Donald Trump’s presidency is unravelling while he remains in denial
Steve Bannon, chief strategist at the White House, is now a loose cannon. One is reminded of this famous quote from former US president Lyndon B Johnson: “It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”
Within a day of his “firing” - while he claims to have “resigned” - Bannon has rejoined Breitbart News Network or Breitbart.com, a far-right American news, opinion and commentary website founded in 2007 by conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart.
The site has been accused of publishing a number of falsehoods and conspiracy theories, as well as intentionally misleading stories.
Conceived by Breitbart during a visit to Israel in mid-2007 as a website "that would be unapologetically pro-freedom and pro-Israel", Breitbart News later aligned with the European populist right and American alt-right under the management of former executive chairman Steve Bannon.
The New York Times has described its journalists as "ideologically driven", and some of its content has been called misogynist, xenophobic and racist. And unabashedly Bannon claims that: “The Trump presidency we worked hard for is now over.”
Donald Trump must be worried, if at all he ever does, over anything his chaotic presidency is indicative of.
The firing of Bannon, in the works for over two weeks, according to reliable sources quoted by The New York Times - that #Failing NYT, according to Trump - caps a brief six-month-plus presidency which has seen firings/resignations/opting-outs of 1) FBI director James Comey 2) White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus 3) White House press secretary Sean Spicer 4) National Security Adviser Michael Flynn 5) White House communications director Mike Dubke 6) Office of Government Ethics director Walter Shaub 7) White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci 8) Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh 9) Deputy National Security Adviser KT McFarland - and the list is endless.
But the tweeter-in-chief Donald J Trump is unapologetic. He claims his presidency is not “anarchic” but disciplined and his administration is on to “fulfilling its agenda of promises”. Of course, he adds for impact, appealing to his core base (37 per cent may be an all-time low for popularity stakes for a president into just six months of his first term - but steadfast in its support and unyielding) that it was @FakeNews media which was reporting all the “fabricated chaos”. His administration was “getting along fine to Make America Great again”.
The bombast and bluster of Trump, the Art of Deal author who trashed all his predecessors as failing to “get a great deal on trade, military ties” and thus “failing America on all fronts”, is unravelling fast.
Trump promised to “drain the swamp” from Washington of the “accumulated muck from special interest groups” - promised a clean break. Yet, his cabinet - not fully formed yet - consists of business interests and “most billionaires” of all time.
Be that as it may, in the wake of a series of resignations by CEOs/members of the manufacturing and strategy councils advising the president, Trump tweeted: “Rather than putting pressure on the business people of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!”
Rather than be shamed into ignominy, Trump has called it quits. This in the immediate aftermath of the Charlottesville mayhem which led to the killing of a counter-protester against the KKK and Neo-Nazi lot.
The deceased girl’s mother echoed the sentiments of the decent, ordinary American and even citizens all over the world, at the funeral service. “They tried to kill my child - Heather Heyer - to shut her up,” said Susan Bro, dwarfed by the large stage and cinema screen at the Paramount Theatre in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, “But guess what? You just magnified her.”
When the Trump presidential campaign was on, no one in their right senses believed he would gain the candidacy of the Republican party. He abused and badmouthed his way and aided by the Wikileaks email leaks beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College vote, though he lost the popular vote by 3 million - a constitutional monstrosity peculiar to the US, repeating itself from the Bush versus Gore 2000 legacy.
His support base led by Bannon rudely claimed that “while the media took Donald Trump literally nor seriously, we took him seriously not literally.”
Meaning that when Trump promised a border wall with Mexico they only assumed tough immigration laws and took on China as a “currency manipulator”, they expected Trump to correct the “trade imbalance”, and on Obamacare, they expected him to tweak it to their benefit not necessarily “repeal and replace” - which he has gone after twice and failed miserably. None of his promises have even taken off.
Yes, the stock market is literally “booming” and unemployment is lowest at 4.3 per cent, yet the unravelling of the White House is so fast. And the promised tax reform of tsunami proportions to whittle down maximum corporate tax to 15 per cent from the existing 35 per cent seems a non-starter, with his Republican party clearly jolted by recent events and wondering whether they can afford to allow a full-term Trump presidency.
Except for the Neil Gorsuch SCOTUS Associate Justice nomination to replace the late, lamented Antonin Scalia, nothing, just nothing, has gone right for the new administration.
The no-nonsense Robert Mueller special counsel-led investigation into the Russian intervention in US elections is gathering storm and while Trump claims it to be a “witchhunt”, the Watergate parallels are too striking.
Even as the White House officials, including the president, are forming their legal teams to “defend themselves”, even as the “I” word - impeachment - is being openly talked of, all does not augur well for the Trump presidency at all.
Now, with Trump needling his base with the firing of Bannon, who has indicated that “I am free and I have got my hands back on my weapons”, America is now talking of the “R” word - resignation - as the president is being named openly as being “unstable and unfit to reign”.
Mental health professionals are being urged to pronounce on Trump’s “stability”, “narcissism”, “sociopathic” and “crazy” faculties which are on display in his off-the-cuff pronouncements.
Mike Pence, the vice-president, may be getting ready a la Gerald Ford upon Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974.
Well, they say, the number comprising “they” is burgeoning, that we live in chaotic times and Trump is symptomatic of the times.
John Kelly, the four star general who has taken over as White House Chief of Staff, and is expected to play the “sobering and sane voice”, must be desperately hoping that his boss Donald J Trump would heed the simple and sound advice of Susan, mother of the Charlottesville victim - “Think before you speak (tweet?)”.
Surely, Bill Mahers, Stephen Colberts and Trevor Noahs et al - late night comedy show hosts - would stoutly protest. So difficult for Trump. Yet so simple. Can he? Would he?