The Summer Purge
This summer, President Trump has taken vital steps to improve the efficiency of his administration, shedding four of the most useless and divisive members of his staff. Their replacements are either better respected or more moderate than their predecessors, which bodes well for the embattled president as he looks to make his campaign promises a reality.
Foreign Affairs
Matthew Waterfield
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Sean Spicer. Reince Priebus. Anthony Scaramucci. Steve Bannon. At some point this summer, all of these men have wielded immense power, owing to their former roles: working for the most powerful government in the world. Yet each and every one of them is now gone.
The Trump administration is unrecognisable compared to how it was when July began. The summer has seen the departures of the Press Secretary, the Chief of Staff, the Director of Communications and even the omnipotent Chief Strategist, the aforementioned Bannon, who many believed was the power behind the throne.
Gone are the incompetent establishment Republicans (Spicer and Priebus), the new kid on the block who caused mayhem before fizzling out (Scaramucci), as well as the #1 white nationalist, the victim of an administration rocked by the events of Charlottesville (Bannon).
With autumn now upon us, America is now being run by a different group of individuals, all of whom are thankfully far superior to their predecessors.
For example, the hapless Priebus, in all likelihood one of the most ineffective Chiefs of Staff in American history, has been replaced by John F. Kelly, the uber-disciplined former Homeland Security Secretary, who has brought a sense of order to a chaotic White House.
Whereas Priebus was mocked mercilessly and humiliated by being asked to swat flies for the leader of the free world, Trump respects Kelly, a four star general, and has allowed him to implement chains of communication and control the information flow within the Oval Office, in what was an administration in disarray. For example, while there’s nothing Kelly can do to stop Trump watching his beloved Fox News, he no longer receives printed out copies of Breitbart articles like he did when Steve Bannon was around.
Trump made a similar choice in swapping Sean Spicer, the much maligned purveyor of ‘alternative facts’, with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who has built up a much better rapport with the press and who answers journalists’ questions far more effectively than her inept predecessor ever did.
But while the eventual departures of Priebus and Spicer had been seen as inevitable since the early days of the Trump presidency, the most surprising moment in American politics this summer was when news broke that Anthony Scaramucci had been sacked after serving for 10 days as White House Director of Communications.
He left the US political scene just as quickly as he’d arrived, having achieved his sole purpose — removing Reince Priebus. During his brief tenure, he publicly accused the then Chief of Staff of being “a leaker” and referred to Steve Bannon using an obscene phrase while speaking to a journalist — as a result, he was sacked on the orders of Priebus’ replacement, having already lost all credibility.
However, the most important personnel change this summer was the exit of the infamous Steve Bannon, the architect of Trump’s victory and the most powerful alt-right sympathiser in the administration.
The circumstances surrounding Bannon’s departure are disputed and whether or not he was able to jump before he was pushed remains unclear to this day. However, the one thing that is near universally agreed on is that the gore and wickedness that emanated from Charlottesville irreversibly tarnished his reputation; by virtue of being the most senior white supremacist in the Trump administration, he became liberals’ number one target following the murder of Heather Heyer.
The anger at Heyer’s death manifested itself in many ways, but the most important effect was how it stiffened the resolve of Democrats to see Bannon kicked out of the White House. Thereafter they attacked him relentlessly, highlighting his extreme views and demanding that Trump sack his long-time friend and ally.
Trump, already annoyed at how many saw Bannon as the ‘real president’, finally made up his mind; on 18 August, Steve Bannon was removed from his position. With the subsequent departure of Seb Gorka, the other prominent white nationalist within the administration, the alt-right faction has been severely weakened in favour of moderates, such as James Mattis and H. R. McMaster, who now occupy most of the senior positions within Trump’s team.
The grotesque collection of weaklings and racists that ran America just three months ago has now gone — the Trump administration is now much more similar to the Bush administration, filled with hawks who bring lots of experience to their roles, something many of their predecessors lacked.
A note of caution — no one knows how long these replacements will last before either quitting or being forced out of the administration. There are already rumours of Trump’s displeasure at Kelly, as well as his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. With the current staff turnover rate being as high as it is, it would not be a shock if there was a new set of people running America by the next time summer rolls around.
For now though, stability reigns supreme in the White House, for the first time since Inauguration Day. With around three and a half years of the Trump presidency to go, there will be further changes down the line and the current tranquillity may soon give way to the bedlam we were previously accustomed to. But until then, Americans can finally breathe a sigh of relief, safe in the knowledge that the US is once again being run with the degree of efficiency that their country requires.
