Bannon unleashed and Trump untethered
I detect a theme and a meme.
Here we have Bannon unleashed (you’ll find the word in the URL) and unchained.
And here we have Trump untethered, now that Bannon has gone.
Tethers work like this:
Failure modes for tethers are considered when designing arrangements where a tether is needed. When a tether or line breaks suddenly, backlash of the segments may cause severe damage or loss of life. Safety links are sometimes used to prevent excessive tension in a tether involved in towing objects or persons, like in the towing of sailplanes; the safety link in a tether is thus a tether itself.
The image I think we are supposed to get is of wild men held in check by being tied together. Now that the tie has been broken, who knows what mayhem they will wreak?
Apart from possible ideological differences, I think Trump had good reason to fire Bannon, he was becoming a loose cannon and undercutting the administration. I don’t think Trump is ideologically inflexible and if Bannon couldn’t get along with other members of the administrations, he had to go. I don’t think it will hurt Trump, but what will hurt Trump is if he stops fighting. Folks will stand by a fighter as long as he fights, but if he surrenders it is all over.
Does anyone here have a strong sense of what’s going on in the Trump administration?
I’m not surprised Bannon has been forced out. But I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had stayed.
There are always rumors swirling around Trump. However, I have not begun to acquire the ability to separate the silly from the serious.
Obama and his people were complicated and somewhat secretive but after a while I felt like I knew how their setup worked even if I didn’t care for it.
I continue to find Trump mysterious.
Bannon was the only conservative (sort of) left after McMaster purged those supporting the Trump agenda. Now Kushner, Ivanka and Donald Jr, all liberal Democrats and political naifs, are the powers in the Inner Circle, surrounded by McMaster, Kelly, Cohn, Tillerson, and others, who are actively working against the Trump agenda: building the wall, banning trans in the military, limiting immigration, rescinding the awful Iran treaty, and more.
Since Trump has no ideological underpinnings and is basically unprincipled (as has been demonstrably proven by neo), I think it’s inevitable that he will slowly be nudged and prodded leftward towards his liberal NY Democrat roots. Once his former society friends and the media start being a little less cruel to him, the Pavlovian training will be re-enforced and they’ll start congratulating him for “evolving”.
“We’ll see.”
geokstr Says:
August 19th, 2017 at 9:51 pm
I think it’s inevitable that he will slowly be nudged and prodded leftward towards his liberal NY Democrat roots. Once his former society friends and the media start being a little less cruel to him, the Pavlovian training will be re-enforced and they’ll start congratulating him for “evolving”.
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Trump has been a surprise in more than one way since his campaign started.
I hope he has a few of the more productive surprises in store.
We shall see.
PS Do you really think the cruelty will stop just because Bannon is out?
https://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2017/08/Media-Incitement.jpeg
Sorry for the hard core Trumptsers, but you got what you sowed when you sided with djt over Cruz. You reap what you sow for your simpleton belief djt was serious about any issue you believed was important.
Well, that looked like a really bad movie. Good thing President Trump is immune to stare of the current Medusa (or what is the plural of Medusa)?
Well, that looked like a really bad movie.
om: I never saw “Clash of the Titans” but when I was a kid I was a sucker for movies like that. They often don’t hold up as well a decade or four later.
Here’s a great, though justly forgotten, George Pal effort from 1960, “Atlantis: The Lost Continent.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDCWnvBk-DI
Bonus! Edward Platt, the guy who was “Chief” in “Get Smart” plays an Atlantean high priest with a funny hat.
> Well, that looked like a really bad movie.
That made it the perfect drive in movie, which is where I saw it …
@parker I preferred Cruz, but have no confidence that he would have been elected. He seemed to have the same sort of personality problem that Romney did, although to a lesser degree. He just wasn’t a natural politician and relied too much on organizing the caucuses and bombarding people with fund raising letters. It got annoying after a while. OTOH, I didn’t think Trump would get elected, so someone knew more than I did.
He seemed to have the same sort of personality problem that Romney did, although to a lesser degree. He just wasn’t a natural politician
The only politician Americans can worship are totalitarian Demoncrats like Hussein, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chelsea princess heir, the other Clinton sexual predator, and Demoncrats turned Republican like Trum.
LBJ, Wilson, FDR, other people who managed to manipulate Americans into falling for the Leftist con. People love falling for the con, because they want to be conned. But Americans say they want freedom, prosperity, and security…
Politics is theology, and I’m a prophet, and Americans are …., and humans are ….. Whatever.
Total sidebar, but I was entirely charmed by the “Journey to the Center of the Earth” 2008 remake.
It was plenty silly, but I would have loved it when I was a kid and I’ll bet there were plenty of 2008 kids who loved it nine years ago.
Not all movies should be like this but IMO there should be more harmless, old-fashioned, family entertainment these days.
Weren’t you supposed to be a christian om… whatever that means now a days given your conduct.
Y:
If you keep your theology and religio-prophecy to yourself you won’t be questioned. Sorry, but I’m not a Ymarite. Ymarites weren’t and aren’t a lost tribe; they just liked to wander, but knew their final destination.
“Does anyone here have a strong sense of what’s going on in the Trump administration?” – huxley
Right. It is some (hopefully only low level) chaos.
If you’ve ever had to hire a manager and he’s had to go through several key staff (of his own choosing, btw) in that short a period, it becomes clear the problem is not the staff, but the leader.
If one views trump’s behavior through the lens of narcissism, self-aggrandizement, etc., does the mystery become clearer?
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That bannon still, after several other occasions, let himself be portrayed as having a bigger role and influence than he maybe actually had (in trump’s mind), challenged trump’s self-image of being a great leader.
Anyone who looks like a challenge to trump’s self-image, or who may be a convenient target of blame for any consequences from his short-comings, has a target on their back.
A man like that doesn’t trust anybody but family, and even then…
” Folks will stand by a fighter as long as he fights, but if he surrenders it is all over.” – chuck
May be true for some people.
But I have to believe that in the long term, if there are no or few good results, even that has to lose its power over those same people.
After all, in the end, isn’t “fighting” only worthwhile when there is something that it can “win”.
Given that we are in a democracy, I don’t see that the kind of “fighting” that trump does is going to “win” much, and may well pave the way for an accelerated G-March that we say we don’t want.
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One key aspect of “winning” in a democracy is messaging and narrative.
On this trump has dropped the ball so many times, it ought to be beyond disappointing.
Of course the left / msm are going to do what they do. But, wasn’t trump supposed to be this “master persuader”? This successful media and real estate mogul who could navigate all that? This superb deal maker who could get all the key people together to get the changes we needed done?
He seems to be “fighting” everyone and everything with no discernment on how it strategically helps or hurts him.
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Several have convinced themselves that ONLY trump could win.
Balderdash! That is one meme that has been repeated so often that it now seems accepted as true.
But, in the face of trump, even clinton couldn’t scare up enough voters in key areas to win – she shares trump’s accomplishment in having one of the historically lowest shares of eligible voters for their party.
The trump campaigners would like to have us believe that he provided this big swing from traditional dem voters, and assume ceterus paribus for the rest.
Even assuming the swing was big (don’t think so), it wasn’t ceterus paribus, as many would be GOP voters were scared off.
clinton was awful enough that she wasn’t likely to take back those swing voters if faced with another of the GOP candidates.
All Cruz or anyone else needed to do was bring enough of those missing eligible voters back to the table.
The most likely exception was Bush in my estimation, as it would make the election about “dynasties” – something that would turn off most Americans.
We will never know for sure, but trump’s surprise win on such a thin margin, and such a low percentage of eligible voters, is hardly a basis for any case against any other GOP candidate winning vs clinton in 2016.
If it were President Cruz today, I’d like to believe we’d have accomplished a whole lot more, given his organizational talent, and his philosophical alignment with much of the GOP. He might not have been liked, but he’d have been pushing Congress hard for and selling the public the changes we’d have wanted.
om Says:
August 21st, 2017 at 10:06 am
Unlike you, I don’t care whether you exist or not. While you claim that I don’t matter, even though you keep reading what I write and trying and failing to fight against it.
You act like the Left when it comes to Trum, and how you belittled Trum voters here in 2015-16. They wouldn’t go so far to attack the judgment of the voters and the leader, if those two factions were meaningless. Making fun of the leaders is enough for me, since I know what is going on.
I’ll make fun of you, om, but unlike you, I don’t go out of my way to make fun of conservatives or Republicans here who decided to vote their conscience. Have you repented of your actions as a ‘christian’ yet on that matter?
it becomes clear the problem is not the staff, but the leader.
It is probably both. I already told people months ago that Trum wouldn’t have an easy time with the backstabbers in DC and the capital of Evil. Trum would need his clan loyalists to get anything done. As for the Alt Right, they were used to rofl stomping SJWs. DC evil mofos are orders of magnitude harder to STOMP than SJWs. They are also harder to stomp than “politicians” like Romney/Cruz.
Only secret cabal and secret society backed organizations and candidates can have far reaching power in this country and world. Consider Soros’ influence. He isn’t a politician, and yet… you really think all the investment he has made is all he has made? He keeps a lot of stuff off the books and black ops. Also consider Bill Gates’ vaccination program in Africa, anyone look into that yet? All kinds of stuff going on, that the MSM never told anyone here about.
On this trump has dropped the ball so many times, it ought to be beyond disappointing.
I never got on the trum band wagon, so how could it be disappointing… Disappointment is for those who actually had high expectations.
Hussein obola voters told me in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 that I should “wait and see”. And people with Trum say “well see”. Shrugs.
Whatever, the fate of humanity is already sealed, it doesn’t matter who they elect any more.
“On this trump has dropped the ball so many times, it ought to be beyond disappointing.”- Big Maq
Only in you’re mind, Big Maq.
His presidency is already a success.
Will he disappoint me? Does the sun rise?
Look, Cruz wouldn’t have won. Get over it. Rubio had a shot, but he was too inexperienced (Republicans don’t vote for neophytes (and it would have become obvious during the campaign), unlike Dems).
Kasich could have won.
Here’s the marker for the rest of his term. Trade and blue collar job creation. Those blue collar democrats that were supposed to shut up and take the gruel being served by the democrats don’t care about the nonsense being served by the the GOPe and the Democrats.
If he drops the ball on blue collar job growth, it will be disappointing and he’ll probably be a one-term president. The only caveat is if it is perceived that both R’s and D’s stood in the way of legislation that could have reversed the tide of job losses to cheap overseas wages.
@BrianE – Look, what we are seeing with trump is what “losing” looks like.
Not sure what your definition of “success” is, but if you think that trump carrying on as is will lead to what you want, have at it.
There are certain things that a democracy requires, in order to be a “success”.
Unless he changes, I don’t think he will get us anywhere close to what we want / need in this country, or even, specifically what you want, “blue collar job growth” of the magnitude that makes major headway against the losses of the last 10 – 15 years.
He is well on his way to a one term presidency.
And, by how he alienates those in Congress he needs to enact such policies, forget that – he may even be on an impeachment path.
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“Get over it” is very much how the left argues with us.
Benghazi? “What difference does it make now?” IRS and Lerner? “Old news. Nothing new there”. candy crowley interferes in presidential debate “Get over it”.
I don’t know, you don’t know, if Cruz would have won.
But, based on what we have seen, it seems pretty weak case to make that Cruz couldn’t pull off at least as good an election result as trump.
Yet, folks state with some surety that he couldn’t win, though it is nothing but speculation.
Maybe they should “get over it” and stop repeating that nonsense meme, as it is part of that “only trump could win” narrative.
The notion that only trump could win was one of the biggest lies of 2016.
Big Maq,
Since you won’t get over it, and we’re going to have this conversation for the next three years,
Would Cruz have won Miichigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or Ohio?
If so which states that voted for Hillary are likely to have swung to Cruz?
It wasn’t going to happen. Cruz may have had a higher victory margin in Red states, but as California proved, winning a state by a significant margin vs. a narrow margin doesn’t make one president.
Dude, you didn’t get the message.
If folks are going to bring up the idea that Cruz couldn’t win as if it were fact, I will point out it is speculation, and poorly so at that.
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trump won by a very VERY narrow margin those states.
Turnout as a percent of eligible voters was amongst the lowest ever for BOTH trump and clinton. That is, each were a turnoff for a good sized segment of their party’s regular voters.
Sure, trump swung some previously dem voters in those swing states.
But who says that had Cruz been the candidate:
a) that those swing voters would have gone back to clinton;
b) that had the GOP turnout been on par with prior elections that it couldn’t more than make up for the difference, even if all those swing dem voters went back to clinton.
It wasn’t, not even close, an overwhelming win for trump.
Had the news cycle been different on that final week, with such a thin margin, it may well have been clinton’s win.
We cannot just assume it was out of reach for a GOP candidate who would likely have had broader appeal to GOP voters.
Of course, you are free to do so, but seems more a rationalization than much of an argument.
I happen to think most of the candidates, but for Bush, had a good shot vs clinton, based on how marginal trump’s win was against a dem candidate who was surprisingly incompetent, along with a lifetime of political baggage she couldn’t avoid or explain away.
Y:
You are wandering around in the comment wilderness again. “Scroll by” is best for the chief of the Ymarite tribe.
“If folks are going to bring up the idea that Cruz couldn’t win as if it were fact, I will point out it is speculation, and poorly so at that.”- Big Maq
I never said he couldn’t have won, that he wouldn’t have won.
Since I’m doing so poorly, let me try again.
Your supposition that Cruz could have brought Republican voters back to the polls that stayed home this time is flawed.
Final results also reveal that despite early claims of historically low turnout, the number of raw votes cast in the 2016 presidential election – 136,628,459 – is actually the highest total ever. (The previous highest was the 2008 election in which 131.1 million votes were cast.) Even while adjusting for the voting eligible population, Professor Michael McDonald of the University of Florida estimates this election had a voter turnout rate of 58.9%. While this is lower than the 61.6% turnout in 2008 (which had the highest turnout since 1968), it’s still significantly higher than the 56% estimated by pundits immediately after the election.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/12/29/2016-vs-2012-how-trumps-win-and-clintons-votes-stack-up-to-obama-and-romney/#570a931661e9
Read this and get back to me.
Trump got more votes than Romney in 2012, when Republican voters should have been motivated to defeat Obama. But Republicans stayed home, because Romney wasn’t the perfect candidate. Why do you think it would have been any different with Cruz? He would have turned off as many moderate Republicans as tea party types he would have gained.
And I propose that Trump got most of the tea party votes.
Leaving aside the demographics, Cruz wouldn’t have won because voters don’t like Smart Guysâ„¢. And Cruz is a Smart Guyâ„¢.
Like all debaters he loves scoring points and it shows in his demeanor. While he would make a fine supreme court justice, he wouldn’t have been a good Presidential candidate, where empathy trumps logic.
The only outlier in the last 7 elections that didn’t project an empathetic, folksy persona was Bush the elder. “I feel your pain” is a necessary ingredient in a candidates arsenal. Romney didn’t have it and Cruz doesn’t have it.
Even when Cruz sounds sincere, he still comes across as a sincere lawyer. And you know what people think of lawyers.
Lots of people are talking about Bannon like he’s now some phenomenal cosmic power unleashed upon our country.
He went from the West Wing of the white house to . . . a website.
I plan on ignoring him.
Bill:
The MSM has a reason for acting like Bannon has a lot of power over the right. They’ve already branded him as practically a Nazi, so whether he’s in the White House or out, they want to project the idea that he has great power over the GOP and the right. In other words, GOP=Nazis, capiche?
Yes, that makes sense. Seems overblown to me. But I’ve always ignored Breitbart.
And it’s not just the MSM acting this way. Bannon and the other Breitbarters are acting like they are the riders of Rohan coming down from the hills.
Alt-right guys and their fantasies…
Love the word “capiche” BTW 🙂
Some of the Alt Right leaders live in foreign countries like France or Italy.
So it may not actually matter all that much to these ex patriates or non Americans, what Trum does to trash your American country. They helped elect him, so what. Europe helps Demoncrats all the time get into power. Hussein even had credit card donations from the world… minus the fraud detection.
To the world, so long as Trum keeps Americans neutered and focused on not expanding foreign wars, it’s all good.
“I never said he couldn’t have won, that he wouldn’t have won.” – BrianE
When looking at it after the fact, is there a substantial difference?
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What is interesting about that article are two things:
1) It tends to tout historical turnout by referring to total nominal count. He mentions it no less than four times – essentially the trump got more votes than Romney point.
While that is a true fact, if you understand the concept of inflation, you know that this is not a meaningful point, as the population has been increasing over time.
2) It quotes a professor on some turnout rates, but those numbers don’t match any of, and are substantially higher than, the VAP% mentioned on this site:
http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout-data
Oh, and that very same professor is the one who is associated with that website:
http://www.electproject.org/dr-mcdonald-bio
And, his numbers put trump’s VAP% lower than Romney’s or McCain’s (and lower than the pundit’s estimates that author cites).
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Somewhere back in the post election I broke this out and posted links for the numbers.
Maybe you’d care to search.
Om, you can try to scroll by my comments, but I don’t think you have the self control to achieve your boasting.
After all, you are a self professed christian that neither believes in angels nor demons. At least Hussein believes in his pastor and Muslim connections.
Bill, not understanding the strategic significant of Breitbart is perhaps why you were caught surprised and unawares by the Alt Right.
Big Maq, the problem isn’t whether Trum or Cruz would have won. The problem is that it wouldn’t have mattered in DC. Cruz may have performed better, hard to say, but he would have had to kill a lot of Leftists and bureuacrats in DC first.
BrianE, Whether Cruz could have, would have, or should have won, is irrelevant. If you wish to fight against the Leftist alliance, pay more attention to your allies and lack of logistics.
His presidency is already a success.
Adding another 2 minutes on the bomb timer, isn’t a “success”. It’s called a desperate delaying action by the rearguard. Whether it’s a success or not depends on whether you win the Civil War 2 or not, Brian… or are you one of those people who think we are the crazy ones to be talking about war with the Leftist alliance…
Don’t forget something. The ALt Right came late to this little party.
“Bill, not understanding the strategic significant of Breitbart is perhaps why you were caught surprised and unawares by the Alt Right.”
I wasn’t caught surprised or unawares. The alt-right guys were a new and ominous faction in my party. I said multiple times on this site that they scare the cr@p out of me . . . if they are in the white house. A couple still are, but Bannon is out. I’m thrilled
I also said, numerous times, that I figured Trump would win, even while talking about that would not be a good thing (time will tell, but so far it’s a little bit worse than I thought it would be, in a number of categories. It’s nice that the economy is doing well. And Gorsuch, of course). I kind of went back and forth on whether he would win, like most people, but I wasn’t caught off guard.
The election had no good possibilities for me, frankly.
Even while adjusting for the voting eligible population, Professor Michael McDonald of the University of Florida estimates this election had a voter turnout rate of 58.9%. While this is lower than the 61.6% turnout in 2008 (which had the highest turnout since 1968), it’s still significantly higher than the 56% estimated by pundits immediately after the election.”
So turnout % was adjusted for voter inflation, according to this.
I don’t have time to delve into the numbers, but why are you using VAP% and not VEP%?
My point about Cruz not appealing to moderate Reublicans or blue collar Democrats stands.
This is, of course, my opinion. But then, aren’t statistics just opinions?
BrianE:
Statistics aren’t just opinions; liars and politicians often use statistics, but that doesn’t make the stats a lie (or just an opinion).