Steve Bannon is not going away

When Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist in the White House, resigned-or-was-fired, he did not fade silently away.   He said he was simply going to continue "the war for Trump" from outside.    You know, get away from all that inside fighting with Jared for influence with the boss.

And he was certainly right about continuing the fight for populist, nationalist politics.   Whether it will benefit Trump remains to be seen.

Bannon's first act was to shore up his relationship with the ultra-rich, Mercer family, main financial backers of Breitbart News and right-wing politicians.   Bannon was promptly reinstalled atop the Breitbart News organization and assured by the Mercers that they would fund his efforts to recruit primary candidates to "take over the Republican Party." 

We saw the results of that last week in Alabama.   In the run-off election for the Republican primary to choose candidates to run for the open seat left by Sen. Jeff Sessions, Bannon campaigned for Judge Roy Moore, as anti-establishment as they make 'em.   His opponent in the run-off, Luther Strange, was endorsed by President Trump, who went to Alabama to hold a rally for Strange.  For more on these two men, see ShrinkRap ("So Much Losing," 9/28;  and "Guns, God, and Defiance," 9/29).

Steve Bannon's ambitions are larger than Donald Trump's presidency.   Trump was merely a convenient tool that Bannon tried to use to install his own vision in power.   Bannon's nationalistic agenda preceded Trump and will last far longer than the Trump presidency.

Reporting by Bloomberg Businbessweek, among others, says that Bannon and Trump still talk on the phone.   And Bannon tries to maintain the image of still being an adviser to the president.   However, they ended up on opposite sides in the Alabama race, because other advisers persuaded a reluctant Trump to back the establishment candidate, Luther Strange.   But it was notable that at his rally for Moore, three days before the election, Bannon told the crowd that "a vote for Judge Moore is a vote for Donald J. Trump."

Trump was so annoyed that his candidate lost that he deleted his tweets that had encouraged people to vote for Strange, and he began saying how great Judge Moore is, all but jumping on the Moore bandwagon.

Bannon left the night after the election to go to Colorado to interview potential candidates as part of a swing through Western states in search of nationalist candidates to help him "take over the Republican Party."

Regardless of the fate of Donald Trump, Steve Bannon is a force to be reckoned with, all on his own.

Let's start by helping the Democratic candidate Doug Jones defeat Roy Moore in the general election in early December for that U.S. Senate seat.

Ralph