Trump’s recruitment of Bannon means war and everyone knows it

“You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will,” General William Tecumseh Sherman wrote to Atlanta’s officials as he moved forward with plans to evacuate and burn the city. “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out.”

Less than three months before the presidential election, the political establishment and media elites are facing the “curses and malediction” of war of their own making. After years of being used and abused, the Silent Majority they muzzled is rising up and its voice is Republican nominee Donald Trump. 

{mosads}There is no doubt the protectors of the status quo see a threat in Trump. Why else does the media hang on Trump’s every word and pounce whenever they get a whiff of a salacious scent, no matter how faint? Why else has the establishment professed that Trump must change the very formula that resulted in him trouncing multiple Republican rivals — many of whom were thought to be the crème de la crème of Republican politicians?

The answer? Trump is winning this war to restore the Silent Majority and his victory means the pay for play power structure in Washington — enjoyed by both Democrats and Republicans alike — is about to come crashing down. 

On trade, foreign intervention, and immigration, Trump is not only at odds with Hillary Clinton, he is at odds with a Republican establishment long protected by a Beltway bubble. On these issues the GOP elite and Hillary parrot the same talking points. Trump, they say, is a protectionist, isolationist, xenophobe who is out of the step with the nation. 

But how is a man that fills arenas and won a primary by earning more votes than any other Republican out of step? How does that even make sense? 

For decades Republican and Democratic establishments had a great con. They jointly professed that America was a free trade, interventionist, open borders nation and there was no room for debate. The Beltway enjoyed the benefits of Wall Street policies that gutted Main Street economies. 

If one dared to oppose this globalist golden calf, they faced excommunication. Throughout the primaries we saw the media and Republican brass trying to pull this con on Trump. Democrats did the same to Bernie Sanders.

The only problem? The DNC succeeded in neutering Bernie while the RNC got neutered by Trump. 

With a Trump win, the Republican establishment only had the hope of containment. The plan was to get Trump to believe he had to change his successful, non-establishment, style for the general. The goal was to get Trump to believe he had to become the very politician he opposed to win. 

For a brief moment the establishment succeeded and there were signs Trump’s campaign was begrudgingly changing its tone. Trump, though, is no fool.

Why should Trump change his winning formula when his own party – including Speaker Paul Ryan – continues to work against him? Why should he trust the very people who put this country in a stranglehold and have a vested interest in his defeat?   

The recruitment of Bannon will release Trump to be the outsider that won a primary in historic fashion. Bannon will encourage Trump to be the very person the RNC warned against and, for that reason, Trump stands to win because this election is not about Republicans versus Democrats; it is about outsider change versus insider corruption.   

Just look at the reaction of the media. Bannon’s hire has caused a meltdown, one that quickly spread to Capitol Hill. 

“Breitbart isn’t a legitimate news organization,” an anonymous GOP Congressman — who had endorsed Trump — told The Hill. “It’s a disgraceful propaganda machine that is trying to divide the party.”

But are Bannon and, by extension, Trump trying to divide the party? Are they trying to spread “disgraceful propaganda” destroy the GOP? 

Frankly, it is just the opposite. Bannon — through his work at Breitbart — and Trump are not dividing the Republican Party; they are exposing it. They are showing millions of voters that the Republican establishment feels more at home with Hillary than it does with its grassroots voters. They are showing Americans that this is the first two party election held in the United States for quite some time. 

“You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war,” Sherman wrote. “They are inevitable, and the only way the people … can hope once more to live in peace … is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.”

The political establishments of both parties brought about this war. Are they willing to swallow their pride to end it or will Trump have to do to the Beltway Ivory Tower what Sherman did to Atlanta? 

Either way, change is coming. 

Joseph R. Murray II, is administrator for LGBTrump, former campaign official for Pat Buchanan, and author of “Odd Man Out”. He can be reached at jrm@joemurrayenterprises.com.

The views expressed by Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.