Trump's Mad Monk Is Back

Rasputin has Czar Donald's ear again.

Steve Bannon's influence has been apparent this past week. It's hard to keep a demonic figure down without garlic and a stake made from the wood of an ash tree. This past week Trump has...

• Longed for a cleansing government shutdown in September.
• Stated that the rotting corpse of Andrew Jackson, 16 years dead at the start of the Civil War, would have stopped that conflict.
• Last month Trump was talking about trade agreements with Mexico and Canada. This week he wants to pull out of NAFTA.
• Lovingly praised the confessed serial murderer Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte.
• After threatening war with him last month, Trump now is calling North Korea's Kim Jong-un a "smart cookie" that he can get along with.

Each of these have the foul stench of Bannon whispering in Trump's ear. Bannon has asserted that government shutdowns are a perfect, albeit anarchic, way to tear down this liberal democracy. Duterte's death squads and summery executions have been praised by Breitbart News since he began killing.

Bannon thinks trade wars are good. He believes the slaveholding genocidal Jackson was America's greatest president and that, except for killing Muslims, shooting wars are a distraction from the need to purge the United States of minorities.

Like Rasputin, Bannon was sent away from the palace for a brief time and for that brief time Trump seemed slightly less insane. That's over. Bannon will let Jared Kushner drown in make work projects while he whispers sweet madness into Trump's empty brain.