Over at Politico is a piece on “Why Bannon Lost and the Globalists Won”:
His trial balloons were laughed off by conservatives, and his association with the “alt-right” made him a toxic negotiating partner for the left. Bannon’s nemesis, economic adviser Gary Cohn, meanwhile, built up a relatively competent team that ran circles around the poorly staffed former Breitbart chairman…
Might Trump pursue Bannon’s economic agenda after Bannon is gone? Anything is possible. Simply being surrounded by “globalist” advisers cannot predict the behavior of a president who often revels in doing the opposite of what he is told. But Bannon’s failure almost surely prevents the realization of a broad political realignment in which Trump leads an economically populist rainbow coalition.
Meanwhile, the NYT is celebrating Bannon’s departure (“Will Bannon’s White House Agenda Survive Without Him?”):
[Bannon] has been an unyielding advocate for a visceral brand of nationalism, and though he lost as often as he won in policy debates, his departure could tip the balance on some fiercely contested issues toward a more mainstream approach, even if the core tenets of his philosophy survive…
His departure helps those in the administration who favor a more interventionist military approach, whether on Syria, where Mr. Bannon opposed Mr. Trump’s missile strike on President Bashar al-Assad, or on Afghanistan…
Mr. Bannon’s departure was a victory for Mr. Cohn and Steven Mnuchin, secretary of the Treasury…
I’ll bet.
The NYT does, however, also have something of a caveat (or a retcon?) in “Steven Mnuchin Defends Trump’s Reaction to Charlottesville Violence”:
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, under fire from Yale classmates and Jewish critics of President Trump, strongly defended the president’s equivocating response to the racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Va., in a written statement this weekend.
“I strongly condemn the actions of those filled with hate and with the intent to harm others,” Mr. Mnuchin said in a statement on Saturday. “They have no defense from me, nor do they have any defense from the president or this administration.”
He continued, “While I find it hard to believe I should have to defend myself on this, or the president, I feel compelled to let you know that the president in no way, shape or form believes that neo-Nazi and other hate groups who endorse violence are equivalent to groups that demonstrate in peaceful and lawful ways.”
His words marked perhaps the most vociferous defense of the president from anyone in the administration.
Mr. Mnuchin, one of the most prominent Jews in the administration, issued the statement on Twitter in response to a letter signed by more than 300 of his 1985 classmates from Yale, urging him to step down immediately…
Mr. Mnuchin stood uncomfortably next to Mr. Trump in the lobby of Trump Tower last week as the president said there were “very fine people on both sides” of the Charlottesville protests. The marchers in the initial rally on Friday night carried tiki torches and chanted, “Jews will not replace us.”…
Mr. Mnuchin and Gary D. Cohn, the president’s top economic adviser, who is also Jewish and who was also at the news conference in Trump Tower, have come under public pressure to resign in the past few days.
I’m not sure what to make of all that, but it is fascinating to see the NYT’s obsession with Jewishness find political expression everywhere and all the time.
