Bannon Gives Team Trump a New Rallying Cry: “Deconstruct the Administrative State”

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters via ZUMA. Photoshop alterations by Kevin Drum.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Steve Bannon says that President Trump appointed all his cabinet members with a common goal: “deconstruction of the administrative state.” Meaning what?

Meaning the system of taxes, regulations and trade pacts that the president says have stymied economic growth and infringed upon U.S. sovereignty. Bannon says that the post-World War II political and economic consensus is failing and should be replaced with a system that empowers ordinary people over coastal elites and international institutions.

At the core, Bannon said in his remarks, is a belief that “we’re a nation with an economy — not an economy just in some global marketplace with open borders, but we are a nation with a culture and a reason for being.

Oh. Bannon is supposedly the brains behind the Trump operation, but this still sounds like gibberish to me. Combined with his calls for increased “sovereignty,” “economic nationalism,” and an epic twilight battle against Arabs for the soul of humanity, I assume this is just a politically correct phrase that describes his personal jihad against non-Christianity without quite saying so. In particular, Bannon’s “deconstruction” appears to encompass a war against Muslims, secular humanists, liberal Catholics, and maybe Jews. But it’s so crude to say that out loud, isn’t it?

In any case, I eagerly await huge crowds of Trump supporters waving signs that say “Deconstruct the Administrative State!!!” What will the competing signs say?

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate