I will break with my usual habit of waiting for things to settle down a bit and indulge in some speculation. At this point, things may not settle down for quite awhile.
Over the last few weeks I have observed that Trump has been spending progressively more time away from DC operating out of Bedminster and Trump Tower instead.
My suspicion is this behavior is entirely intentional, especially since it seems to have increased the moment General Kelly was moved to the White House. I also noticed the media is attacking Trump over the length of his absences. Trump has pointed to convenient renovations going on in the White House as justification, assuring the public that affairs of state are proceeding as usual.
Now, this behavior pattern has continued for weeks and could become the new normal. Once one 17 day “work vacation” ends we shouldn’t be too surprised as another excuse is contrived with Trump only commuting to DC for several hours at a time as needed. Meanwhile, it seems as though the leaks have abruptly stopped.
With this development, it is far less surprising to me that Bannon is leaving a White House that is no longer Trump’s center of operations. Both men have found the DC swamp to be intractable and are now trying to gain leverage from outside it.
As far as I can tell, Trump tried his utmost to work with the Republican party establishment, backing their legislative initiatives to the hilt so they could accumulate some political capital for midterms. Over time the tone of Trump’s tweets shifted from praising Paul Ryan’s leadership to criticizing Congress for not keeping promises they had made for years.
The final break happened when McCain cast the vote to get Obamacare repeal to the debate stage in the senate. McCain then cast the vote to kill the debate as if to say “Just kidding!” This public humiliation on the senate floor was finally too much. The GOPe had openly admitted they would drag their feet indefinitely in order to wreck the president. With midterms just over a year away, there was no more time to waste.
Trump brought in an outside consultant to sack his ambassador to the GOP starting a crazy chain of events that continues to cascade.
Furious that Trump was going off script even with McMaster there to “guide” him the beltway generals made sure Kelly got moved to chief of staff for good measure so the “pentagon boarding party” could keep the White House under lock and key.
Trump reacted by starting to contrive excuses to be away most of the time where he is likely establishing his own control structures with people he trusts.
This time, when the president broke free of the generals to make an independent statement on Charlottesville, they had no immediate way of shutting him down. Kelly was there, but as his despondent reaction revealed, he was powerless to intervene when unmoored from his place of power.
With the GOPe’s strong condemnation of Trump’s statements and apparent support for tearing down historical monuments, all pretense of civility has been dropped. They have hugely overextended with their unpopular positions and have created an opening for Trump to start displacing them in the upcoming midterms.
I am seriously wondering if I now see what may effectively be the emergence of two rival executive branches. One run by the Pentagon, political establishment, and corporations in DC and another run from New York. Perhaps we will get to see which is Rome and which is Avignon.
FORWARD BASE B 
10 replies on “Observations Leading Up To Bannon Resignation”
This reminds me of times Chinese History when the emperor would set up in a palace away from the court mandarins. Its the reason why the Emperors began to use eunochs.
And then the eunuchs came with their own problems. Playing their role in the decline of countless chinese dynasties.
This is an interesting insight.
Bannon is a media man. Expect him to unleash holy hell now that he’s back in his natural environment at Breitbart. In fact I think that’s what’s going on here: both men went to Washington and found out they needed their natural environments more than they realized if they’re going to pull this whole thing off. Never let your enemy pick the battlefield. They gave it the ol’ college try, and it didn’t work. If you’re correct, we’ll see a more effective Trump from New York.
Holes in your hypothesis: 1) Trump picked Kelly as CoS. It didn’t happen to him. 2) Trump picked Mattis. Mad Dog didn’t install himself 3) Trump picked McMaster.
“The generals” didn’t magically materialize in Trump’s administration. He put them there. Along with Cohn, Mnuchin, and our Secretary of Diversity at the State Department. If Trump has two rival branches he has nobody to blame but himself.
I don’t think you understand how the executive branch, or the government in general, operate.
Your condescension and unresponsive ‘response’ are duly noted. Clearly, “personnel is policy” and Trump’s personnel decisions are owned by him alone. If there are rival camps, it is odd to suggest that Trump is a passive agent. The job of the leader is to relentlessly articulate a vision–and then to hire excellent people committed to implementing the vision. The jury is most definitely still out on the latter point.
Lawerence, thanks for offering a critique. I think DFK is trying to say that no one can rule alone. A new president has to cut in the different factions he wants backing from. The downside of this is once in position they can influence what information is presented to you, who gets access to you, who gets recommended as a new hire. I think Trump wanted to get at least part of the establishment on his side and at this point it’s finally clear that hasn’t worked.
I wonder if he’s trying to get away from some of these people? One of the Trump team, the iIvanka-Kushner faction, gave an interview where they lamented that people don’t know how hard it is to keep him from doing foolish things. He said if it wasn’t for them Trump would have started a trade war with China and started mass deportations of aliens. Sorry I don’t have the link. Where it was linked from has been, hacked, or something and it’s down. Is this put out there as a lie to please the Red chumps. I don’t know but if true it would be a good sign.
Any grade of the Trump administration needs to be graded against, what would Clinton have done. While I’m fairly depressed that he’s missed so many opportunities I realize that compared to Clinton he’s done a great deal of good.
I’ve often thought that the White house was bugged from top to bottom before Trump got there. Look at how small a Micro SD Memory Card is and . A 16 GB would hold a long, long amount of just speech. It could be embedded in the trim or where ever. They could be wired in or frequency skipping wireless. Great for creating paranoia. Who’s leaking???? Maybe it’s the building itself. I wonder if instead of to get away from people he’s getting away from the bugs? I read that the Secret Service had a floor below Trump but he moved them out of Trump tower. Hmm…and now the leaks stopped? What does that tell you?