Steve Bannon's White House ouster might be billed as a move to help save President Donald Trump's fledgling administration, but "it may turn out to be the beginning of the end," Breitbart News Senior editor-at-large Joel B. Pollak wrote Friday.
"Steve Bannon personified the Trump agenda," Pollak wrote. "With Bannon gone, there is no guarantee that Trump will stick to the plan. That is why — too late, in retrospect — conservative leaders wrote to the president Friday to advise him that Bannon and campaign manager-turned-counselor Kellyanne Conway were too valuable to lose."
Comparing President Trump's rise and struggles to those of one-time conservative celebrity Arnold Schwarzenegger in his own attempt to "reform a corrupt, wasteful and lethargic political system," Pollak chronicled how the famed "Terminator" actor was forced to back down as a conservative amid "intense media criticism."
"Schwarzenegger gave up on his agenda, and abandoned the political base that had brought him into office," Pollak wrote. "He re-invented himself as a liberal . . . Politically, Schwarzenegger's gambit was a success. He won re-election in 2006. But his second term was a disaster."
Bannon's absence causes Trump's White House to lose "the conservative spine of the administration," Pollak added.
"Bannon was not just Trump's master strategist, the man who turned a failing campaign around in August 2016 and led one of the most remarkable come-from-behind victories in political history," Pollak wrote. ". . . His infamous whiteboard in the West Wing listed the promises Trump had made to the voters, and he was determined to check as many of them off as possible.
"Bannon was also probably the only person who could deliver honest advice and criticism to the president, because he did not need the job. He is a self-made man, and not a Washington climber.