Bannon or no Bannon, Trump will be Trump

In any normal White House, in any normal week, the ouster of the President's political and ideological guru would signal a major course correction.

Though Steve Bannon has been a force of disruption in President Donald Trump's tumultuous seven months in power, the now former chief White House strategist is unlikely to take the chaos he has fomented with him after being forced out of the West Wing Friday.

That's because the most disruptive, unpredictable, outrageous influence in the White House is going nowhere, and he just happens to be the man in charge.
"Trump is still President and he is an uncontrollable force, we have found out," said David Gergen, an adviser to four presidents, Democrats and Republicans.
"A lot of the chaos and spewing of hatred comes from him himself, not just the people around him."
Ever since jumping to the President's campaign a year ago, Bannon has been portrayed as a political flamethrower and the personification of the "America First" economic nationalism and populism that Trump rode to the White House.
1 picture that explains the remarkable White House staff turnover
1 picture that explains the remarkable White House staff turnover
On one level, his exit is a victory for the generals Trump has gathered around him, including John Kelly, his new chief of staff, and H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, who have battled to impose order and continuity on Trump's governing process and foreign policy as pandemonium raged.
One administration was clearly not big enough for Kelly and Bannon.
And sources have told CNN that Trump had grown irritated with his chief strategist's outsized media profile and reputation as the intellectual guardian of his political project.
Yet photos of Kelly, staring helplessly at his shoes Tuesday as Trump drew new equivalencies between white supremacists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, told their own story.
Kelly may be able to impose order and to oust the most disruptive elements of Trump's White House staff. But corralling the unruly President who resists discipline and control and who blurts out inflammatory statements and sets Twitter alight on a whim is another.
Bannon has often been seen as a link between Trump and the alt-right, nationalist sectors of his political base, that were particularly attracted to his rhetoric on immigration and tough line on Islamic terror during the campaign.
Donald Trump fired Steve Bannon. But Bannon still won.
Donald Trump fired Steve Bannon. But Bannon still won.
But Bannon, while clearly playing a role in laying out the ideological underpinnings of Trump's worldview, was always more of a symptom of Trumpism than its cause. The President was lashing out against Mexicans and indulging in anti-Muslim rhetoric long before he officially joined the campaign.
And the most remarkable news conference in presidential history also made another point clear: Trump's reticence in specifically singling out white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups was not the result of Bannon whispering in his ear -- it was an authentic representation of his own core beliefs.
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As a massive backlash grew against Trump, from business leaders, Republican senators and others, it became clear that his presidency itself was facing a huge crisis of moral legitimacy -- a reality that the firing of a mere operative like Bannon, who has been at the fringes of Trump's team during the President's politically disastrous two-week "working vacation," would do little to change.
After his ousting Friday, Bannon spoke to The Weekly Standard, making a pointed case that the Trump presidency that his brand of populist, right-wing conservatives helped make possible is now "over."
"We still have a huge movement, and we will make something of this Trump presidency," Bannon told The Weekly Standard. "But that presidency is over. It'll be something else. And there'll be all kinds of fights, and there'll be good days and bad days, but that presidency is over."
The departure of the rumpled chief strategist provokes questions that could shape the Trump presidency going forward.
One effect could be to consolidate the White House's political message more fully under the control of Kelly and any future appointees.
His absence could allow Kelly and McMaster to rein in conflicting strands of Trump's foreign policy. Bannon's comment for example this week in an interview with the American Prospect that there was no military solution to the North Korea nuclear showdown undercut the President's rhetoric and caused deep confusion among US allies in Asia.