It seems that every Friday is a huge news day when it comes to the Trump administration, and August 18 was no exception. In fact, for Trump supporters, this might have been the most significant Friday of them all. It was the way Steve Bannon was asked to leave his post in the White House. For those who think that Bannon is the main ideological spine behind Trump’s agenda, it was a dark day indeed. And there is no shortage of conservatives who fear that Bannon’s ousting is a sign that their one-time “God emperor” has been swallowed up entirely by the very establishment he promised to destroy.
“The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” Bannon said in an interview with The Weekly Standard. “We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over.”
Bannon’s departure led many conservatives to declare their support of the Trump presidency “over,” as well.
“Steve played an integral part in the president’s journey to the White House,” said former Trump campaign adviser Sam Nunberg. “Steve went into the White House and didn’t betray his values, worked every day to advance the agenda that the president was elected on. Trump’s voters may get upset that America’s not being made great again. We’ll find out.”
Tea Party activist Debbie Dooley told The Hill that she was distraught over the news of Bannon’s firing.
“I’m very upset,” said Dooley. “The deep state globalists won. They forced out Steve Bannon. I had a ‘CNN is fake news protest’ scheduled for tomorrow at their headquarters in Atlanta that I’m canceling because I’m so disheartened. It’s a betrayal of his base. I’ll continue to support Trump and his policies but I’ll no longer be on the front lines defending him.”
Ann Coulter, who has spent as much of the last seven months bashing Trump as supporting him, used Bannon’s exit as another excuse to take shots at the president.
“Who will media decide Trump has to fire next?” she asked. “If Trump didn’t like the media giving Steve Bannon all credit, instead of firing him, he should’ve hired 10 more like him.”
The real question, of course, is how much Trump’s agenda can be credited to Bannon? As Trump himself has pointed out, he was crushing Republicans long before Bannon and Kellyanne Conway came aboard. And there were few policy differences between his primary campaign and his general election campaign. Fact is, the American people voted for Donald J. Trump, not Stephen Bannon. We see no reason to believe that Trump’s presidency is “over” just because Bannon is out.
If we’re wrong, though, it won’t take long to figure it out.
