I have a theory, that when Steve Bannon resigned as White House Chief Strategist in August under a cloud, there wasn't a cloud at all.
It was all a strategic play by Trump and Bannon to play the Washington establishment and advance the Trump agenda.
I think that they decided for Bannon to leave under a cloud to provide a mis-direction to the swamp.
And the first thing that happened after Bannon left the White House was that he went 100% rogue, threatening to primary every senator that didn't support Trump. Oh No! How could he?
The next event was that Bannon backed Roy Moore, the chap that put the Ten Commandments up outside the Alabama Supreme Court, and took partial credit for Moore beating the establishment Strange in the primary runoff to win an election to serve the rest of Attorney General Sessions term in the Senate.
The next event was the "best pals"joint presser between Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday October 16. McConnell got in a word to say that we all wanted the same thing, to get electable candidates to the Senate and avoid the Tea Party amateurs of 2010 and 2912.
Conservative radio host Michael Medved was encouraged by this, a return to sanity, because he thinks Bannon is a loose cannon that will lose the Senate in 2018.
But the next day Bannon was pointing out that he is vetting the candidates he supports to make sure they have the smarts and the savvy to win the general as well as knock off the GOPe guys in the primary.
What is going on here?
Of course, nobody can know.
But I think it is a conspiracy between Trump and Bannon to knock off the old GOP establishment and at the same time tame the survivors into supporting the Trump agenda.
Really it doesn't take a conspiracy theory to understand that Trump and Bannon are playing a game of good cop/bad cop. And if you ask me it is working.
On the one hand, it looks like Mitch McConnell is finally working with Trump. Who woulda thunk it? On the other hand Bannon is thundering around in the bushes stirring up the deplorables.
So on the one hand we have an indication that the swamp is getting ready to work with Trump. On the other hand we have his operative making a big noise in the bushes and that forces the swamp incumbents to move right, both now when votes come up in Congress and next fall when they are up for reelection. Just to be safe.
The problem for conservatives, libertarians and every other form of white supremacist is that liberals have created a convenient path of non-resistance for conservative pols that come to Washington. Just get moderate and we won't demonize you as a racist, sexist homophone. Tom Bethell at the American Spectator defined that as the phenomenon of "strange new respect. Once a Republican firebrand put out the fire he suddenly got accepted into the DC in crowd as journalists started to express their strange new respect for the former Neanderthal.
So how to conservatives and libertarians get any conservative and libertarian agenda through Congress? The answer is: they don't, because if they do they get attacked as racist sexist homophobes and they lose their strange new respect props.
The point about Trump is that he has apparently cut this Gordian knot. He has found that his social media skills have conquered the old regime where conservatives and libertarians behaved themselves, or else.
You see this happening all the time, most notably with Charlottesville and the NFL anthem controversies. Under the old rules, a President Bush would have known to only attack the white supremacists in Charlottesville and not the Antifa "mostly peaceful protesters" as well. And he would never have waded into the NFL anthem controversy.
Of course the whole thing may collapse next week, and Trump will then go down in history as a bumptious failure, and his attack on the liberal worldview will end in a glorious victory for the liberal secular religion of political correctness. Of course. But if we normals do nothing we are still dead. That is why there are numerous catchphrases about: do or die, dying with your boots on, nothing ventured nothing gained.
But back to my conspiracy theory. Think about Bannon's title in the White House: Chief Strategist.
Now what do you think is the job of Chief Strategist? I'd say it is pretty obvious. Find recruits for the Trump Army that can win elections in 2018 and support the president when he runs for reelection in 2020. Because without a more Republican Senate the Trump agenda is in trouble and Trump's reelection is in trouble.
So I'd say that Steve Bannon is doing exactly what President Trump wants him to do.
And I'd say that it serves their joint purpose for liberals and NeverTrumpers to think that Trump and Bannon have parted ways. That way Bannon can make mischief and mayhem in the boondocks and Trump can keep a bit of distance between him and Bannon to make it easier for him to make Great Deals with Mitch McConnell and the Democrats in Washington DC.
It was all a strategic play by Trump and Bannon to play the Washington establishment and advance the Trump agenda.
I think that they decided for Bannon to leave under a cloud to provide a mis-direction to the swamp.
And the first thing that happened after Bannon left the White House was that he went 100% rogue, threatening to primary every senator that didn't support Trump. Oh No! How could he?
The next event was that Bannon backed Roy Moore, the chap that put the Ten Commandments up outside the Alabama Supreme Court, and took partial credit for Moore beating the establishment Strange in the primary runoff to win an election to serve the rest of Attorney General Sessions term in the Senate.
The next event was the "best pals"joint presser between Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday October 16. McConnell got in a word to say that we all wanted the same thing, to get electable candidates to the Senate and avoid the Tea Party amateurs of 2010 and 2912.
Conservative radio host Michael Medved was encouraged by this, a return to sanity, because he thinks Bannon is a loose cannon that will lose the Senate in 2018.
But the next day Bannon was pointing out that he is vetting the candidates he supports to make sure they have the smarts and the savvy to win the general as well as knock off the GOPe guys in the primary.
What is going on here?
Of course, nobody can know.
But I think it is a conspiracy between Trump and Bannon to knock off the old GOP establishment and at the same time tame the survivors into supporting the Trump agenda.
Really it doesn't take a conspiracy theory to understand that Trump and Bannon are playing a game of good cop/bad cop. And if you ask me it is working.
On the one hand, it looks like Mitch McConnell is finally working with Trump. Who woulda thunk it? On the other hand Bannon is thundering around in the bushes stirring up the deplorables.
So on the one hand we have an indication that the swamp is getting ready to work with Trump. On the other hand we have his operative making a big noise in the bushes and that forces the swamp incumbents to move right, both now when votes come up in Congress and next fall when they are up for reelection. Just to be safe.
The problem for conservatives, libertarians and every other form of white supremacist is that liberals have created a convenient path of non-resistance for conservative pols that come to Washington. Just get moderate and we won't demonize you as a racist, sexist homophone. Tom Bethell at the American Spectator defined that as the phenomenon of "strange new respect. Once a Republican firebrand put out the fire he suddenly got accepted into the DC in crowd as journalists started to express their strange new respect for the former Neanderthal.
So how to conservatives and libertarians get any conservative and libertarian agenda through Congress? The answer is: they don't, because if they do they get attacked as racist sexist homophobes and they lose their strange new respect props.
The point about Trump is that he has apparently cut this Gordian knot. He has found that his social media skills have conquered the old regime where conservatives and libertarians behaved themselves, or else.
You see this happening all the time, most notably with Charlottesville and the NFL anthem controversies. Under the old rules, a President Bush would have known to only attack the white supremacists in Charlottesville and not the Antifa "mostly peaceful protesters" as well. And he would never have waded into the NFL anthem controversy.
Of course the whole thing may collapse next week, and Trump will then go down in history as a bumptious failure, and his attack on the liberal worldview will end in a glorious victory for the liberal secular religion of political correctness. Of course. But if we normals do nothing we are still dead. That is why there are numerous catchphrases about: do or die, dying with your boots on, nothing ventured nothing gained.
But back to my conspiracy theory. Think about Bannon's title in the White House: Chief Strategist.
Now what do you think is the job of Chief Strategist? I'd say it is pretty obvious. Find recruits for the Trump Army that can win elections in 2018 and support the president when he runs for reelection in 2020. Because without a more Republican Senate the Trump agenda is in trouble and Trump's reelection is in trouble.
So I'd say that Steve Bannon is doing exactly what President Trump wants him to do.
And I'd say that it serves their joint purpose for liberals and NeverTrumpers to think that Trump and Bannon have parted ways. That way Bannon can make mischief and mayhem in the boondocks and Trump can keep a bit of distance between him and Bannon to make it easier for him to make Great Deals with Mitch McConnell and the Democrats in Washington DC.
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