The media are abuzz with rumors of a war between Donald Trump and Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on the one hand, and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. The battle lines are unclear; the principles of battle are unclear. On the one hand, there are Trump and McConnell: Trump clearly dislikes McConnell, but has been made to understand that only a working Republican majority will be able to effectuate any of his agenda; McConnell dislikes Trump, but realizes that Trump will sign nearly anything McConnell puts on his desk. On the other hand, there’s Bannon: Bannon wants to pose as the head of a “populist nationalist” movement.
Bannon insists that he wants Trump’s agenda executed, but he doesn’t have much incentive to work for a McConnell-led majority. That’s because if Republicans lose the majority, Bannon won’t take the blame — McConnell will. So that gives Bannon the freedom to suggest that he knows better than Trump-McConnell just which Republicans ought to occupy Senate offices, while knowing he won’t bear the brunt of any blowback should he support Senate candidates who fail in general elections.
Bannon, in short, wants to blame McConnell for anything and everything, because he knows the base dislikes McConnell. So he tells patent lies like this one: “When you want to talk about why there’s no repeal-and-replace, why there’s no tax cut, why there’s no tax reform, why there’s no infrastructure bill, you saw it right there … McConnell and [Tennessee Sen. Bob] Corker and that entire clique — establishment, globalist clique — on Capitol Hill have to go.”
But Corker voted for Trumpcare. Trump hasn’t even presented an infrastructure bill. And McConnell has signaled his willingness to stump for all three of those proposals. Bannon reportedly wants to target Senators John Barasso (R-WY), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Dean Heller (R-NV), Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Barasso, Fischer, Flake and Hatch all voted for every iteration of Trumpcare. Heller voted for “skinny” repeal. None of those senators have been named as opponents of Trump’s tax reform. So what is Bannon talking about, other than blathering self-congratulatory nonsense about forwarding the Trump agenda while undermining the Senate Majority Leader tasked with pushing that agenda forward? Does anyone truly think that McConnell is attempting to stymie Trump’s agenda at this point? Or is that just a convenient public talking point?
What makes this supposed “war” so odd is that it has almost nothing to do with policy. It’s not that Bannon supports candidates who like Trump, while McConnell doesn’t; it’s not that Bannon and McConnell even disagree substantially on policy (remember, Bannon was pushing Trump not to kill Obama’s executive amnesty, and Bannon was the man deployed to the Hill by Trump in order to close on Obamacare legislation). It’s that Bannon wants to be seen as an important political figure, and he isn’t. He’s merely an arrow pointing the money of Robert and Rebecca Mercer toward particular candidates.
That’s not an unimportant role — the Mercers do have incredibly deep pockets. And Bannon may be right about supporting certain candidates over others — he’s supportive of Chris McDaniel over Thad Cochrane in Mississippi, for example, where McConnell isn’t. But to suggest that Bannon is a political guru remaking the Republican Party is willful misreporting: he’s merely the latest figure trying to take advantage of the Tea Party movement that’s been the engine in the Republican train since 2009. And he’s supporting candidates the Tea Party supported before anyone had ever heard of Steve Bannon.
So, is there a real war here? Not really. There are just misaligned incentives (McConnell needs a majority, Bannon doesn’t) and misaligned perceptions of solid Senators (McConnell wants incumbents, Bannon doesn’t). Bannon’s supposed power lies entirely in the hands of the Mercers; Breitbart has supported a bevy of Republican candidates, including Mo Brooks in Alabama, Paul Nehlen in Wisconsin, Kelly Ward in Arizona. All lost. Breitbart’s big wins weren’t Breitbart wins but movement wins: Ted Cruz in 2012, Dave Brat in 2014, Roy Moore in 2017.
All of which is to say that before crowning Bannon some sort of imposing political figure, a bit of perspective might be nice. Bannon’s a player, and he’s actually right about some candidates, but he’s not leading a war on Trump or McConnell. He’s just moving himself tactically to make it appear that he’s more of a player than he is.