Well, it took Steve Bannon, what? About four days to prove that he will not in fact be “going to war for Donald Trump” (as he told Bloomberg) but rather against the President, with the latter stance being entirely consistent with what his acolytes at Breitbart proclaimed on Twitter following Steve’s exit from the administration late last week.
Last night, Donald Trump largely stuck to the script in his speech on Afghanistan and predictably, Breitbart is furious.
Recall what we said minutes after the New York Times confirmed Bannon’s ouster on Friday:
What happens now is anyone’s guess, but what we would suggest is that there will be an effort on the part of the alt-Right to claim that the Trump administration has been hijacked by war hawks and globalists.
Well sure enough, Breitbart’s lead “story” carries this headline:
Trump’s ‘America First’ Base Unhappy with Flip-Flop Afghanistan Speech
They’re taking aim at his base by claiming that neocons have taken control of the administration. Here are some excerpts from Breitbart:
President Trump’s “America First” base was the biggest loser of Trump’s speech on Afghanistan Monday night, and many quickly expressed their disappointment at the business-as-usual address from the president who had once promised to limit American intervention abroad and focus on nation-building at home.
Trump’s speech, in which he pledged to increase the number of troops in the 16-year-war, was the first since the departure of Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and confirmed the fears of many on the right that without a strong nationalist voice in the West Wing, the President would revert to the same old fare that Americans had voted to reject in November.
So a couple of things.
First of all, it’s propaganda. There’s not even a pretension to objectivity in there.
Second, Breitbart is going to try and make this about Steve Bannon when it is not, in fact, about Steve Bannon.
Look, Trump’s speech was no rhetorical miracle, and the idea that he understands or means any of what he said is of course laughable (for instance, don’t think for a second that Trump truly gets why it’s necessary to separate the Taliban from ISIS in terms of saying the former could one day be part of government while the latter needs to be eradicated completely). But what is a small miracle is that he managed to get through a fairly complex speech on foreign policy without going rogue.
Breitbart apparently prefers the Trump we saw last Tuesday – which makes sense because Breitbart promotes the same kind of bigoted, xenophobia and the site’s content strategy is about as coherent as Trump was in last week’s bungled presser.
But the problem for Trump here is that Breitbart knows he’s vulnerable with his base. Recall this chart from Goldman:
That shift in the “white, without college degree” demographic is “big league.” That’s an 18% decline from inauguration to early this month in a key demographic for the President.
“The decline among white voters without a college degree is particularly striking, as it is generally considered to represent an important component of President Trump’s base of support,” Goldman wrote, in a note out last week.
That’s consistent with this:
61% of white voters with no college degree answered “no” to a recent survey question asking whether respondents thought Trump was “level headed.” More simply, nearly two-thirds of his base think he’s probably insane.
So Breitbart is now going to try and turn the rest of that base against him in retaliation for Bannon being fired.
If you don’t believe me, read the whole Breitbart piece here – it’s a hit piece, plain and simple. And it’s designed solely to sow doubt among the only base of support Trump has left.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t remind you that while he is indeed dangerous because of what he’s come to represent and because of the media megaphone he controls, Steve Bannon is a joke.
He’s a former Goldman employee and a failed Hollywood entrepreneur who, according to people who knew him in that incarnation, “just wanted to make a buck.”
For a good hearty laugh, read the following piece in which Bannon attempts to explain that his “fiery populism” has its roots in Steve’s displeasure at watching Marty Bannon lose his ass in AT&T shares (and yes, that’s just as ridiculous as it sounds – and then some):
So when you read these patently absurd quotes from Bannon about how he’s “got his hands on his guns” or better still, when you read Right-wing, would-be populist bloggers rant about Steve and his “heroic cause,” just remember that when it comes to fake tough guys, it’s a given they’re going to flap their gums.
Of course if you ever see them in person you’ll quickly discover that in reality, these folks are demonstrably short on “flap that gum” and could be more appropriately characterized as “cat got tongue.”
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