In some civilisations, eclipses of the sun have always been seen as powerful portents. Awe-struck humans have even been known to respond with a human sacrifice, designed to appease deities who could make the land dark. If Donald Trump’s sacking of his chief strategist Steve Bannon was a sacrifice of this kind, it did not protect America from Monday’s spectacular sea-to-sea darkling. But it was certainly an attempt to save the administration from a total eclipse of its own.
Some see the ousting of Mr Bannon last week simply as a victory for traditionalist and moderate Republicans. In this reading, the disciplined new White House chief of staff, General John Kelly, has triumphed over the disruptive rightwing populism of Mr Bannon. There is some validity to that. The president’s broadcast on Monday, which was expected to announce fresh troop deployments in Afghanistan, will be scrutinised for evidence of it. While he was in the White House, Mr Bannon fought the generals’ wishes for more troops, backing the use of private contractors rather than US forces. Mr Trump’s words may show the extent to which Bannonism of some kind has survived the departure of the man himself.
But there is more to this than moderation. Mr Bannon saw himself as a nationalist warrior, speaking for the president’s blue-collar, white-skinned electoral base against the Beltway establishment. Although he boasts that he will be even more powerful outside the White House, this is bluster. His departure weakens the administration’s nationalist radicalism on issues like trade, immigration, and the economic stimulus that candidate Trump promised. Relations with China, which preoccupied Mr Bannon so much that he rang a liberal journalist last week to announce that “to me the economic war with China is everything”, may ease. But the opposition he voiced to military action against North Korea or Syria may also give way to a more interventionist approach from the generals – including national security adviser HR McMaster and defence secretary James Mattis – who have forced him out.
An equally important example on the domestic front is tax reform. Gen Kelly was reported this week to see tax as the way to rebuild the administration’s ties with congressional Republicans and to repair relations with business after Mr Trump disbanded three presidential business councils last week. But the congressional leaders do not want the spending on jobs and infrastructure that Mr Trump campaigned for. They only want tax and budget cuts, plus tax breaks for business to go alongside the scrapping of rules on the environment and consumer protection.
The immediate reason Mr Trump is in trouble is because of his terrible response to the Charlottesville protests. But his deeper crisis is that he actually shares many of the congressional party’s priorities. The voters who rallied to his (and Mr Bannon’s) nationalist appeal a year ago are getting it. Support for Mr Trump in states that he won in 2016, like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, is down to between 34% and 36%. That reflects not just Charlottesville but the fact that in practice this president is less concerned with jobs and workers and more concerned with corporate interests – not least his own. Mr Trump isn’t an outsider but an insider. And increasing numbers of Americans can see this, even in the dark.
