Who now is the hand of the king?

The infighting within Trump’s White House reached a crescendo this week, with the addition to the menagerie of mini-me-Trump Anthony Scaramucci and the subsequent and connected ousting of the buffoonish Sean Spicer and stalwart Republican insider Reince Priebus. 

Trump's Ideologues 4: Bannon and Miller and Islamaphobia

Trump's advisors and Islamaphobia

Islamaphobic ideologues now hold some of the most powerful positions in American government.  As a group, these figures understand the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims entirely through the lens of its most extreme outliers.  In an oft cited and telling analogy, its akin to suggesting Christianity should be understood by taking the views of the Klu Klux Klan as the norm.  Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller’s anti-immigration views, as I outlined in my previous blog, stem from a concentration of far-right views that have also viewed Muslims as a particular threat to the far-right’s peculiar understanding of Christian Western Civilization.  In this blog I’ll be outlining some of the sources and implications of their views on Islam.  

Trump’s Ideologues 3: Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller on Immigration

Trump’s Ideologues 3:  Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller on Immigration

Stephen K. Bannon is acknowledged as the chief ideologue in Trump’s inner circle even if, as FiveThirtyEight has detailed, there maybe as many as eight potential power centres within the Trump administration and they all have different perspectives and (in part competing) agendas.  But as his chief advisor (and, significantly, an outsider to the Washington establishment) Bannon is the most important of the ideologues at this moment.  His young and aggressive protégé, Stephen Miller, is also an ideologue, but Miller’s views parallel Bannon’s so it makes sense to look at them together.  (To put another way familiar to historians: If Bannon were Robiespierre then Miller would be St. Just.) 

Looking at his overall worldview, it is apparent that Bannon seeks to influence Trump under four broad headings: restricting immigration, Islamaphobia, economic nationalism, and the destruction of the political establishment.  Although all four headings are related in Bannon and Miller’s worldview, I’ll be devoting a separate blog post to each heading, ending with how they all fit together.  This first post will set out the place of restricting immigration to the United States since this has been a priority acted on during Trump’s first 50 days.

And while the furore over the 'Muslim Ban' kept everyone's attention, this happened...

Yesterday Trump reshuffled the US National Security Council (NSC) the main group advising the US President on national security and foreign affairs, downgrading the role of the military chiefs of staff and giving a regular seat to his chief strategist Steve Bannon.  Trump appointee, retired lieutenant-general Mike Flynn heads the body.

According to reporting by the BBC, the director of national intelligence and the joint chiefs will only attend when discussion is pertain to their areas. Bannon, it seems, will be a permanent presence. Under previous administrations, the director and joint chiefs attended all meetings of the NSC's inner circle, the principals' committee.

Trump also ordered a restructuring of the Homeland Security Council, and in two seperate orders:

1.  banned administration officials from ever lobbying the US on behalf of a foreign government, and a separate five-year ban on other lobbying.  (a 'draining the swamp measure')
2. Called for a preliminary plan by the secretary of defence to defeat so-called Islamic State (IS) to be presented within 30 days.  (this is presumably the same plan Trump claimed he had already formulated during the campaign....)

These moves, especially the appointment of Steve Bannon, were criticized by Sen. John McCain on CBS's Face the Nation this morning.  McCain referred to the move as "radical" because it minimizes the role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

As the Senate Armed Services chairman, McCain said it was concerning that Trump has centralized power around Bannon and that the  most important decision-maker on the National Security Council, Gen. Joseph Dunford, is now being shut out of critical meetings.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer chanelled Trump directly in his defence of the move today, saying that the new structure will "streamline" decision-making and praised Bannon as having a "tremendous understanding of the world and the geopolitical landscape that we have now."