A political weathervane
The latest object of Trump’s opprobrium is Steve Bannon
President Donald Trump rose to power on a combination of meanness, incoherence and falsehoods. His strategy depended almost entirely on playing off the unpopularity and weaknesses of others.
Every aspect of his approach has blown up on him since he took office, but as is always the case with Donald Trump, he will not take any personal responsibility for what’s going wrong. He must find a scapegoat. The latest object of his opprobrium would seem to be Steve Bannon, the chief White House strategist.
But dumping Mr. Bannon would only underscore the extent to which Mr. Trump is a political weathervane, gyrating wildly with the political winds. He’s “populist” one day, conventionally conservative the next and centrist the day after that. His implicit response is: Who cares? Let’s just get through another week.
At the moment, he is basking in praise from large parts of the foreign policy establishment for his decision to fire missiles into Syria. This is the hour of maximum danger for Mr. Bannon. Mr. Trump may now figure he should ride for a while with his newfound friends in the elite. The presence of the disheveled ultra-nationalist Mr. Bannon just won’t do at the tony country club party Mr. Trump wants to throw for himself.
And so Mr. Trump, in an interview with the New York Post’s Michael Goodwin, did to Mr. Bannon what he has done to everyone else: He offered an entirely misleading account of their relationship.
“I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late,” Mr. Trump said. “I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn’t know Steve. I’m my own strategist and it wasn’t like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary.”
Hmm. Contrary to Mr. Trump’s claim, he has known Mr. Bannon since 2011 and appeared nine times on Mr. Bannon’s radio show. Just a few months ago, Mr. Bannon was cast as the political genius who saw the electoral potential in the Midwestern swing states. But with Mr. Trump, every good idea is his idea and every failure belongs to someone else, so Mr. Bannon is now an afterthought.
The weathervane will twirl again soon because Mr. Trump faces renewed trouble, on an old front and a new one.
Mr. Trump has gone to great lengths — including lying about former President Barack Obama having his “wires tapped” — to distract from inquiries into his campaign’s possible ties to Russia’s effort to subvert the 2016 election.
But Tuesday brought a reminder that the story won’t go away until it’s resolved. The Washington Post reported that the FBI obtained an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor the communications of the man Mr. Trump once listed as a foreign policy adviser, Carter Page. (Mr. Trump has since downgraded Mr. Page’s role to “low-level.”) The news was an indication of the seriousness of the investigation of links between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia. While Mr. Trump hopes that his administration’s complete about-face on Vladimir Putin — from fawning praise to hostility — will settle the matter, it won’t.
And then the good people of Kansas’ 4th Congressional District cast ballots in a special election on Tuesday. While Republican Ron Estes hung onto the seat over Democrat James Thompson, Mr. Estes’ 6.8 percent margin was anemic in comparison with Mr. Trump’s 27-point win in the district last year. And Republican Dan Pompeo, whose appointment as Mr. Trump’s CIA director created the opening, was re-elected last year by a margin of 31 percent.
This swing will petrify Republicans in Congress who, up to now, have largely stayed in line behind Mr. Trump. It’s also likely to give additional spine to Mr. Trump’s GOP critics, both on the far right and among politicians closer to the center.
The energy in politics is now clearly on the antiTrump side. Republicans will surely notice the sharp falloff in loyalist turnout in Republican bastions. Last year, for example, Mr. Trump carried Harper County, south of Wichita, with 1,996 votes to 393 for Ms. Clinton. Mr. Estes could manage only 837 votes there, to 307 for Mr. Thompson. And energized Democrats swung big Sedgwick County, which includes Wichita, from Mr. Trump to Mr. Thompson.
As Mr. Trump’s comments to Mr. Goodwin showed, he still longs to run against “crooked Hillary.” He also still loves to bash Mr. Obama. But Mr. Trump is on his own, with only his own record to answer for. He can let go of Mr. Bannon and anyone else he wants to blame for the chaos of his presidency. But governing is hard, especially when your principles are as flexible as your relationship with the truth.