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August 22, 2017

Are all Trump’s Wing-Men Flying the Coop?


If you’ve been watching the news and followed posts on social media, you could be forgiven for thinking that the current White House administration would not look out of place in a “Star Wars” movie.

Post after post seems to depict the United State’s President, Donald Trump, as the dark force out to destroy the world.

Worryingly, there appears to be no visible light force to stop him. Whether all of what we are seeing, hearing, or reading is true, there is no denying that Trump has rattled many and that many of us feel genuine fear for the future of America.

His approval rating from fellow Republicans is declining rapidly, and one by one, members of his once close-knit team are fleeing—or perhaps being pushed—from the nest.

Either way, from the outside looking in, it seems the Trump camp is going through turbulence that may just result in a free-fall.

However, despite Trump seemingly becoming more isolated by the day, he recently tweeted, “The Trump base is far bigger and stronger than ever before…” before (of course) adding, “despite some phony Fake News polling.”

Trump’s popularity has been fragile in the past few months, but it took an even steeper nose dive following his speech addressing the violent scene in Charlottesville that The Washington Post called, “The most disgusting public performance ever in the history of the American presidency.”

Despite three people losing their lives, and many others being injured when white supremacists took to the streets, Trump seemed to defend the extremists by saying there were some “very fine people” in the group, which was a mixture of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.

White House chief of staff, John Kelly, clearly looked uncomfortable while listening to Trump talk about the protests, and videos show him grimacing in response to what he was hearing. Trump’s speech was widely condemned, not just for what he said, but also because two days had passed before he spoke publicly about the carnage that occurred on August 12th.

The latest to part ways with the Trump Administration is Steve Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist.

Bannon’s departure makes him the fourth top administration official in recent weeks to leave the White House. Bannon follows former press secretary Sean Spicer, former chief of staff Reince Priebus and former director of communications Anthony Scaramucci, whose service lasted just ten days.

As Bannon left the White House, he made a strong statement in an interview with the Weekly Standard saying, “The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” adding, “We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency. But that presidency is over. It’ll be something else. And there’ll be all kinds of fights, and there’ll be good days and bad days, but that presidency is over.”

“I feel jacked up. Now I’m free. I’ve got my hands back on my weapons. Someone said, ‘it’s Bannon the Barbarian,’ I am definitely going to crush the opposition. There’s no doubt.”

Bannon will be returning to Beitbart News, which he once called, “the platform for the alt-right.”

Referencing his mission in the role of executive chairman, Bannon explained, “I built a f*cking machine at Breitbart. And now I’m about to go back, knowing what I know, and we’re about to rev that machine up.”

These comments have been interpreted many ways and could be a sign that Bannon is loaded and ready to aggressively take on Trump from the outside. Or, as many political analysts suspect, it could be that Bannon is far more powerful outside Trump’s camp, where he has the freedom to do or say whatever he wishes—particularly about his opinion of the Democrats. Therefore, Bannon can play a more supportive role to Trump and influence more people when he is not part of the White House team.

Bannon appeared to confirm this theory by saying in his interview, “I can fight better on the outside. I can’t fight too many Democrats on the inside like I can on the outside.”

Reportedly, in the same interview, Bannon also said Trump encouraged him to take on the Republican establishment, explaining “I said, ‘look, I’ll focus on going after the establishment.’ He said, ‘good, I need that.’ I said, ‘look, I’ll always be here covering for you.’”

With Trump tweeting in response, “I want to thank Steve Bannon for his service. He came to the campaign during my run against Crooked Hillary Clinton—it was great! Thanks S.” It seems that despite Trump appearing to be in a weaker state than ever before, this could be the major turnaround he has been hoping and waiting for.

Rather than the end, we could just be witnessing the beginning.

From what Bannon has said, despite extremely turbulent recent times, what we have seen so far during the first part of Trump’s presidency may have just been the calm before the storm.

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Author: Alex Myles
Image: YouTube still
Editor: Danielle Beutell
Copy Editor: Travis May
Social Editor: Taia Butler

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