Booting Bannon

Steve Bannon’s White House departure Friday was largely predictable — but not so its impact on Donald Trump’s presidency. At the least, it may help stem some of the infighting among Trump’s staff that has frequently undercut the president’s ability to push his agenda.

Bannon’s removal became all but certain when he gave an interview to The American Prospect mocking Trump’s “fire and fury” threat against North Korea. Such insubordination clearly made his continued presence as chief strategist untenable.

Nor did it help that he also bad-mouthed other Trump aides and ridiculed those who oppose a get-tough trade policy. Or that he was seen as the mastermind of a stealth media campaign to paint National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster as disloyal and anti-Israel.

Say this for Bannon, though: He played a key role in getting Trump elected by recog- nizing, and then channeling, the surging voter anger — as no other candidates did.

Trump saw it differently, of course, and may have even resented Bannon getting too much credit: “I won all the primaries,” he said. “Mr. Bannon came on very much later than that.”

In any event, Bannon’s White House record was far less stellar. He headed a clique of hard-right nationalists who believed they alone represented the real Trump agenda, and he was deeply linked to much of the internal White House turmoil.

The question now is: Will Bannon stick with Trump no matter his position, or, after returning to his Breitbart Web site, unleash a media barrage against any White House departure from his favored course?

Either way, Trump likely is better off with the decks cleared and a chance to refocus. Things have been just too rocky.