Time for Bannon to think about the downside of Republican civil war

There is no doubt that Stephen Bannon was instrumental in helping candidate Donald Trump hone a message that Washington is broken and that only an outsider could bring real change to fix it. The buzzword for Republicans sitting comfortably in Congress was “establishment.” The keyword for Democrats and their intransience was “corruption.” The nickname for defining the mainstream media was “fake news.”

Bannon and Trump were able to strike a chord with millions of Americans who were fed up with the status quo and wanted to shake up the Beltway. After Trump was sworn in as president, Bannon thought Republicans got the message delivered by the electorate. He banked on an easier time honoring promises made during the campaign by getting behind Trump’s efforts to “make America great again” through repealing and replacing ObamaCare, tackling immigration and tax reform, and setting infrastructure spending.

{mosads}When it was clear that things were not going according to plan, and the pushback and dysfunction of Republicans was open and notorious, Bannon wanted to go to war using the White House as his fort. But instead of leading the charge, Bannon was courtmartialed and walked out the gates to become an outside insurgent.

There is no doubt that Republicans in Congress have wasted time and opportunities over the past nine months to get their big ticket agenda items passed. The American people could not have given Republicans any more power than they have now. After all, they control the White House and both chambers on Capitol Hill. There is no doubt that many Republican voters today are frustrated and disappointed, as is the electorate in general, with Republicans unable to perform as promised.

Bannon knows that this dismal performance and voter dissatisfaction bring opportunity to continue to take control and shape the Republican Party to match his deeply conservative agenda. There are some clear and present challenges in doing so from the outside, rather from within the GOP’s political operating apparatus.

In my opinion, you can’t divide and conquer a party. You must inspire and unite it. If a party is weak and divided, it cannot win, and thus cannot govern. A weakened party can only hope to regain strength over time, a feat that can take years. In the meantime, your adversaries are taking full advantage of your place in the trenches of civil war.

Bannon does not want to be chairman of the Republican Party. He wants to blow it up politically, strategically, and ideologically. I believe the best use of Bannon’s political acumen is to make sure power given to the president is not fleeting. The immediate need is to pass tax reform in 2017, followed by the tasks to tackle health care, immigration, and infrastructure in 2018 ahead of the midterm elections.

Bannon is putting the horse before the cart. He is looking to midterms and beyond, thereby surrendering the ability to help the president push his major agenda items through now. Bannon could be a tremendous positive outside force for change this fall and next spring, focusing like a laser beam on shaping the message and putting pressure on lawmakers to pass the president’s agenda.

It always makes sense to use the power you have while you have it. The best way to hold onto power is to deliver. The sand is going through the hourglass and Republicans have no time to waste. We know as a matter of fact that midterm elections are not kind to the party that controls the White House and that seats are typically lost in both houses of Congress. The only hedge to that is being able to govern effectively.

If Bannon’s goal is to rebuild the Republican Party in his own image from the outside, then his chances of success are slim. Historically and practically, outside forces are not more powerful and are certainly not a substitution for a party itself. Funding insurgent primary candidates willy nilly to take on incumbents has not had a very good track record in general elections.

Bannon’s goals are long term and at the expense of immediate goals and objectives. If Republicans lose their majorities in one or both houses of Congress, the president will effectively be dead in the water, and he will have much less of a chance to “make America great again.” If Republicans do not hang tough together, then they will hang separately. Bannon should not be the executioner. He should be the lifesaver.

Bradley A. Blakeman is a political consultant who served as a member of President George W. Bush’s senior White House staff from 2001 to 2004. He is a frequent contributor to Fox News and Fox Business.