Steve Bannon Has Left the White House but He Still Supports Trump's Conservative Agenda

THE REAL NEWS TODAY IS THAT IT HAS BEEN A VERY DIFFICULT WEEKEND FOR CONSERVATIVE AMERICANS. It was preceded by a very difficult week, one in which conservatives saw their President and Party and beliefs trampled by Progressive Democrat demagogues and their propagandist media, aided by #Never Trump Republicans. It was difficult not because of the attacks -- conservatives are used to being attacked for things as ordinary as wearing a red baseball cap to as fundamental as demanding respect for the Constitution -- it was difficult because this time it felt like we were alone, with no voice except President Trump's to support us. And then, on Friday evening it seemed that Evil had plunged a pitchfork into our flesh. • • • BANNON LEFT THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE. It may seem dramatic to call the elimination of one White House counsellor an act of Evil, but, the truth is that the prior firing of conservative General Michael Flynn followed by the firing of GOP neo-conservatives Reince Priebus and Sean Spicer had left President Trump with only Steve Bannon as his conduit into the reality of conservative America today. Kellyanne Conway is still with Trump, but she is a polling specialist who has given little indication of strategic thinking about the issues facing the President. There are General McMaster, whose conservative bona fides is questionable, and General Kelly, who cannot focus on strategy while he is busy running the White House staff and administration. There are Yvanka and Jared and Donald Jr -- but they are as much neophytes as the President, coming to Washington with no inside experience about how the Swamp actually operates, and therefore having no idea how to bring it to heel. That was the job of the political experts President Trump had with him during the campaign. Bannon, foremost. • Steve Bannon was his conservative compass, pointing out the promises President Trump made to the voters who elected him, tallying the progress made in meeting those promises, and holding up the flag forward for promises yet to be addressed. And, he knew Washington and was tough enough to bring it to heel without blinking when he took its flamethrowers of disrespect, ignorance and hatred for all this President stands for. There is now nobody to take those flames of hatred for the President, nobody to protect him from the hatred the Establishment feels for him. • That says nothing derogatory about Donald Trump's ability to lead America. It says nothing about his understanding of what he has promised America or his determination to fulfill those promises. But, it says volumes about who will be there to help him shoulder the load. Nobody. And, that is the Evil that I am dead certain every conservative American felt creeping into their souls this weekend. • • • BEING PRESIDENT. Presidents cannot lead alone. The job requires counsel from strategists, philosophers, political professionals, religious and business leaders, and logistical task-oriented experts. Conservatives always criticized President Obama for his lack of strategy. That was the truth, because he was surrounded by task-oriented ideologues whose entire focus was on changing Amrica into a socialist country, doing it opportunistically, gash by gash at the national fabric. As of Friday, President Trump has nobody focused on his political agenda strategy, and without such strategy, presidencies merely hop from one crisis or idea to the next, without ever knowing if that hop is in the right direction -- because without strategy, there can be no 'right' direction. That white chalk board of promises that Steve Bannon kept in the White House was President Trump's strategy board. And Steve Bannon provided the subpoints that made of Trump's promises a cohesive strategy. Somebody else must now take up that job, because without strategy President Trump could become the conservative equivalent of Barack Obama, wandering not in the socialist but in the conservative wilderness with instincts and determination but with no plan about how to get to a safe harbor. • • • THE FACTS. The ouster of Bannon as President Trump's White House chief strategist drew swift, emotional responses that ranged from fear to sadness to shock to elation. • Bannon supporters were disheartened and angry. Sam Nunberg, a former Trump advisor, said in a statement to Newsmax : "Sad day for the movement. Sad day for the country." David Horowitz, author of "Big Agenda : President Trump's Plan to Save America," tweeted : "A sad day for us. Steve was a true hero of this administration, & target of the biggest hate movement in America." Outspoken conservative Ann Coulter, hit on what many see as a character flaw in Trump in her series of tweets : "If @realDonaldTrump didn't like the media giving Steve Bannon all credit, instead of firing him, he should've hired 10 more like him....One factual correction from the BS media narrative on Bannon & @realDonaldTrump: He was 100% on the Trump Train by at least January 2016....Here's a great sign: Wall Street traders ARE CHEERING the departure of Bannon." And perhaps ominously, Tea Party activist Debbie Dooley told TheHill : "I'm very upset. The Deep State globalists won. They forced out Steve Bannon. I had a 'CNN is fake news protest' scheduled for tomorrow at their headquarters in Atlanta that I'm canceling because I'm so disheartened. It's a betrayal of his base. I'll continue to support Trump and his policies but I'll no longer be on the front lines defending him." Even the British Nigel Farage tweeted : "Very sorry to see my friend Steve Bannon go. His political brain will be hard to replace." • Fox Business quoted conservative pundit Jessica Tarlove : "Republicans are much happier to work with the likes of Gary Cohn, Steven Mnuchin & General Kelly rather than Steve Bannon." The question here is whether Trump supporters are equally happy. • And, the ProgDems got in their licks. Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, said : "Glad to see Bannon gone; he never belonged in the WH. But the problem persists, since the most profound source of division cannot be fired." House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California called Bannon’s ouster : “welcome news, but it doesn’t disguise where President Trump himself stands on white supremacists and the bigoted beliefs they advance. Personnel changes are worthless so long as President Trump continues to advance policies that disgrace our cherished American values.” • That is the problem still staring President Trump in the face -- no matter what he does or who he fires or what he says, the Progressive Democrat socialists will not stop attacking him. The flamethrowers will simply be recharged and take aim at the next conservative target. • • • BANNON'S WEAKNESSES. Newsmax's Clyde Hughes wrote an article about why Steve Bannon was fired. Hughes said the Commander-in-Chief was "furious" over Bannon's loose-lipped interview with The American Prospect last week, following reports for months that Bannon has been on the outs with Trump. Hughes gave six reasons that could have contributed to Bannon's firing : • Bannon contradicted Trump on a military option in North Korea by saying there is "no military solution" to dealing with North Korea's nuclear threats, while the President was promising "fire and fury." • Bannon was under increased scrutiny after Charlottesville because of his alleged ties to the so-called alt-right. • Bannon appeared to push for a China trade war, saying in his American Prospect interview that the US is "at economic war" with China. The economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we're five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we'll never be able to recover." • Instead of backing away from internal conflict inside the White House or at least pretending everyone was getting along, Bannon trashed Susan Thornton, acting head of East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the State Department, and chief economic advisor Gary Cohn publicly last week. He charged that senior White House officials were "wetting themselves" over changing US trade strategy. • Bannon bumped heads with Trump's son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner early. The situation became so bad that Trump stepped in and ordered the two to sit down and work out their difference in April, according to Politico. • Loss of Republican support -- Republican Congressman Peter King called for Bannon's ouster Thursday after Bannon suggested in the American Prospect interview that Democrats addressing race would be winning strategy for Trump. Bannon said in the interview that he hoped the Democrats would talk about race "every day." King tweeted : "Very simply: Steve Bannon must go. Lone wolf staffer can't be allowed to undermine government." King, an ally of the President, who earlier this week had called for Bannon’s removal, said the ouster was an opportunity for Kelly to restore order : “Ideally, it removes the chaos and it gives John Kelly the free hand that he needs to establish a real chain of command, make sure that things run orderly and the President's policies are pursued,” King told The Hill in an interview, “and stop the leaks, stop the undermining, the backdoor deals.” • King is right about orderliness, but he misses the point that strategy is not an orderly vocation -- it requires messy challenges to traditional wisdom and determination to match acts with agenda. History shows that strategists are often abrasive and difficult to deal with. That is because they are not Deep Staters, who want all-powerful government, but Deep Thinkers, whose role is to develop and test political strategy with those charged with carrying it out. If a strategist doesn't produce heated discussions and disagreements, he is not doing his job. Trump used to like that management style -- let the ideas knock heads until the best solution is found. If Bannon was too abrasive for the rest of the White House staff, why didn't President Trump insulate him from their criticisms? Where was General Kelly -- he could have, should have, protected Bannon. As it is, both Trump and Kelly bear responsibility for cutting out the conservative "Deplorable" heart of the Trump presidency. And, while every bit of the criticism of Bannon may be true, some of it smacks of ProgDem propagandist fake news meant to dig Bannon's grave. • • • BANNON WAS A SYMBOL OF THE DEEP POLITICAL DIVISION IN AMERICA. There was a time when Americans would describe themselves as conservative or conservative-leaning-center or center, or center-leaning-Left, or Left. Those days are gone, perhaps forever. There is no longer a political spectrum in America. Conservatives and Leftists (now called Progressives) are two polar points that do not touch or approach each other. They have completely different, irreconcilable worldviews. Not only are Conservatism and Progressivism opposed, they are absolutely at war, with the goal of annihilating the other. Conservatives cannot tolerate the destruction of their national identity. Globalist Progressives cannot tolerate the very idea of nation states. Both sides believe that America was founded as an experiment in individual liberty, but they see the experiment completely differently. Conservatives see the Founders’ work as a resounding success to be cherished, defended, and amended with great caution. Progressives see America as a social laboratory whose work should be ongoing toward a new global utopia, reinventing itself continuously without either a stable identity or a set of guiding traditions. Conservatives and Progressives do not simply disagree about the size and scope of government. They disagree in kind -- two separate peoples in pursuit of two totally different outcomes, who have reached the point where any notion of compromise -- of reaching across the aisle, of bringing people together -- is seen as naive, futile and defeatist. They have become separate cultures that can’t even agree on what America is. • • • BANNON UNCHAINED. Newsmax reported on Saturday that Steve Bannon said in his first public remarks since leaving his White House role as chief strategist that he will be “going to war” for President Donald Trump. Bannon told Bloomberg News on Saturday : “If there’s any confusion out there, let me clear it up : I’m leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents -- on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America.” Later, in a more outspoken interview with the conservative Weekly Standard, Bannon declared that the Trump presidency is "over," saying : “The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over. We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over." Bannon said President Trump's administration would "be much more conventional" in the wake of his departure. He also said his absence from the White House will likely make it “much harder” for Trump to pave a way forward on issues like “economic nationalism and immigration.” Bannon predicted that Republicans would "moderate" Trump. The GOP just hasn't backed Trump well, Bannon said : “Now, it’s going to be Trump. I just think his ability to get anything done -- particularly the bigger things, like the wall, the bigger, broader things that we fought for, it’s just going to be that much harder.” • Bannon said he was excited to be returning to Breitbart to lead the opposition from there : "Now I’m free. I’ve got my hands back on my weapons. Someone said, ‘it’s Bannon the Barbarian.’ I am definitely going to crush the opposition. There’s no doubt. I built a f-cking machine at Breitbart. And now I’m about to go back, knowing what I know, and we’re about to rev that machine up. And rev it up we will do.” • Steve Bannon, 63, the chief executive of Trump’s presidential campaign and an architect of his election victory, was the leading champion of conservative populism within the Trump administration. Bannon served as a link to the so-called “alt-right” movement. He was attuned to the attitudes of the more conservative elements of the President’s base. A person close to Bannon said his departure was unrelated to the backlash against Trump’s comments this week that appeared to confer legitimacy on white supremacists following the Charlottesville violence. The person said Bannon had turned in his resignation on August 7 to take effect on August 14, but, the announcement was delayed following last weekend’s violence in Charlottesville to put distance between those events and his exit, the person said. Former Trump advisor Sam Nunberg said of Bannon : “Steve played an integral part in the President’s journey to the White House. Steve went into the White House and didn’t betray his values, worked every day to advance the agenda that the President was elected on. Trump’s voters may get upset that America’s not being made great again. We’ll find out.” • What is certain is that the populist Deplorables movement to return America to its constitutional roots will not die with the exit of Steve Bannon from the White House. President Trump has already tweeted his support for Bannon, and we must all encourage the President to continue his relationship with Bannon. • • • WILL KELLY GET RID OF BANNON SUPPORTERS? Bannon's departure strengthens General Kelly, who is trying to better organize a West Wing known for disorder. Newsmax reports that Sebastian Gorka, a Bannon ally who previously worked with him at Breitbart News, also may face removal from his post as a counter-terrorism aide to the President, according to two people with knowledge of the situation : "The possible dismissal of Gorka suggests that Kelly is looking to root out Bannon allies and other officials prone to igniting public firestorms. Last week, Gorka told the BBC it was 'simply nonsensical' for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to discuss military matters related to recent provocations by North Korea. He subsequently accused the media of distorting his remarks." • • • BANNON AND AMERICA. Moving Bannon out of the White House presents risks. Even as he continues to support President Trump, he will aggressively attack the administration’s more traditional Republican players and policies, surely becoming a lightnnng rod in the 2018 elections that Tea Partiers say will see #NeverTrump Swamp Creatures defeated. He has access to funding through his close relationships with conservative billionaire Bob Mercer, whom Bannon has allegedly already contacted, and other major Republican donors. The risks may even extend to the White House where some staff disagreed with the decision to fire Bannon, arguing that the move weakens the President’s ability to translate his ideas into policy. Bannon was the administration’s most effective advocate for delivering on the Trump campaign agenda, said one unnamed official. His removal also will isolate Stephen Miller, the President’s senior advisor best known for his efforts to curtail immigration, accprding to the person, and leave Trump more vulnerable than ever to the so-called “Globalists” on his team. • But, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy, a longtime Trump supporter, doesn't accept the notion that Bannon’s removal was a victory for Progressives who had long advocated for his dismissal, arguing that Bannon's power will only increase once he leaves as he again devotes his attention to media interests. Ruddy was speaking in an interview on Friday after Bannon's departure : “Steve is a media guy. He thrives in it and has done very well in it. I assume he’ll be back in some role at Breitbart and using that as a platform for radio or television.” And, Breitbart has already taken Bannon back as executive chairman. Kurt Bardella, a Republican communications specialist who worked for Bannon at Breitbart but later broke with him, agreed with Ruddy's view, predicting that Bannon, the strategist, would "feel liberated" by his departure : "Now, he will be able to operate openly and freely to inflict as much damage as he possibly can on the ‘Globalists’ that remain in the Trump administration." • • • WILL AMERICA SURVIVE? For the Founders, every check and balance, every throttle on uncontrolled power that exists in the US Constitution is a reflection of the Founders' unanimous determination that the "Rule of Law" must prevail, and not the passions and appetites for power of individuals or groups. • Today, constitutional Rule of Law is breaking down. Serious commentators who write and speak of the street fights being reported all over America, who lament the pitched battle between extreme groups on the Right and Left in Charlottesville, who fear the new Progressive method of political dialogue by means of force and mob terror instead of reasoned consideration and compromise, all of them are really describing the beginning of a collapse of the Rule of Law. That is not to say that police and courts and the President have ceased to function -- it is rather to say that their reasonable efforts are being increasingly ignored, along with the tempering but delicate balance of the three branches of government spelled out in the Constitution. We are witnessing the beginning of a decline of responsible government that is being drowned out by radical demagogues, cynical policy choices, and the increasingly uninformed populace that supports both. • • • A SECOND CIVIL WAR? Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh warned on Friday that the United States may be "on the cusp of a second civil war" following the violent protests in Charlottesville last weekend. Limbaugh is not the only one predicting this. Limbaugh said : "America is under attack from within," and suggested it was being financed by "people from outside America, in addition to inside. We haven't seen anything like this. You might even get away with saying that we are on the cusp of a second civil war. Some of you might say that we are already into it, that it has already begun. However you characterize it, though, we are under attack from within. And, it's being bought and paid for by people from outside America, in addition to inside." Limbaugh pointed to left-wing hedge fund billionaire George Soros and other "international financiers" whose aim he maintained was to take the US "out and down as a superpower -- to literally erase the United States as a powerful or super powerful nation." Limbaugh added : "If you're gonna defend the United States of America, you have to know our history. You have to know the purpose of the United States of America. You have to know unequivocally and proudly the United States' place in history. And that is why erasing and distorting our history is crucial for the Left to succeed." • That is Rush's way of saying that America is not functioning as it was meant to, with the addition that America is being attacked deliberately in an effort to hasten its collapse as a Republic so that it can be destroyed. There is still ample opportunity to avoid extreme violence or civil war if Americans can just begin again to "listen to the counsels of the wise and good," as Edmund Burke called them. Buyt, that is exactly what is missing -- the desire to listen. • • • TRUMP HAS SUPPORT. Most Republicans support President Donald Trump’s conviction that both sides were to blame for the violence in Charlottesville, according to a SurveyMonkey poll Friday on Axios. The poll asked if voters agreed with this Trump quote: "You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent." 87% of Republican voters agreed and 11% disagreed; while 83% of Democrats disagreed and 15% agreed; and 59% of independents disagreed and 39% agreed. Overall, 53% of voters, regardless of party, disagreed, while 43% agreed. • But the media, even taxpayer-funded PBS and NPR, now in the polling business with Marist College, like other networks, use their polls to support attacks on Republicans. Last Wednesday, the Marist poll found a majority of Americans were disappointed with the President’s responsive to the violence in Charlottesville. But, PBS then ignored its own finding that 62% favored leaving Confederate statues in place, while only 27% want them removed. NPR reported it once, and then insisted that it had nothing to do with Charlottesville. The poll also asked if Americans approve or disapprove of Black Lives Matter, and 50% disapproved, and only 33% approved. About approval of Antifa, few had heard of Antifa but 5% approved, 24% disapproved, 18% said they had no opinion either way, and 53% were unsure. Again, ignored by PBS and NPR -- American tax dollars at work providing a cabon copy of the Progressive bias of the mainstream media while ignoring the significant support President Trump has for his views. • Donald Trump didn’t stun voters with his victory. He stunned the Washington elites, including RINOs. Americans were tired of political double-talk and pinned their future on someone who backed up his words with actions. • That is the partisan divide America finds itself in. It is exactly this divide that we see in the responses to the firing of Steve Bannon as President Trump's strategist. While Progressives are rejoicing in what they see as a victory for their agenda, Richard Viguerie, the chairman of ConservativeHQ.com called it "Obama's Third Term." Viguerie said : “It seems that the West Wing is now being run by the liberal Democrats. Gary Cohen, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, General John Kelly, H.R. McMaster and the Obama holdovers at the NSC have all survived and thrived, while the conservatives like Steve Bannon, Derek Harvey, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Rich Higgins and even the establishment Republicans like Reince Priebus and Sean Spicer, have been run off.” Viguerie wonders if Bannon’s departure : “signals a general purge of conservatives on the White House staff. When Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway joined Donald Trump’s campaign, conservatives were electrified -- and many who had previously been skeptical were convinced that a Donald Trump administration would be a conservative administration as long as Steve and Kellyanne were at Trump’s side.” Now, says Viguerie, “with few conservatives left in senior positions at the White House, we conservatives are rightly skeptical that Donald Trump’s many commitments to us will be fulfilled.” • WND CEO and founder Joseph Farah said Bannon “represented the heart and soul of the real Trump constituency -- the people who elected the President.” For Farah : “Bannon understands what resonated with that constituency and what their priorities were better than anyone but Trump himself. He understands what their expectations are for a successful presidency. Yes, he was a lightning rod for the Left, but he was serving in that necessary role by absorbing the shocks that would otherwise be hitting the President himself.” • • • DEAR READERS, for Christians, we often have familiar passages from the Bible flash through our minds as we watch and consider what is happening in America. I sent to a friend an email copy of an article about all the statues coming down that contained the horrific suggestions that even the Founders should not be spared. And, in the midst of writing a note for the email, the words "I am Legion for we are many" flashed through my mind. I went to the Bible to get the exact quote and found the words more fitting than I had remembered. In St. Mark's Gospel, 5:6-13, is this passage about a man possessed by demons who talked to Jesus : "And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before Him. And crying out ith a loud voice, he said, 'What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.' For He was saying to him,'Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!' And Jesus asked him, 'What is your name?' He replied, 'My name is Legion, for we are many.' And he begged Him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged Him, saying, 'Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.' So He gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea." • Those attacking America today are Legion for they are many. They are the demons of our enemies and of our lower selves, seeking to possess our Republic and drive it "down the steep bank" to destruction. But, as they attack, with President Trump we have the power to drive them out and restore the Rule of Law. It is our job to "pray as if everything depended on God, and work as if everything depended on us."