* Steve Bannon is no longer a White House staffer. This pleases White House insiders not named Gorka or Miller. Some say he’s been “unleashed”–so, head’s up Republican establishment, as well as Jared and Ivanka. But actual presidential influence–a phone call away–could still remain, especially as Breitbart News, an axis of economic nationalism and alt-right racism, refortifies. Bannon is now its executive chairman. Word is, Breitbart is serious about a TV version. As David Axelrod, former adviser to President Barack Obama, has noted, “If Bannon and Breitbart are spinning him up, Trump may dial him up on a regular basis. That may give him leverage.”
Leverage without “Javanka” and the generals listening in. Just Sebastian and Stephen.
* Trump, it has been announced, will be skipping the annual Kennedy Center Honors arts awards this year. It would have been a “political distraction,” disingenuously explained White House press harlot Sarah Huckabee Sanders. How noble. Actually, it would have resulted in a boycott by the honorees–and even more embarrassing press for Trump .
* First it was the business councils that bailed. Then the artists committee. Now it’s scientists and local officials disbanding their climate policy panel. Pretty soon it will be official: “Input” is only welcomed from the “basket of deplorables” and certain GOP cowards.
* No one, obviously, should applaud what that Missouri state senator said about Trump, even though we understand where the rhetoric is coming from. For the record, Democratic Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal–in a Facebook post–expressed hope for a presidential assassination. She has since apologized. She took back the appalling reference, but she couldn’t take back context.
Doesn’t her disturbing–but not as shocking as it should be–post speak alarming volumes about where we now are as a country, as a culture and as a society?
*It’s beyond exasperating to read frequent analysis for Trump’s election that centers on the Democratic Party as effectively leaderless and message-challenged. As in no single galvanizing candidate and no single, all encompassing, rally-round message to rouse the grass roots and gin up the vote.
Not that we don’t get that overview. In normal times, it makes sense. It’s Political Campaigning 101. The Dems never found their A-game.
But in this case, it’s an absolutely unacceptable rationale for what happened. It means this electorate–notably including working class, white voters who had felt taken for granted–actually found this manifestly unethical, uninformed, narcissistic, vulgar, faux-populist lout to be an acceptable alternative to what the Dems were offering.
The most serious threat to democracy is not Donald Trump. It’s an easily duped electorate.