The firing of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon last week shows that President Donald Trump is improvising on the job, with little preparation for the decisions he makes, according to Robert Merry, editor of The American Conservative.
"It's telling, but not surprising, that Trump couldn't manage his White House staff in such a way as to maintain a secure place on the team for the man most responsible for charting his path to the White House," Merry writes in a column published Monday.
"This isn't to say that Bannon should have been given outsized influence within West Wing councils, merely that his voice needed to be heard and his connection to Trump's core constituency respected.
"But that's not the way Trump operates — another sign of a man who, over his head at the top of the global power structure, is winging it."
Merry, author of "President McKinley: Architect of the American Century," out in November from Simon & Schuster, believes it is "almost inconceivable" Trump can avoid a one-term fate.
"This isn't because he sacked Bannon, but because of what that action tells us about his leadership . . . It's beginning to appear that Trump doesn't see much of anything with precision or clarity when it comes to the fundamental question of how to govern based on how he campaigned.
"He is merely a battery of impulses, devoid of any philosophical coherence or intellectual consistency."
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