The Bully and Bannon
As the Trump Administration moves into its second month, it is clear that the “brains” behind the operation is Steve Bannon. To understand Bannon is to understand the direction of the Trump Administration.
In my first blog, Astronomy and the New Trump Administration, I talked about the different spheres of influence over President Trump. While the Flynn resignation has already altered some orbits, it is clear that the alt-right Bannon sphere still controls the policy making machinery.
How does Bannon view his opportunity to govern?
“It’s going to be an insurgent, center-right populist movement that is virulently anti-establishment, and it’s going to continue to hammer this city, both the progressive left and the institutional Republican Party.”the radical anti-conservatism of Steve Bannon
On Thursday, February 23, Bannon spoke at the annual CPAC convention. His stated goals:
Economic nationalism
National sovereignty
Administrative deconstruction
Bannon details Trump plan for deconstruction of state
So what does this all mean? If you watched Trumps’ demeanor during the campaign, a touchstone of his candidacy was bullying, the idea that he could bully other candidates and force them to operate on Trumps’ terms. “Little Marco, Tired Jeb, Crooked Hillary,” all come to mind. Apply that bullying strategy to national policy, and you have Steve Bannon’s governing policies.
Economic Nationalism and Sovereignty
Bannon (and by extension Trump) believe that the United States is best served by signing bilateral economic treaties with individual countries, rather than multi-national pacts like NAFTA or TPP. This is for an obvious reason: the United States is in a superior position to every economy in a one-on-one negotiation. While that actually sounds like a reasonable position, the difficulty is that it makes it harder to deal with regional and global issues: NAFTA in part tried to deal with the reasons for illegal immigration to the United States, TPP was linked to competition with China in the Pacific, and certainly the Paris Climate Accord tried to improve the global climate.
Bannon doesn’t see the value in global cooperation. As then Senator now Attorney General Sessions explains it: “We shouldn’t by tying ourselves down like Gulliver in the Land of Lilliputians with so many strings a guy can’t move.”
It also means that the Trump Administration is going to naturally be against the European Union, as that presents economic competition to the United States. It should be no surprise then that Trump/Bannon find common cause with the Brexit politicians from the United Kingdom. It serves their purpose. By being the biggest economy “in the room” in any negotiation, it allows the US to “bully it’s way to victory.”
This is in contrast to the previous administrations (both Democrat and Republican) strategies of building world coalitions to deal with over-arching world problems.
National Sovereignty and Foreign Policy
The “bully” analogy continues, as the Bannon plan is for the United States to be the biggest, strongest, and “baddest” by rebuilding the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, adding more ships and planes, and increasing troop levels. Bannon’s view is similar to Putin’s view, if we are so big, no one will “mess” with us. The problem of course is that Putin does feel the same way, and another arms race is a possibility, as both countries try to outdo each other. Last time (the 1980’s) it bankrupted the Soviet Union, but it also almost tripled the US national debt.
This conflicts directly with the Bannon/Flynn view that Russia is our natural ally in the struggle with “Radical Islamic Terrorism.” They see a union of the Northern Europeans, the “Christian-Judeo West” against what they see as billions of Muslims lined up to try to take over the world. If this has undertones of racism, of white versus brown, so be it.
Bannon explains his world view
This also fits with the mixed messages the Trump administration has sent about NATO and the United Nations: while Trump says it’s out of date, Pence and Mattis say we are committed. From the Bannon standpoint, NATO and other alliances hamstring the US ability to use its overwhelming advantage in power to get what it wants.
Deconstruction of the Administrative Government
Bannon sees the departments of government (see the blog Astronomy and the New Trump Administration) as forces of inertia, maintaining the “old” government that he wants to rip out. The “old” government represents the policies of the past (not just the Obama Administration, but really all Administrations) and won’t bend easily to his priorities. He sees this as being done through the regulatory process, as departments and agencies write regulations for the laws passed by Congress. Bannon wants a government essentially free of economic regulations, allowing individuals to do whatever they want to succeed. The “biggest bully” gets to be the biggest company. Agencies like the EPA represent impediments to industry and “progress”. They certainly are impediments to polluting by the Oil and Coal industries, both well supported by the Trump Administration.In the same way, the Dodd/Frank Regulations on the stock market and the Consumer Protection Agency stand in the way of the progress of Wall Street investment. Bannon, himself a former Goldman-Sachs executive, believes that regulation only “restrains” a free market.
Just a brief sampling of “deconstruction”:
EPA – removing water protection regulations from coal mining
Department of Interior – placing millions of acres of public land for sale
Department of Education – removing Title IX Act guidance regarding transgender students
Department of State – multiple high level officers resigned or were fired.
What will it look like?
If Bannon has his way – the United States Government will be much less involved in the day to day like of it’s citizens. Less regulations, less protections, less interference, and less assistance: that is what Bannon wants.
It also means a world where the United States is less of a leader and more of a single actor. Like the 1920’s and ‘30’s, the United States will step back from leading on the world stage, and focus on it’s own strategies and problems.
And how did that work out? Well start with the Great Depression, add World War II, and it would be better to learn the lessons of history rather than repeating them.
