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The Bannon Revolution The Bannon Revolution
(about 20 hours later)
The only fitting reaction to the news that Steve Bannon intends to support primary challengers against Republican incumbents from sea to shining sea is a terrible, almost Teutonic sort of world-weariness. Bannon’s grand ambitions should inspire the same soul-deadening déjà vu, the existential exhaustion, with which Bill Murray’s weatherman greeted every morning in Punxsutawney, Penn. They should bring to mind both Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence and his warning that if you stare deep into the abyss, it stares into you. They should inspire a vision of the Republican Party as a wheel turning endlessly in darkness, with the illusion of movement but the light forever out of reach.The only fitting reaction to the news that Steve Bannon intends to support primary challengers against Republican incumbents from sea to shining sea is a terrible, almost Teutonic sort of world-weariness. Bannon’s grand ambitions should inspire the same soul-deadening déjà vu, the existential exhaustion, with which Bill Murray’s weatherman greeted every morning in Punxsutawney, Penn. They should bring to mind both Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence and his warning that if you stare deep into the abyss, it stares into you. They should inspire a vision of the Republican Party as a wheel turning endlessly in darkness, with the illusion of movement but the light forever out of reach.
O.K., maybe that’s all a little much. But really, didn’t we just go through all this? It was just seven years ago that Republican incumbents were facing populist challengers who promised ideological revolution, just a little while ago that the establishment was losing primaries to a mix of true believers, opportunists and erstwhile witches. What Bannon is promising is what the Tea Party actually delivered, in a past recent enough to still feel like the present: a dramatic ideological shake-up, an end to D.C. business-as-usual, and the elevation of new leaders with a sweeping vision for a new G.O.P.O.K., maybe that’s all a little much. But really, didn’t we just go through all this? It was just seven years ago that Republican incumbents were facing populist challengers who promised ideological revolution, just a little while ago that the establishment was losing primaries to a mix of true believers, opportunists and erstwhile witches. What Bannon is promising is what the Tea Party actually delivered, in a past recent enough to still feel like the present: a dramatic ideological shake-up, an end to D.C. business-as-usual, and the elevation of new leaders with a sweeping vision for a new G.O.P.
Then it all came to naught. The ideological shake-up took the form of paper promises, not successful legislation. The end to D.C. business-as-usual just created a new normal of brinkmanship and gridlock. And when the Tea Party’s leaders — Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, above all — reached out to claim their party’s presidential nomination, they found themselves steamrolled by a candidate who scorned all their limited-government ideas and offered, well, Trumpism instead.Then it all came to naught. The ideological shake-up took the form of paper promises, not successful legislation. The end to D.C. business-as-usual just created a new normal of brinkmanship and gridlock. And when the Tea Party’s leaders — Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, above all — reached out to claim their party’s presidential nomination, they found themselves steamrolled by a candidate who scorned all their limited-government ideas and offered, well, Trumpism instead.
Alas when it comes to governance, Trumpism turns to have two fatal weaknesses: the dearth of Trumpists among elected Republicans, and the total policy incapacity of Trump himself. So having failed in his appointed role as Trump whisperer and White House brain, Bannon has decided to do the Tea Party insurgency thing all over again, except this time with his nationalist-populist cocktail instead of the last round’s notional libertarianism.Alas when it comes to governance, Trumpism turns to have two fatal weaknesses: the dearth of Trumpists among elected Republicans, and the total policy incapacity of Trump himself. So having failed in his appointed role as Trump whisperer and White House brain, Bannon has decided to do the Tea Party insurgency thing all over again, except this time with his nationalist-populist cocktail instead of the last round’s notional libertarianism.
Maybe it will work. Maybe repetition is the charm. Maybe the Tea Party was a dead end, but some Trumpist primary candidates will finally produce a Republican Party capable of doing something with its power.Maybe it will work. Maybe repetition is the charm. Maybe the Tea Party was a dead end, but some Trumpist primary candidates will finally produce a Republican Party capable of doing something with its power.
If you squint at the Bannon vision, you can almost imagine it. His professed nationalism, with its promise of infrastructure projects and antitrust actions and maybe even tax hikes on the rich, is potentially more popular than the Tea Party vision — an easier sell to swing voters than a stringent libertarianism or a zombie Reaganism, a more plausible response to the new political landscape that the stale agenda currently on offer on a Republican-controlled Capitol Hill.If you squint at the Bannon vision, you can almost imagine it. His professed nationalism, with its promise of infrastructure projects and antitrust actions and maybe even tax hikes on the rich, is potentially more popular than the Tea Party vision — an easier sell to swing voters than a stringent libertarianism or a zombie Reaganism, a more plausible response to the new political landscape that the stale agenda currently on offer on a Republican-controlled Capitol Hill.
But this imaginative exercise collapses when you look at Bannon’s own record and the candidates he’s recruiting.But this imaginative exercise collapses when you look at Bannon’s own record and the candidates he’s recruiting.
The record features big talk about populism and political realignment, plus a dismissal of the white identitarians and racists drawn to his flame as just incidental idiots ... but it never seems to cash out in anything except a return to empty, race-baiting culture war.The record features big talk about populism and political realignment, plus a dismissal of the white identitarians and racists drawn to his flame as just incidental idiots ... but it never seems to cash out in anything except a return to empty, race-baiting culture war.
At the White House, Bannon did not manage to inject much heterodoxy into any part of the same old, same old Republican agenda. But he did encourage the president to pick racialized fights at every chance. On the evidence so far, his new grass-roots populism promises to be more of the same: a notional commitment to some nebulous new agenda, with white-identity politics and the fear of liberalism supplying the real cultural-political cement.At the White House, Bannon did not manage to inject much heterodoxy into any part of the same old, same old Republican agenda. But he did encourage the president to pick racialized fights at every chance. On the evidence so far, his new grass-roots populism promises to be more of the same: a notional commitment to some nebulous new agenda, with white-identity politics and the fear of liberalism supplying the real cultural-political cement.
Especially because the would-be senators he’s recruiting are a mix of cynics and fanatics who seem to share no coherent vision, just a common mix of ambition and resentment. A nationalist-populist realignment might be possible in theory, and Trump may have even shown how it could work — but if you believe figures like Roy Moore and Erik Prince are going to succeed where Trump is obviously failing, I have some affidavits attesting to Harvey Weinstein’s innocence to sell you.Especially because the would-be senators he’s recruiting are a mix of cynics and fanatics who seem to share no coherent vision, just a common mix of ambition and resentment. A nationalist-populist realignment might be possible in theory, and Trump may have even shown how it could work — but if you believe figures like Roy Moore and Erik Prince are going to succeed where Trump is obviously failing, I have some affidavits attesting to Harvey Weinstein’s innocence to sell you.
Which is not to say Bannon is delusional. He and his allies are the latest group to recognize the void at the heart of the contemporary Republican Party, the vacuum that somebody, somehow needs to fill. The activists and enforcers of the Tea Party era tried with a libertarian style of populism. Paul Ryan tried with his warmed-over Jack Kempism. My friends the “reform conservatives” tried with blueprints for tax credits and wage subsidies. They all failed, and the Bannon crew actually got furthest, in the sense that they got the most unlikely figure imaginable elected president on something resembling their platform.Which is not to say Bannon is delusional. He and his allies are the latest group to recognize the void at the heart of the contemporary Republican Party, the vacuum that somebody, somehow needs to fill. The activists and enforcers of the Tea Party era tried with a libertarian style of populism. Paul Ryan tried with his warmed-over Jack Kempism. My friends the “reform conservatives” tried with blueprints for tax credits and wage subsidies. They all failed, and the Bannon crew actually got furthest, in the sense that they got the most unlikely figure imaginable elected president on something resembling their platform.
But now they, too, need to reckon with a reality that has confounded every kind of Republican reformer since Barack Obama was elected: Our politics are probably too polarized, our legislative branch too gridlocked, and the conservative movement too dysfunctional and self-destructive to build a new agenda from the backbenches of Congress up, or even from the House speaker or Senate majority leader’s office.But now they, too, need to reckon with a reality that has confounded every kind of Republican reformer since Barack Obama was elected: Our politics are probably too polarized, our legislative branch too gridlocked, and the conservative movement too dysfunctional and self-destructive to build a new agenda from the backbenches of Congress up, or even from the House speaker or Senate majority leader’s office.
Our system isn’t really all that republican anymore; it’s imperial, and even an incompetent emperor like Trump is unlike to restore the legislative branch to its former influence. So if you want to remake the Republican Party as something other than a shambolic repository for anti-liberalism, the only way it’s likely to happen is from the top down — with the election of an effective, policy-oriented conservative president (which Donald Trump is not), surrounded by people who understand the ways of power (which Bannon, for all his bluster, didn’t) and prepared to both negotiate with Democrats and bend his own party to his will. Our system isn’t really all that republican anymore; it’s imperial, and even an incompetent emperor like Trump is unlikely to restore the legislative branch to its former influence. So if you want to remake the Republican Party as something other than a shambolic repository for anti-liberalism, the only way it’s likely to happen is from the top down — with the election of an effective, policy-oriented conservative president (which Donald Trump is not), surrounded by people who understand the ways of power (which Bannon, for all his bluster, didn’t) and prepared to both negotiate with Democrats and bend his own party to his will.
I don’t pretend to know if such a presidency will ever happen. But if I were Steve Bannon, or any other Republican with a vision for the G.O.P. future beyond the hapless “governance” on display today, I would not be wasting my time trying to elect a few cranks and gadflies who will make Mitch McConnell’s life more difficult.I don’t pretend to know if such a presidency will ever happen. But if I were Steve Bannon, or any other Republican with a vision for the G.O.P. future beyond the hapless “governance” on display today, I would not be wasting my time trying to elect a few cranks and gadflies who will make Mitch McConnell’s life more difficult.
Instead I would be looking for the thing that too many people deceived themselves into believing Trump might be, and that Bannonite populism for all its potential strength now lacks: a leader.Instead I would be looking for the thing that too many people deceived themselves into believing Trump might be, and that Bannonite populism for all its potential strength now lacks: a leader.