Coup-Coup-Cachoo

I think it’s time to stop talking about the Trump administration and start talking about the real power and vision behind the current presidency, Steve Bannon.  We joke that he’s the puppet master pulling the strings, but it’s no joke. 

He is, in effect, the shadow president, and this is his administration, his grand plan.  I don’t mean as a mere strategist.  I mean the whole plan is his, including the goals, which means we need to focus on what he believes and what he wants.

Steve Bannon’s worldview is anti-globalist.  He admires right-wing nationalists, law-and-order governments that maintain tight control of the people, and hard-line opponents of immigration.  He has no qualms about leveraging Anti-Semitism, racism, misogyny, and Islamophobia for political gain.  Like his alt-right compatriots, he views the enforcement of civil rights laws, environmental policies, and all manner of business regulations as no mere inconvenience or even government overreach, but as a form of tyranny.  He views government as a win-lose endeavor, and he intends to win no matter what it takes.

When we consider his views, the first round of executive orders from this administration is not surprising.  They are Bannon’s handiwork.  The border wall, the immigration ban, the death of the Affordable Care Act, and the rest of the odious orders thus far are in alignment with Bannon’s worldview, but I would argue that they pale in comparison to the sudden upheaval in the structure of government.  This is Bannon’s real goal, and it should be the big story.

What we’ve seen of this administration so far is not a mere sea change in policy.  Bannon seems to want nothing less than a total transformation of our very form of government.  That might sound extreme, but consider that more than once, he has expressed a desire to completely bring down the entire establishment.  Bloomberg quoted him as saying

"I come from a blue-collar, Irish Catholic, pro-Kennedy, pro-union family of Democrats.  I wasn't political until I got into the service and saw how badly Jimmy Carter f---ed things up.  I became a huge Reagan admirer.  Still am.  But what turned me against the whole establishment was coming back from running companies in Asia in 2008 and seeing that Bush had f---ed up as badly as Carter.  The whole country was a disaster."

This quote strikes me as central to his ideology.  What he sees as the breakdown of our society is not the fault of any individual administration but the result of a flawed system of government.  A blowhard who complains non-stop about the idiots in government no matter who’s in charge isn’t unusual.  But this one is now directing the president, and if he has his way, his ideology will reshape the American government completely, and our society along with it.

Toward the end of the campaign, Trump promised to drain the swamp in DC.  The crowd loved it.  It became a rallying cry.  We all expected to see an administration of outsiders.  So, as the transition team took shape, and the cabinet picks were announced, we on the left jumped on the list of elites, the party operatives, and Washington insiders Trump had chosen and accused him of hypocrisy for not even trying to drain the swamp.  On top of that, we argued, many of the picks were undeniably unqualified.

We should have paid closer attention.  The picks were not foolish.  Even the cabinet nominees who are clearly unqualified fit Bannon’s goal of upending the government. 

Who better to take down the Department of Energy than the man who said if elected president he would eliminate it altogether?  Who better to gut the Department of Education than a woman who believes in handing government funds in the form of vouchers to companies and religious organizations that operate private and charter schools?  Who better to ignore Housing and Urban Development initiatives than a man who claims that ensuring access to basic necessities is a form of slavery? Who better to yank the regulatory teeth out of the EPA than a man who sued the agency repeatedly?  I could go on, but you get the picture.

After just one week, the path of destruction Bannon seems to be plotting is impressive in its scope.  The upper echelons of the state department have been cleared of career personnel.  The work product of scientists engaged in climate change research is largely considered to be at risk of destruction.  Programs across the federal government are slated for elimination in a scorched earth strategy General Sherman couldn’t match. 

Bannon and company seem to be hurtling toward their goal of dismantling the institutions of the federal government at a breakneck pace.  As fast as they’re moving, it would be wise for us to consider what obstacles of resistance remain in their path.

There are five variables in this equation, five entities that play a role in determining the outcome – the three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial), the press, and the people.  Over the years, the balance shifted fluidly from one entity to another, allowing power to flow in one direction and then another, always searching for equilibrium. These five entities balance one another, righting the ship of state as needed, keeping it from capsizing. 

For Bannon to succeed, he has to capsize the ship.

He appears determined to consolidate power in a shrinking executive branch that will be more tightly controlled by a small cadre of like-minded crusaders who are beholden to no one but themselves.

The legislative branch is under the control of the Republican Party, swept into power by a combination of Trump’s populist wave, voter suppression, and gerrymandered congressional districts that all but ensure republican control of a population that leans democratic.  Despite their initial show of resistance to Trump, they’ve largely caved in.  Though some of them surely object to Bannon’s vision and tactics, the specter of battling both the administration and the voters back home keeps their mouths shut.  For the past few years they’ve been like a pack of dogs chasing Obama’s car down the street, yapping and snarling.  Now, like the proverbial dogs that eventually caught the car, they don’t know what to do with it, so they gladly stand by and watch while Bannon hands Trump a sledgehammer and sends him swinging at the windshield.

The press has been under attack from this administration since before the election.  Bannon’s team has undermined the serious press and elevated both the egregiously slanted Fox News and a number of even less responsible fringe organizations, his own Breitbart among them.  Any news coverage they don’t like is simply labeled fake news.  If the administration dislikes the coverage, the offending journalists are threatened.  Bannon went so far as to call the media the opposition party and say they should keep their mouth shut.  Meanwhile, the barrage of fake news continues, and Trump’s followers gobble it up like candy.

This brings us to the judiciary, the branch of government that presents the greatest roadblock to Bannon’s plan.  With the executive branch already being reshaped and the legislative branch largely brought to heel, the judiciary is next on the hit list.  Despite the vocal complaints about Obama and the Congress, it’s the judiciary that Bannon’s crowd truly hates.  This is the branch that holds the others two in check, especially with regard to civil rights, because this is the branch that has the power to say no.  When the courts rule that a law is unconstitutional, that law cannot stand.  It is the courts that ensure our civil rights, the courts that protect the individual from the state.  

On the left, we admire the courts.  Over the years, we’ve fought and won many important battles in courtrooms.  Our civil rights movement has relied on the rule of law as interpreted by the courts.  But among Bannon’s crowd, so-called activist judges undermine the system of government as they believe it should operate.  They frequently decry the rulings we celebrate as being at odds with majority rule, which in their eyes is not so different from mob rule.

The problem here is that the judicial branch has no power to enforce their rulings.  Have you ever wondered what would happen if the executive branch simply refused to comply with the judicial branch’s orders?  I believe we’re about to find out.  This past weekend, DHS agents in airports across the country defied a federal court’s orders by refusing to allow detainees to speak to attorneys.  What if this was just a trial balloon to see what they could get away with?  If so, what’s coming next will be far more than a typical shift in the balance of power among the branches of government.  Bannon would love to see the judiciary hobbled and unable to oppose the administration on issues of civil rights and deregulation.  We could be headed for a constitutional crisis focused on the question of judicial power. In this context, Jeff Sessions as attorney general is even more chilling. 

That leaves only one entity standing in Bannon’s way – the people, or at least some fraction of us.  That’s where the slew of executive orders comes in.  Week one was designed to shock us, divide us, and create chaos.  The mess of the immigration ban was not simply incompetent bungling.  It was designed to go badly.  The bigger the mess, the more adamant our protest.  Thousands of liberals chanting and shouting in defense of Muslim immigrants and refugees sends quite a message to middle America Trumpville, where people already conflate Muslims with terrorists and cautious foreign policy with a lack of action.  Liberals, they claim, will risk the lives of every American to avoid hurting the poor little feelings of a single terrorist.  Divide and conquer.

With each new outrage, we protest and demonstrate.  The administration claims the protests are small and insignificant, their media proxies belittle the protestors, and Fox News blasts their talking points to Trumpville. Regarding the protests this past weekend, Fox posted a piece with the headline “Forget the hysterical mainstream media – America likes Trump’s agenda, including his immigration pivot.”  Their viewers roll their eyes at us and buy coffee mugs from which they can sip liberals’ tears.

Before the latest outrage even dissipates, the cycle starts again - Trump signs the next executive order, we erupt, they condemn.  Lather, rinse, and repeat until our diverse and unwieldy resistance coalition cracks under the weight of the chaos.  That’s the plan.  They will push us until we begin to fight one another, or until a demonstration becomes a riot, which will be a convenient excuse for a law and order crackdown.

This is what consumes us all.  And yet, this past weekend, as our outrage surged into public protests for the second time in a week, this time swirling into airports as well as the streets, Bannon quietly replaced the chairman of the joint chiefs on the national security council, a move that in normal times would have grabbed the headlines.

Bannon is the architect of this new regime, this new world order.  He’s the mastermind, and Trump is the stooge, the celebrity spokesman who entertains the crowd with the ideas and words Bannon has fed him.  This is not Trump’s administration.  It’s Bannon’s.  We know who he is.  What know what he wants.  Just as Hitler laid out his plan in Mein Kampf, Bannon has laid out his vision in articles and interviews over the years.  He wants to replace our system of government with a more authoritarian regime in which the white nationalist mob rules, and the rest of us know our place.  He will achieve these ends through lies, intimidation, and fearmongering.  Can violence be far behind?

As the destruction of our institutions of government continues, I have to ask, how far does it have to go before we begin calling it a coup d’etat?  I know, that sounds crazy.  It’s something we associate with African warlord dictators and banana republics.  But coups don’t always involve the military and can be accomplished without bloodshed.

If you’re shaky on what, exactly, a coup is, here’s the Merriam-Webster definition.

Coup d'état: a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics; especially: the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group

Bannon was not elected to the presidency, but make no mistake, he’s the one in charge.  He’s consolidating power in a small inner circle of the executive branch and dismantling the checks and balances that would limit his control.  Trump is merely the showman sent out to whip up the crowds and divert our attention from what’s happening behind closed doors.  While Trump incites fear of immigrants, Bannon quietly grabs more power.  It’s not the terrorists who are the greatest threat to the nation.  It’s Steve Bannon. 

Does it sound farfetched?  Maybe.  But consider his own words.

He told The Hollywood Reporter,

"Darkness is good... Dick Cheney.  Darth Vader.  Satan.  That's power.  It only helps us when they (liberals) ... get it wrong.  When they're blind to who we are and what we're doing."

We can’t afford to be blind.  We need to pay attention. What we’ve seen this past week is just the beginning.