Plenty of presidents have had prominent political advisers,
and some of those advisers have been suspected of quietly setting policy behind
the scenes (recall Karl Rove or, if your memory stretches back far enough, Dick
Morris). But we’ve never witnessed a political aide move as brazenly to
consolidate power as Stephen Bannon — nor have we seen one do quite so much
damage so quickly to his putative boss’s popular standing or pretenses of
competence.
Mr. Bannon supercharged Breitbart News as a platform for
inciting the alt-right, did the same with the Trump campaign and is now
repeating the act with the Trump White House itself. That was perhaps to be
expected, though the speed with which President Trump has moved to alienate
Mexicans (by declaring they would pay for a border wall), Jews (by
disregarding their unique experience of the Holocaust) and
Muslims (the ban) has been impressive. Mr. Trump never showed much
inclination to reach beyond the minority base of voters that delivered his
Electoral College victory, and Mr. Bannon, whose fingerprints were on each of
those initiatives, is helping make sure he doesn’t.
But a
new executive order, politicizing the process for national security decisions,
suggests Mr. Bannon is positioning himself not merely as a Svengali but as the
de facto president.
In that new order, issued
on Saturday, Mr. Trump took the unprecedented step of naming Mr. Bannon to
the National Security Council, along with the secretaries of state and defense
and certain other top officials. President George W. Bush’s last chief of
staff, Joshua Bolten, was so concerned about separating politics from national
security that he barred Mr. Rove, Mr. Bush’s political adviser, from N.S.C.
meetings. To the annoyance of experienced foreign policy aides, David Axelrod,
President Barack Obama’s political adviser, sat in on some N.S.C. meetings, but
he was not a permanent member of the council.
More telling still, Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Bannon to the
N.S.C. “principals’ committee,” which includes most of those same top officials
and meets far more frequently. At the same time, President Trump downgraded two
senior national security officials — the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
a role now held by Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., and the director of national
intelligence, the job that Dan Coats, a former member of the Senate
Intelligence Committee and former ambassador to Germany, has
been nominated to fill.
All this may seem like boring bureaucratic chart-making, but
who sits at the National Security Council table when the administration debates
issues of war and peace can make a real difference in decisions. In giving Mr.
Bannon an official role in national security policy making, Mr. Trump has not
simply broken with tradition but has embraced the risk of politicizing national
security, or giving the impression of doing so.
Mr. Trump’s order says that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs
and the director of national intelligence will attend the principals’ committee
meetings only “where issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise
are to be discussed.” Could there be any national security discussions when
input from the intelligence agencies and the military will not be required?
People in those jobs are often the ones to tell presidents hard truths, even
when they are unwelcome.
As his first week in office amply demonstrated, Mr. Trump
has no grounding in national security decision making, no sophistication in
governance and little apparent grasp of what it takes to lead a great diverse
nation. He needs to hear from experienced officials, like General Dunford. But
Mr. Bannon has positioned himself, along with Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared
Kushner, as the president’s most trusted aide, shutting out other voices that
might offer alternative views. He is now reportedly eclipsing the national
security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
While Mr. Trump long ago embraced Mr. Bannon’s politics, he
would be wise to reconsider allowing him to run his White House, particularly
after the fiasco over the weekend of the risible Muslim ban. Mr. Bannon helped
push that order through without consulting Mr. Trump’s own experts at the
Department of Homeland Security or even seeking deliberation by the N.S.C.
itself. The administration’s subsequent modifications, the courtroom reversals
and the international furor have made the president look not bold and decisive
but simply incompetent.
As a candidate, Mr. Trump was immensely gratified by the
applause at his rallies for Mr. Bannon’s jingoism. Yet now casually weaponized
in executive orders, those same ideas are alienating American allies and
damaging the presidency.
Presidents are entitled to pick their advisers. But Mr.
Trump’s first spasms of policy making have supplied ample evidence that he
needs advisers who can think strategically and weigh second- and third-order
consequences beyond the immediate domestic political effects. Imagine tomorrow
if Mr. Trump is faced with a crisis involving China in the South China Sea or
Russia in Ukraine. Will he look to his chief political provocateur, Mr. Bannon,
with his penchant for blowing things up, or will he turn at last for counsel to
the few more thoughtful experienced hands in his administration, like Defense
Secretary Jim Mattis and General Dunford?
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THE NEW YORK TIMES, 31/01/2017
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