Steve Bannon Is Playing a Dangerous Game of Chicken with Donald Trump—and He'll Probably Win

Chief White House Strategist Steve Bannon isn't afraid of Donald Trump, and that gives him power.
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It seems like Steve Bannon, a.k.a. The Shadow President, a.k.a. the White (Nationalist) House chief strategist, might be in some trouble with his boss. In any other work place he'd be a goner. He's encouraged white supremacists (both in his time at Breitbart and in his positions in the White House). He's spear-headed racist and Islamophobic policies. He's waged a shadowy war against the son-in-law of the boss. Any one of those would get you fired from most White Castles, let alone White Houses, but none of those are why Bannon is in trouble with Donald Trump. No, President Trump is mad at Actual President Bannon because... well... people know enough to call him Actual President Bannon. Yes, the issue in the White House is one of credit.

Donald Trump didn't like that Steve Bannon was on the cover of Time with the headline "The Great Manipulator." And now he's not mad that Bannon encouraged his terrible Charlottesville position (because let's be real, it's also Trump's terrible Charlottesville position). No, he's mad about Joshua Green's great book Devil's Bargain about Bannon and the Trump campaign. And why is he mad? Because it makes Bannon out to be the brains behind the campaign's success.

This is obviously an insane argument, because who in their right mind would want to claim credit for what's happening in the country right now? It's like two people arguing over who wrote more of The Emoji Movie. And it's not like Green's book is all that positive about Bannon. I mean, it certainly argues that he's brilliant, but the book is called Devil's Bargain. I think it's fair to say in that title BANNON IS THE DEVIL. And here we have the president being jealous of him. It's weird.

Anyway, Bannon is embattled at this point and many on the right are calling for Trump to fire him. But Bannon's not going to go down like Reince or Spicer. No. According to a new report from BuzzFeed, if Bannon is going down he's going down in a blaze of glory and he's going to make Trump end things in a big, ugly way.

Bannon, an ally said, was very angry that [Gary] Cohn was telling the press about how uncomfortable he was with Trump's Tuesday comments. "Bannon felt it was the opposite, he thought it was great," the source relayed.

That same day, Bannon spoke to the American Prospect, tearing into Cohn and forcefully detailing his own agenda to a reporter, blowing up the earlier, cautious approach to survival.

Bannon has now made the calculus that he’s on thin ice regardless, and won't go down quietly, the first supporter said. "He's saying, 'I’m going to force you to fire me in a public way or we’re going to follow the agenda we were elected for.'"

Now, some in that BuzzFeed report believe Bannon is on his way out, but I'm not so sure. This is an administration that is underwater and under attack from all sides. And even though Trump is quick to say that Bannon joined the campaign late in the game, he was an unofficial advisor and backer for some time before he started running the campaign. As such, I worry that Bannon just knows too much. Whether it be the Russian collusion or the obstruction of justice, he knows the truth, and if we can take anything from Bannon's life, it's that he lives in a perpetual state of "no fucks given." And not for nothing, Trump doesn't have much more of a base to lose, but the people who are still with him are the same people that Bannon could separate from him easily with Breitbart. I'd love to see him go, but I think there's a reason he's stuck around this long.


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