It appears that President Trump’s appetite for chaos has its limits, which may be a restraint on top adviser Stephen K. Bannon.
On Wednesday, a senior White House official confirmed to Yahoo News that Trump was displeased by the disorderly rollout of his executive order temporarily banning refugees and immigrants from seven Middle East nations, as CNN first reported. White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, the official said, would now have more control over the process of drafting and circulating executive orders for wider review before release in the future…
Bannon’s biggest challenge may be to follow Sun Tzu’s advice to keep a low profile. “O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible; through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands,” Sun Tzu wrote.
It’s possible that the latest reports of Priebus’ increased power are an effort by Bannon to reduce the focus on him. He has become less visible whenever his name has been mentioned repeatedly in the press over the past few months.
And yet it is Bannon’s ego that may be his downfall in the end, for he has failed to follow Sun Tzu’s warnings against self-promotion. In his conversation with Wolff, Bannon implied that he is the real genius behind Trump — a puppet master pulling strings — when he compared himself to Henry VIII’s adviser Thomas Cromwell just over a week after the election.
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