Mike Allen: “Forget the theater, the palace intrigue, the stumbles. One thing you should know on Day 40 (and soon the 40th night) of President Trump is this: This a Bannon-Miller presidency in the making. Think about the dark view of the state of the world, of the state of our nation, of the state of media. This is the worldview of the Stephens — chief strategist Bannon and policy guru Miller — trumpeted by Trump.”
We see this in:
- A budget draft that guts the regulatory state to fund a defense build-up.
- A war without end with the media, where allies like Breitbart get Oval Office face time and frenemies like the New York Times get endlessly tagged as evil.
- A clamp-down on immigrants, visitors from Muslim countries, trade, companies exporting jobs.
- A dismissive view of the U.N. and conventional views on China.
- The slow destruction of political norms, and Washington customs and niceties.