I see three different scenarios. The first is that the Trump Administration will swing a little to center away from the far-right it has been under. The second is that the Trump administration will further be exposed as Steve Bannon and et al go to war against Trump for ousting Bannon. And the third is that things will remain the same, i.e. a chaotic White House where nothing gets accomplished.
All three scenarios will come to bear, albeit, in small doses. The Trump administration will swing a little more center because the architect of the far-right politics, Bannon, is out. The travel ban is, at best, neutered and other nationalistic agenda items no longer have Bannon championing them at the White House. Bannon and his supporters will likely lash out at Trump and surrogates as Trump starts to drift away from the far-right. What remains unclear, is how much lashing out there will be. There are too many skeletons in the closets for both men. The chaos at the White House will remain. The chaos is driven by Donald Trump and he has proven that he is unlikely to change.
What will not change, in my opinion, is that the Donald Trump administration will still not be able to accomplish anything substantive. This is because Steve Bannon, like all the other ousted predecessors, are not what created the chaotic White House. All of them are just a symptom of Donald Trump who manifests himself through his surrogates. Steve Bannon may have brought forth the ultra-right, alt-right, politics that led to the two-failed travel bans but let us not forget that it was Donald Trump who launched his campaign by calling Mexicans “rapists.” Bannon may have magnified that nationalistic tendencies in Donald Trump, but Donald Trump’s distastes for Mexicans are his alone to own.
The problem remains that Donald Trump has alienated too many in the Republican Party, his party, to get enough support to ensure his agenda gets the legislation it needs. It’s too late for Trump to bring his party to heel and as such his political agenda is dead in the water.
The Republican’s, like the Democrat’s, are an organization that will make a deal with the devil if it ensures its survival and as such there will be minor legislative victories for Trump to lash on to. But, substantial implementation of his public policy agenda is now impossible under the current climate. Much of it went out the window, along with Steve Bannon.
