Trump's base frets about post-Bannon era
Loyalists of President Trump fear he is at risk of relinquishing the unique appeal that got him elected, even as moderate figures in the GOP celebrate the departure of the polarizing chief strategist Stephen Bannon and hope for a more orthodox White House.
The loyalists’ anxiety was sharpened on Monday evening in advance of the president's speech about Afghanistan. Trump, who campaigned as a candidate skeptical of foreign intervention, had been expected to announce an increase in troop levels. The 16-year U.S.-led war has no obvious end in sight.
In the end, Trump announced no specific increase, though his speech clearly implied a strengthening of U.S. forces.
“Since the president was elected as a non-interventionist, I would like to hear him continue in that vein,” said Roger Stone, a long-time friend of the president who worked on the Trump campaign’s early stages. “I do not think we should be putting more troops in Afghanistan, nor should we be putting troops in Syria, as his advisers want him to.”
Another aide from the early stages of the Trump campaign, Sam Nunberg, said hours before the speech that he believed any troop build-up “is going against a campaign pledge. I don’t think the country, 16 years later, wants to continue nation building in Afghanistan, which seems to me to be a nation that can’t be built.”
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/347421-the-memo-trumps-base-frets-about-post-bannon-era#bottom-story-socials
= new reply since forum marked as read
