From Rush Limbaugh, Thursday:

Bannon is conveying here that he is the decision-maker and strategist on these foreign policy subjects or questions and that Trump is just along for the ride…

[T]he overall flavor of the interview is that Trump is not president, Bannon is…

There are people all over Washington, D.C., who think that Steve Bannon made Trump, that Trump didn’t have anything to do with it. And they think that Trump has words put in his mouth by Bannon…

They really believe that Trump will not fire Bannon because Trump knows that Bannon can destroy him because they think that all that has to happen is for Bannon to go on TV and tell Trump’s voters that Trump’s a phony and Trump’s this and that Trump’s voters will abandon him…

That Bannon is the creator of populism, for example. That Bannon is the creator of Trump Nationalism. That Bannon is the guy who created the Alt-Right, who is Trump’s base. All of that is just total BS.

It was mainstream Americans that signed up and voted for Donald Trump…

So inside the Beltway, the Washington establishment, Trump is a buffoon.

Would someone please tell me how Trump is not a buffoon.  Time will tell.

People who had never voted before were encouraged by promises of jobs and an end to wars, both of which are Nationalist planks which I doubt Trump came up with.  Of course, both are turning out to be lies.

From Nick Hanauer:

Manufacturing as a percentage of the overall economy, and of jobs, has been declining globally for decades. This trend will not reverse. Trump cannot restore the middle class with empty promises to bring manufacturing jobs back from the dead.

No, the only realistic near term way to insure Americans do better is to make existing jobs into good jobs by requiring they be paid adequately.

No matter what anyone says, the real reason Bannon left is because Trump has not kept these promises.  In fact, Trump lies all the time and always has.  It’s who he is.

And who’s behind the slight-of-hand vaporware Saudi arms deal, which emboldened them to attack gas-rich Qatar, and their ally, Iran?  This was foreign policy strategy on a grand scale.  Even Bannon’s enemies on the Left claim he’s the most politically savvy operator at the White House.

From Michael Lewis:

Allegedly, between the election and the inauguration not a single Trump representative set foot inside the Department of Agriculture, for example. The Department of Agriculture has employees or contractors in every county in the United States, and the Trump people seemed simply to be ignoring the place. Where they did turn up inside the federal government, they appeared confused and unprepared. A small group attended a briefing at the State Department, for instance, only to learn that the briefings they needed to hear were classified. None of the Trump people had security clearance—or, for that matter, any experience in foreign policy—and so they weren’t allowed to receive an education.

This is how the neophyte Trump admin actually behaves.  Slick foreign policy deals aren’t possible if you’re ignorant.

From Ron Maxwell:

While prominent neocon and establishment luminaries who derided Trump from the beginning couldn’t expect seats at the Trump table, their lesser known minions infiltrated key precincts of Trump’s transition teams. Their astute sponsors, the neocon bigwigs, knew the neophyte president could not know who was who in the political and policy firmament of Washington. Neocon cadres had had at least a quarter century to embed themselves into every nook and cranny of the federal bureaucracy—at State, Defense, national security agencies, congressional offices, think tanks, nongovernment organizations, and the national media.

Within weeks a pattern emerged in the new administration. Covert Never Trump Republicans were getting hired; proven and loyal Trump supporters were blocked.

Removal of Bannon is the last straw.  Deep State has crushed whatever promises Trump made during the campaign.  Rush contends Trump supporters have a personal connection with the man.  Preposterous.  Trump supporters have a personal connection with their pocket books and he is failing to deliver.

Limbaugh was pretty much consigned to the political wilderness during the Obama admin, and Trump came out of nowhere to re-energize his career.  Authoritarians like Rush are likely to suffer the consequences of their delusion.

I contend Steve Bannon was the chief architect of Trump’s campaign.  The removal of Bannon puts an end to hopes Trump will keep those promises.  The next few weeks, starting with the Afghan deal, should prove that the deep state coup against Trump has been entirely successful.

Bannon’s return to Breitbart simply puts him back whence he came.  I think he propelled the worst possible candidate into the White House and I suspect he plans to do it again in 2020, sans Trump.