baiters kinda funny–in fact the whole world of 4chan memes and stuff amused me in ways I never would have believed of myself a few years ago.) And this is why I hope and pray the Mueller investigation doesn’t uncover some nitpicky Russian connection or business deal of the sort no other politician would ever be indicted on. So on similar grounds, I’m not happy that Bannon seems to be undercutting the only hope we seem to have on at least stopping the bleeding on immigration. (I feel the clock is ticking so fast, that we can’t just wait another 4, 8 or 12 years for the “perfect” populist-Right candidate to come along.)
But I do agree with others that Bannon is probably way more of a thinker than Trump or most of his inner circle. In an absolute sense, I’m tempted to think that Bannon is more of a genuine right-wing populist, but the fact is he is not president and so only has the power of Breitbart–which is meaningless power without politicians to enact policy.
Also, to walk back a bit my first comment on Bannon messing things up: it’s not like he’s a lawyer. His opinion of it being treasonous doesn’t make it so. Putting him under oath to say he was upset with Don Jr. won’t make Don Jr’s actions suddenly illegal. Yes, Trump’s own kids and many in the WH staff seem to be neocons/neoliberals, and perhaps Bannon is genuinely upset at this. I’m not sure how this shakes out in any positive way, though. I think going after Trump’s family is a sure way to fall out of grace with Trump permanently (unless this is indeed an orchestrated PR effort.)
* Don Jr. retweeted Kevin MacDonald during the campaign, but he doesn’t seem like someone that would actually read the books. He and Eric have a typical jock mindset and don’t seem to be self-reflective at all.
Think of it this way, who would be better at running Breitbart, Bannon or Ron Unz? It could be worse, Ben Shapiro could be brought back.
Bannon is a good example of “appearance is ideology”. You can’t be serious when you are a thrice-divorced overweight slob. I don’t have much regard for Richard Spencer, but you can’t call the man unkempt.
