Extraordinary things are happening in global politics right now. Alliances between countries are being reshaped as voters move away from progressive democracies which preach globalisation to candidates who are playing on base fears. In the UK, Prime Minister Theresa May last night told her fellow politicians that they need to heed this switch in voter opinion. In the US, the President-elect Donald Trump is making sure he doesn’t lose touch with the groundswell that swept him to power by ensuring his closest White House confidante is right wing media icon Steve Bannon. Meet Bannon by reading my op-ed below on the real power in the Trump Administration. Very interesting times. As the Chinese symbol for Change tells us, it offers both Danger and Opportunity. – Alec Hogg
LONDON – We’re all judged by the company we keep. Especially those who rise to powerful positions. Hence the furore in South Africa around the deeply compromised President Jacob Zuma and his close friends, the rags-to-riches billionaire Indian immigrant family the Guptas.
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It is from this perspective that we need to view US President-elect Donald Trump’s weekend’s announcement of the two men who will run his White House. Especially the elder and first named of the equally-ranked appointees, 62 year old conservative media icon Steve Bannon.
Anyone exposed to the brilliant TV series West Wing will know that outside of the President, the most powerful person in the White House is the Chief-of-Staff. This is the person with greatest access to Number One. But the position also requires some special attributes.
Outgoing President Barack Obama’s COS is 46 year old Denis McDonough, variously described as a “loyalist”, “very disciplined”, “an Obama true believer” and one who “knows the President’s mind – sensing how he will view things or react to something.”
McDonough has been one of Obama’s closest friends since serving as the chief foreign policy communications strategist on the 2008 Presidential campaign. He has fulfilled the COS’s impeccably, fulfilling its primary objective of protecting and advancing the interests of his boss.
In the new White House’s key COS position, avowed Washington outsider Donald Trump named 44 year old Reince Priebus. For some it was a surprise as Trump hardly knows the man. But there is more to this than meets the eye.
Priebus is the chairman of the Republican National Committee with whom Trump had difficulty during the campaign. His appointment was interpreted as injecting a “safe pair of hands” into the Trump Administration, by some even as an olive branch offered to the Washington establishment.
Don’t you believe it. Priebus might have the title, but he certainly doesn’t have the COS’s traditional power.
That vests, instead, with 18 year older Bannon whom Trump named as “chief strategist and senior counselor” – a position which was pointed out would hold equal status with the COS. It is in this appointment that we get a cleared understanding of what to expect from this Presidency.
Hailing from a poor family in Norfolk, Virginia, he signed up at the local US Navy base, serving for four years in a destroyer at sea as a naval officer. Bannon left the navy for Harvard where he gained an MBA and entrance to Wall Street’s leading investment bank, Goldman Sachs. In 1990 he left with a few colleagues to form a mergers and acquisitions boutique Bannon & Co which was sold to Societe Generale in 1998.
A staunch admirer of Ronald Reagan, he hit the public spotlight in 2012 when taking over the conservative website Breitbart.com after the death by heart attack of its founder. Bannon has not been shy to wield the mushrooming website’s power, specifically in aiding Trump.
Such was the unqualified support of the candidate that Breitbart’s critics dub it “Trump Pravda”. They were especially outraged when the site’s 30 year old editor refused to support his own reporter, Michelle Fields, after she accused former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski of sexual harassment.
In August, Bannon jumped aboard the Trump bandwagon by taking over as CEO of the election campaign. He is credited with the near miraculous conversion in four months of a loose-cannon, wisecracking amateur to the disciplined, on-script winning candidate of the last couple weeks in the campaign.
Priebus might possess the title and the office. But there is little doubt Trump loyalist Bannon will crack the whip. Their promised campaign to disrupt the Washington establishment remains very much on track.
