With Bannon gone, we can see Trumpism for what it really is - By Jennifer Rubin

By Jennifer Rubin January 10 at 11:30 AM

The demise of Bannon — the irrelevancy of Bannon — should confirm what many ex-Republicans or nearly-ex-Republicans have been saying: There is no grand, coherent philosophy behind President Trump’s candidacy. The “movement” was a canard. The promise of expanding the party (which is now shrinking) rested on luring masses with economic populism, which was quickly dumped in favor of plans to slash Medicaid and give big tax cuts to the rich and to big corporations. The whole faux populism shtick was built to win a campaign and fund Bannon’s operations, not to use for governing.

Bannon’s disjointed ramblings about civilization, globalism, Christianity and the like were the cotton candy he fed to not-too-sophisticated billionaires. He’d gussy up Trump’s meandering message with the history of the world according to Steve. In speeches and interviews, however, what came out was a slightly more sophisticated version of Trump’s word salads, wherein he would toss around gibberish about the deep state and revolution. More often, it sounded like a college dorm bull session in which garbled history and religious mysticism meet nihilism.

In any event, now that Bannon is gone from the scene, we can dispense with the idea that Trump ever had or needed a philosophy. Trump has long been about Trump, a cult of personality with ample helpings of racism, xenophobia, protectionism and nativism. His only “genius” is in manipulating and conning those looking to justify grievances (usually based on race). His specialty is in stoking white males’ anger over loss of primacy in society. Trump — as we plainly saw in that jumbled immigration session — believes in nothing more than winning, and then garnering praise from the people he has fooled (e.g. the voters who thought he wasn’t going to cut taxes for the rich).

Because Trump is incapable and uninterested in matters of substance, the plutocratic class that backed him has had a field day. (He’ll sell the masses; we’ll get the big tax cuts!) They and the evangelical power-seekers have been able to call the tune on taxes, abortion, gay rights, court appointees, deregulation, etc. What we have is a caricature of the far-right agenda that originally drove the party into the ditch with working-class voters. (Mitt Romney is a raging economic populist compared with this crowd.)

On foreign policy, there is a daily battle between a national security team of rather orthodox thinkers and an unhinged, ego-driven commander in chief obsessed with the idea that if President Barack Obama did something, he must undo it no matter what the current circumstances. Trump’s inclination (whether based on financial or emotional dependency on Russian President Vladimir Putin, we do not know) has to be constantly checked by the pro-America wing of the administration. (Spencer Ackerman now reports, “A senior National Security Council official proposed withdrawing some U.S. military forces from Eastern Europe as an overture to Vladimir Putin during the early days of the Trump presidency, according to two former administration officials.”)

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