Bye bye Bannon

[lost in melb.]

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/04/170406_POL_SteveBannonLookBack.jpg.CROP.promo-xlarge2.jpg

If the Trump White House is to be believed, Steve Bannon’s removal from the National Security Council is not a demotion. It’s more like a minor reshuffling prompted by the fact that Bannon has successfully “de-operationalized” the NSC. Nothing to see here, folks! The New York Times tells a somewhat different story, reporting that Bannon so dreaded the prospect of losing his NSC perch that he threatened to quit if the seat got yanked out from under him. Either way, for now at least, President Trump’s chief strategist is sitting tight and making it seem as though this is all no big deal. For the foreseeable future, Bannon will focus on crafting a winning political message for the president.

The problem with that plan is that Bannon has proven almost unbelievably bad at scoring political victories for Trump—so bad, in fact, that now might be the ideal time for him to quit. To preserve his reputation as a media mastermind, he’d do well to quit the Trump White House and write a tell-all memoir about how he was stabbed in the back by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. If he doesn’t do that soon, he is going to go down in history as an incompetent boob who squandered a rare opportunity to remake American politics......


http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/04/steve_bannon_has_accomplished_nothing_it_s_time_fo r_him_to_leave_the_white.html

[lost in melb.]

Donald Trump’s two closest aides are fighting “nonstop” and often “face-to-face,” officials say — and it’s even uglier in private.


Donald Trump’s chief strategist Stephen Bannon has called the president’s senior advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner a “cuck” and a “globalist” during a time of high tension between the two top aides, several Trump administration officials told The Daily Beast.
The fighting between Kushner and Bannon has been “nonstop” in recent weeks, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. It’s been an “open secret” that Bannon and Kushner often clash “face-to-face,” according to senior officials.
One official said Bannon has lately complained about Kushner trying to “shiv him and push him out the door” and likened him to a fifth column in the White House.
“[Steve] recently vented to us about Jared being a ‘globalist’ and a ‘cuck’…He actually said ‘cuck,’ as in “cuckservative,’” the administration official told The Daily Beast.
“Cuckservative,” a portmanteau of “cuckold” and “conservative,” has become a favorite slur on the right, used like a sexually and racially charged version of “RINO,” a Republican In Name Only. “Globalist” is a term typically used by nationalist, pro-Trump right-wingers against political opponents; however, the term has also come under fire for at times carrying anti-Semitic tones. (Kushner is Jewish.)
Bannon is a self-described “nationalist” and long-time Republican, while Kushner was, until his father-in-law ran for president, a lifelong liberal and a Democratic donor.
“There’s a big fight [going on],” one senior official said. “It’s all about policy. There’s tension [between them] on trade, health care, immigration, taxes, [terrorism]—you name it.”

....

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/06/steve-bannon-calls-jared-kushner-a-cuck-and-globalist-behind-his-back.html