Accord de Paris: Attention, un autoritarisme peut en cacher un autre ! (Pittsburgh finally gets its say on Paris climate accord)

La démocratie, c’est aussi la grande question par rapport à la tentation autoritaire que l’on voit surgir et notamment aux Etats-Unis. François Hollande

J’ai été élu pour représenter les citoyens de Pittsburgh, pas ceux de Paris. Donald Trump

Ma poignée de main avec lui, ce n’est pas innocent, ce n’est pas l’alpha et l’oméga d’une politique mais un moment de vérité. Il faut montrer qu’on ne fera pas de petites concessions, même symboliques, mais ne rien surmédiatiser non plus. Donald Trump, le président turc ou le président russe sont dans une logique de rapport de forces, ce qui ne me dérange pas. Je ne crois pas à la diplomatie de l’invective publique mais dans mes dialogues bilatéraux, je ne laisse rien passer, c’est comme cela qu’on se fait respecter. Emmanuel Macron

Il est difficile de taxer Emmanuel Macron de racisme ou de légèreté. Il a eu l’occasion de s’exprimer sur ces sujets, notamment au cours de la campagne lors de son déplacement à Mayotte. C’est une polémique qui n’a pas lieu d’être. Quant à l’idée qu’il y aurait deux poids deux mesures : la différence c’est que contrairement à certaines autres personnes, Emmanuel Macron a une ligne claire vis-à-vis de l’immigration clandestine et des migrants. Il a par exemple été l’un des premiers à saluer la politique migratoire d’Angela Merkel. Cellule de communication de l’Élysée

Tout ce que j’ai fait dans ma vie professionnelle est légal, public, transparent. Je ne suis pas inquiété par la justice, j’ai ma conscience pour moi. Richard Ferrand

Ce n’est jamais arrivé dans l’histoire. Un président en fonction, la première dame et sa famille tentent de ruiner ma vie. Vous le connaissez, il n’arrêtera pas. C’est l’Amérique, nous ne sommes pas censés mourir pour ça. Aujourd’hui, c’est moi, et demain, ça pourrait être vous. Je fais de l’humour provocateur, je vais continuer de me moquer de Trump. Je l’ai fait sous Bush et Clinton, et personne n’a essayé de me tuer. Kathy Griffin

Les médias sont unanimes : Emmanuel Macron est sorti vainqueur de sa poignée de main avec Donald Trump. La scène, filmée jeudi dernier à Bruxelles lors du sommet de l’OTAN, est passée en boucle sur les télévisions, avec arrêts sur image et gros plans sur les doigts du président américain : ils lâchent prise mais restent enserrés encore une seconde. Interrogé sur cette insignifiance par le JDD, le président français a déclaré : « Ma poignée de main avec lui ce n’est pas innocent, ce n’est pas l’alpha et l’oméga d’une politique, mais un moment de vérité (…) Il faut montrer qu’on ne fera pas de petites concessions, même symboliques ». Dans cet univers artificiel, fait de signes prémédités, Macron confirme ses dons d’acteur et de communicant. « Un sans-faute », ont dit les choeurs. Reste que ce recours au théâtre muet, intrusion du mime Marceau en politique, infantilise un peu plus la chose publique. Macron n’a évidemment pas vaincu Trump ce jour-là. Mais le président a décidé d’écrire son épopée. Le pire est que ce narcissisme fait mouche. La presse est majoritairement conquise par le personnage. Est-elle encore un contre-pouvoir? Pour l’instant, elle est tout contre. « Nous n’avons jamais eu ce climat de béatitude », grinçait, lundi, Bernard Cazeneuve, l’ancien premier ministre. Mais les limites de l’euphorie sont visibles. L’envoûtement que Macron croyait avoir eu sur l’Américain n’empêchera pas Trump de garder sa liberté sur l’accord sur le climat. Il aura également incité l’Otan à se concentrer sur la lutte contre l’immigration et le terrorisme djihadiste, ces sujets délaissés par l’Union européenne, obnubilée par le danger russe. Ivan Rioufol

Imagine you have a seventy-something-year-old very strong personality in the family. And he’s got his golfing buddy who is his best friend. And they go off golfing and drinking and smoking cigars. What he really wants to do is smoke cigars. But the family is telling him, ‘Smoking cigars is really bad for you and the doctor told you not to do it.’ He’s, like, ‘I know, I know.’ So when he’s around his family, he’s, like, ‘Look, I’m not smoking cigars!’ And then he goes off with his golf buddy. And guess what they do? They fucking light up cigars, because that’s actually who he is and what he thinks. And Bannon is like his golfing buddy that he goes and smokes cigars with. That’s actually who he is. Republican White House insider

On April 29th Donald Trump rang Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines. According to a leaked transcript, he said: “I just want to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem.” Since Mr Duterte was elected in June last year, his anti-drugs campaign has led to the killing of around 9,000 people, mainly petty dealers and users. A couple of weeks earlier, Mr Trump had called the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to congratulate him on winning a referendum granting him sweeping new powers. Since an attempted coup last year, more than 100,000 Turks have been arrested or detained: the judiciary has been shredded, journalists jailed and media outlets shut down Last week, in Saudi Arabia on the first leg of a nine-day foreign trip, Mr Trump praised Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (pictured). “Safety seems to be very strong” in Egypt, he gushed. Mr Sisi’s regime has locked up tens of thousands of dissidents. Not once in Saudi Arabia did Mr Trump raise the kingdom’s habit of flogging, torturing and not letting people choose their government, preferring to trumpet a $110bn arms deal: “Hundreds of billions of dollars of investments into the United States and jobs, jobs, jobs.” Mr Trump’s meetings later in his trip with NATO and G7 heads of government were, by contrast, sour affairs. The pattern is clear: this is a president who gets on better with authoritarian regimes than America’s traditional democratic partners. (…) This represents a rupture with at least four decades of bipartisan consensus in favour of liberal internationalism. Far from conflicting with America’s interests, argues Ted Piccone, a former foreign policy adviser in the Clinton administration now at the Brookings Institution, advancing normative values is essential to those interests, and is the basis for America’s national prestige and international legitimacy. (…) Barack Obama did not resile from the human-rights agenda. But he became increasingly doubtful about using military force to buttress it. Ms Green, who served in the American agency for international development under Mr Obama, says he set great store by “civic-society engagement” to push authoritarian regimes towards international norms. He also believed that speaking out on human rights when meeting autocrats boosted campaigners, even when his lecturing grated. Mr Obama was more of a Wilsonian than a neo-Wilsonian; his idealism tempered by a cool realism that verged on cynicism. For him the Middle East, exemplified by Libya, was a “shit show” that America could do little to change. But critics saw his reluctance to intervene in Syria as an abdication of American responsibility. Mr Obama reflected a loss of confidence in the certainties of the neolibs and neocons. He may have allowed the pendulum to swing back too far, but he reflected the mood of war-weary voters. Mr Trump stands for something different and darker: a contemptuous repudiation of the use of American strength in the service of anything other than self-interest. His enthusiasm for a brute like Mr Duterte gives heart to brutes everywhere. The consequences for America’s power and influence are likely to be grave. The Economist

On est assez gênés par les gesticulations pitoyables de la classe politique française après le retrait des États-Unis de l’accord de Paris sur le climat. Il s’agit d’un non événement, mais nos politiciens doivent jouer le jeu de la dramatisation climatique pour mettre en évidence la colossale réussite française que représente ce fameux accord. Comme chacun le sait, cet « accord historique » n’est qu’une déclaration d’intentions ne comportant aucun engagement juridique effectif. Selon l’article 2, le réchauffement climatique devra être contenu « bien en deçà de 2°C » par rapport à l’ère préindustrielle. Pour atteindre cet objectif, les émissions de gaz à effet de serre devront atteindre « un pic aussi rapidement que possible ». Tous les cinq ans, un bilan sera effectué. Les pays pauvres redoutant de retarder leur développement économique, il a été convenu qu’il serait tenu compte des « circonstances nationales différentes » pour apprécier les progrès. Les 100 milliards de dollars promis aux pays pauvres ne figurent pas dans l’accord proprement dit mais dans une annexe. Autrement dit, il s’agit d’un engagement moral de mieux faire, rien de plus. Dans ce contexte, le retrait des États-Unis représente l’honnêteté et les hauts cris des politiciens français, de droite comme de gauche, un exemple historique d’hypocrisie. Trump avait en effet annoncé la couleur au cours de sa campagne électorale. Il était opposé à tout ce galimatias de bonnes intentions. Il a eu le courage de mettre fin au mensonge que constituent des promesses qui, de toute évidence, ne seront pas tenues. Et il fallait un certain courage pour affronter les gourous de l’écologisme mondial qui ont fait beaucoup d’émules parmi les politiciens. Évidemment le retrait américain gêne tous les adeptes de la nouvelle religion. Les adorateurs de Gaïa n’ont que le levier politico-éthique pour agir. Ils ont réussi à circonvenir un certain nombre de scientifiques et font désormais étalage des « conclusions scientifiques » sur le réchauffement climatique dans tous les médias. Ils sont également parvenus à imposer de multiples normes concernant les produits industriels (automobiles, appareils de chauffage, appareils électroménagers, etc.) par une propagande moralisatrice à laquelle l’opinion publique occidentale a été sensible. Les politiciens ont donc suivi par électoralisme. Mais la réalité économique leur résiste. Lorsqu’il s’agit de fabriquer, de créer une entreprise, d’innover, de trouver des salariés compétents, de se déplacer sur notre petite planète, les contraintes du réel l’emportent sur les bonnes résolutions idéologiques. (…) Cette méthode éprouvée a déjà été utilisée récemment avec les constructeurs automobiles. Des normes très ambitieuses ayant été adoptées au niveau européen pour les rejets de particules des moteurs diesels, il était impossible pour les constructeurs de maintenir les performances des véhicules tout en respectant la norme. Ils ont donc utilisé des subterfuges techniques pour contourner le problème. Après des contrôles, Volkswagen (et d’autres) ont pu être dénoncés comme fraudeurs et stigmatisés sur tous les médias planétaires. Ceux qui savent construire des voitures confortables et rapides appartiennent ainsi au camp du mal. Ceux qui se contentent de rédiger quelques pages de normes techniques et de les faire avaliser par le conseil européen siègent dans le camp du bien. Patrick Aulnas

President Obama signed the agreement last September, albeit by ducking the two-thirds majority vote in the Senate required under the Constitution for such national commitments. The pact includes a three-year process for withdrawal, which Mr. Trump could short-circuit by also pulling out of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Paris was supposed to address the failures of the 1997 Kyoto protocol, which Bill Clinton signed but George W. Bush refused to implement amid similar outrage. The Kyoto episode is instructive because the U.S. has since reduced emissions faster than much of Europe thanks to business innovation—namely, hydraulic fracturing that is replacing coal with natural gas. While legally binding, Kyoto’s CO 2 emissions targets weren’t strictly enforced. European countries that pursued aggressive reductions were engaging in economic masochism. According to a 2014 Manhattan Institute study, the average cost of residential electricity in 2012 was 12 cents per kilowatt hour in the U.S. but an average 26 cents in the European Union and 35 cents in Germany. The average price of electricity in the EU soared 55% from 2005 to 2013. Yet Germany’s emissions have increased in the last two years as more coal is burned to compensate for reduced nuclear energy and unreliable solar and wind power. Last year coal made up 40% of Germany’s power generation compared to 30% for renewables, while state subsidies to stabilize the electric grid have grown five-fold since 2012. But the climate believers tried again in Paris, this time with goals that are supposedly voluntary. China and India offered benchmarks pegged to GDP growth, which means they can continue their current energy plans. China won’t even begin reducing emissions until 2030 and in the next five years it will use more coal. President Obama, meanwhile, committed the U.S. to reducing emissions by between 26% and 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. This would require extreme changes in energy use. Even Mr. Obama’s bevy of anti-carbon regulations would get the U.S. to a mere 45% of its target. Meeting the goals would require the Environmental Protection Agency to impose stringent emissions controls on vast stretches of the economy including steel production, farm soil management and enteric fermentation (i.e., cow flatulence). Don’t laugh—California’s Air Resources Board is issuing regulations to curb bovine burping to meet its climate g oal. (…) The Big Con at the heart of Paris is that even its supporters concede that meeting all of its commitments won’t prevent more than a 0.17 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures by 2100, far less than the two degrees that is supposedly needed to avert climate doom. It’s also rich for Europeans to complain about the U.S. abdicating climate leadership after their regulators looked the other way as auto makers, notably Volkswagen , cheated on emissions tests. This allowed Europeans to claim they were meeting their green goals without harming the competitiveness of their auto makers. The EPA had to shame the EU into investigating the subterfuge. Ruth King

Sometimes — maybe almost always — the world seems to run on Freudian projection. One of the salient recent examples is Barack Obama’s supporters — and Obama himself, literally and by implication — calling Donald Trump « authoritarian. » But in non-projected reality, during his administration, Obama is the one who imposed what we might deem — in appropriately Maoist parlance — the « Three Authoritarianisms. » They were the Paris climate accord, the Iran deal, and US intelligence agencies being used to surveil American citizens. All three of these « authoritarianisms » were entirely ex-Constitutional.  The first two were in essence treaties on which Congress (and by extension the American people) never got to vote or, for that matter, discuss in any serious way.  The Paris accord probably would have failed. As for the Iran deal, we still don’t know the full contents and therefore debating it is somewhat moot. We have, however, seen its consequences — corpses littered all across Syria, not to mention untold millions of refugees. Admittedly, too, the third of « Three Authoritarianisms » is still, shall we say, occluded.  We don’t know the extent of this surveillance and may never. But this too is typical authoritarian behavior. Even a cursory look at history reveals that totalitarianism does not always come with the obvious iron fist of a Comrade Stalin.  Sometimes it arrives in a subtler manner, as it did in the Obama administration when the then president’s amanuensis/lackey Ben Rhodes was so naive or arrogant (or both) as to brag to a New York Times writer how he duped young and uneducated reporters into parroting what the administration wanted them to say about the Iran deal.  The KGB couldn’t have done it better. In the cases of Paris and Iran, it’s clear the (totalitarian) decision to avoid Congress was deliberate.  But now Trump has put a crimp in the former by pulling out of the Paris climate (né global warming) accord. The international chorus of hissy fits was so instantaneous and predictable — no more eminent scientist than actor Mark Ruffalo has declared « Trump will have the death of whole nations on his hands » — one must ask the obligatory question: Was it ever really about climate or was it, in the immortal words of  H. L. Mencken, « about the money »? I learned firsthand just how much it was the latter when covering COP15 — the UN climate conference in Copenhagen at the tail end of 2009. (…) So I (…) asked why he had come all the way from the South Pacific to Denmark and he looked at me in astonishment. « For the money, » he said, continuing to stare at me as if I were some kind of cretin who had wangled a press pass. Roger L Simon

Yes, there’s a threat to civilization and it’s not global warming, manmade or otherwise.  And anyone who isn’t comatose should know what it is. Islam, like cancer, needs a cure. And we all  have to participate in the search for one before it’s too late. Yes, this is about Islam, not « radical » Islam or some other off-shoot, real or imagined, because the tenets that have inspired the non-stop spate of terrorism across the world in recent years are spelled out clearly in sections of the Koran and the Hadith and other holy works of Islam. They provide justification for ISIS and a hundred other groups that may or may not replace them, now and in the future. This cannot continue — unless we really do want to destroy ourselves. To be clear, this is not about bad people (many Muslims are fine human beings), but about a malignant ideology from the seventh century that must be expunged for the survival of all. But the majority of Western leaders don’t want to know that.  In fact, I’d wager that most have not even bothered to educate themselves in any serious way about Islam nearly sixteen years after 9/11 and with all the constant carnage that has gone on since and has been increasing significantly, not just in London and Manchester but virtually everywhere. These Westerners are not only willfully blind, they are suicidal.  But we cannot let them commit suicide for the rest of us.  They have to go. Similarly, the recent Paris climate accord is not only based on bad or « cooked » Climategate science, it is a deliberate conscious/unconscious deflection from the genuine « present danger » in front of us.  It is no more than obfuscation allowing moral narcissists to feel good about themselves, virtue signaling about an environmental armageddon that hasn’t happened and may never happen while, in real life, people are actually murdered on London bridges and in Cairo churches. What we need now is an international terrorism accord — and, unlike the climate accord, a binding one — that would commit the world, including the Muslim nations themselves, to the complete reformation of Islam that is the necessary basis for an end to this terrorism. President Trump made a good start in Riyadh in his address to the Sunni leaders, but we must go much further.  It is correct that the Islamic world should be the ones to change their religion, but the rest of us on the planet are too affected by the results to stand by and wait.  From the horrifying (London this weekend) to the daily (the constant of indignity of being scanned at airports, concerts, museums, etc.), we are all victims of Islamic ideology.  We have a right, indeed an obligation, to participate in and demand its change. Otherwise, it will only get worse. Since Trump had the courage to open the discussion in Saudi Arabia, he should attempt to expand the dialogue and create this global accord. Egypt’s el-Sisi would be a good partner because he already had the guts to criticize his own religion.  All should be invited, even those who would never come (like the mullahs).  All must confront the question of why Islam, unique among the world’s religions today, has so much violence committed in its name. What is it about Islam that attracts this?  What therefore has to be changed, both in behavior and ideology ? (…) The time for diplomatic politesse is long over. Islam must be forced to join modernity. Reactionary multiculturalists among us must be ignored, along with their hypocritical (and nonsensical) belief that all religions are equal.  To do otherwise would be to treat Muslim people like children.  And that is what the West has been doing for some time — with atrocious results for all. Roger L Simon

Attention, un autoritarisme peut en cacher un autre !

Alors qu’avec un troisième attentat en moins de trois mois en Grande-Bretagne, l’actualité se charge de rappeler …

Contre l’angélisme d’une Merkel qui avait engagé tout un continent sans consulter personne dans la folie migratoire que l’on sait …

La justesse de la volonté du président Trump de reprendre le contrôle de nos flux migratoires …

Et que pour protéger leur propre camp après le déni de justice et de démocratie que nous venons de vivre en France, l’on voit nos nouveaux Fouquier-Tinville reprendre les mêmes arguments que leur ancienne victime …

Qui prend la peine, avec Roger L Simon, de rappeler …

Entre photos délirantes de tête ensanglantée et duels dérisoires de poignées de main …

Qu’à l’instar de l’accord nucléaire avec l’Iran comme de la mise sur mise sur écoutes massive et secrète d’une bonne partie de ses compatriotes …

Et sans parler de l’Obamacare qui n’avait obtenu aucune voix de l’opposition …

Son refus de punir Pittsburgh pour ne pas désespérer Paris …

Se trouve être l’un trois domaines où son prédécesseur avait justement choisi de court-circuiter l’aval du Congrès ?

Paris: Trump Blocks First of Obama’s ‘Three Authoritarianisms’

Roger L Simon
PJ media
June 1, 2017

Sometimes — maybe almost always — the world seems to run on Freudian projection. One of the salient recent examples is Barack Obama’s supporters — and Obama himself, literally and by implication — calling Donald Trump « authoritarian. »

But in non-projected reality, during his administration, Obama is the one who imposed what we might deem — in appropriately Maoist parlance — the « Three Authoritarianisms. » They were the Paris climate accord, the Iran deal, and US intelligence agencies being used to surveil American citizens.

All three of these « authoritarianisms » were entirely ex-Constitutional.  The first two were in essence treaties on which Congress (and by extension the American people) never got to vote or, for that matter, discuss in any serious way.  The Paris accord probably would have failed. As for the Iran deal, we still don’t know the full contents and therefore debating it is somewhat moot. We have, however, seen its consequences — corpses littered all across Syria, not to mention untold millions of refugees.

Admittedly, too, the third of « Three Authoritarianisms » is still, shall we say, occluded.  We don’t know the extent of this surveillance and may never. But this too is typical authoritarian behavior.

Even a cursory look at history reveals that totalitarianism does not always come with the obvious iron fist of a Comrade Stalin.  Sometimes it arrives in a subtler manner, as it did in the Obama administration when the then president’s amanuensis/lackey Ben Rhodes was so naive or arrogant (or both) as to brag to a New York Times writer how he duped young and uneducated reporters into parroting what the administration wanted them to say about the Iran deal.  The KGB couldn’t have done it better.

In the cases of Paris and Iran, it’s clear the (totalitarian) decision to avoid Congress was deliberate.  But now Trump has put a crimp in the former by pulling out of the Paris climate (né global warming) accord. The international chorus of hissy fits was so instantaneous and predictable — no more eminent scientist than actor Mark Ruffalo has declared « Trump will have the death of whole nations on his hands » — one must ask the obligatory question: Was it ever really about climate or was it, in the immortal words of  H. L. Mencken, « about the money« ?

I learned firsthand just how much it was the latter when covering COP15 — the UN climate conference in Copenhagen at the tail end of 2009.  That the event occurred in near-blizzard conditions with temperatures hovering close to single digits was the least of it.  As we all know, that’s weather, not climate. Right?

Naturally, most of the conference was deadly dull — except for watching junketing U.S. politicians scarfing down modernist Danish jewelry in the Marriott gift shop. But during one of the tedious panel discussions, I found myself sitting next to the representative of one of the Pacific islands said to be on the edge of being submerged.  A pleasant fellow, I engaged him in conversation, attempting to commiserate with him about the fate of his homeland. The diplomat started laughing. « Don’t you believe in global warming? » I asked.  « It’s nonsense, » he said.  He went to explain that his island was just fine.  They had some bad weather and had put up sandbags, but now they were gone.  So I then asked why he had come all the way from the South Pacific to Denmark and he looked at me in astonishment. « For the money, » he said, continuing to stare at me as if I were some kind of cretin who had wangled a press pass. (Okay, I wouldn’t have been the first.)

Voir aussi:

How Climate Change Saved Steve Bannon’s Job
Ryan Lizza
The New Yorker
June 2, 2017

Trump makes decisions that align with Steve Bannon’s views not because he is being manipulated by him but because he agrees with him.

Reports of Steve Bannon’s death were greatly exaggerated. Just a few weeks ago, President Trump’s chief political adviser and the most controversial figure in the West Wing was considered a spent force. Some reports said he was going to resign. Others predicted Trump was about to fire him. “Bannon is on his way out,” a person close to Bannon, who worked on the Trump campaign, predicted to me last month. “He’ll probably go back to Breitbart or do something with the Mercers”—the billionaire political donors who have funded Breitbart and several of Bannon’s other political projects—“but I think it’s sort of a fait accompli at this point, because of the infighting.”

Trump himself strongly suggested, in mid-April, that Bannon’s White House service was approaching its end. He told the Wall Street Journal that Bannon was simply “a guy who works for me.” When the New York Post asked Trump if he “still has confidence in Bannon,” Trump declined to say yes. “I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late,” the President told the newspaper. “I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn’t know Steve. I’m my own strategist, and it wasn’t like I was going to change strategies because I was facing crooked Hillary.”

The roots of Bannon’s alleged demise were the long-running battle he was waging with the so-called “globalist” faction in the White House, led by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kusher. For the past two years, one rule has defined Trumpland: if you cross Kushner or his wife, Ivanka Trump, you get fired. That’s how Bannon got his job in the first place. Kushner ousted Trump’s first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who was replaced by Paul Manafort. Eventually, Manafort lost Kushner’s confidence and was replaced by the team of Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, who were strongly backed by the Mercers. “When Corey was leaking bad stuff about Jared: bye, bye, Corey Lewandowski,” the Trump adviser said. “So Steve is leaking bad stuff about Jared: bye, bye, Steve Bannon.”

Earlier this spring, when the press was filled with accounts of Bannon’s looming dismissal, other Trump advisers noted that the stories were overblown. “Everyone is saying, ‘Oh, there’s been a shift, Bannon is on his way out,’ ” a Republican close to the White House told me at the time, referring sarcastically to the rumors. “No, he’s not. Bannon is still there. And he’s still the main adviser to the President of the United States. And I believe that there’s always going to be this fight between these different wings of really different philosophies for him. And that’s how the President wants it.”

More recently, there have been nearly weekly reports of a dramatic White House shakeup. Trump’s senior advisers—people like Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, Conway, and Bannon—are routinely described as being on their way out. Much of this information comes from Trump advisers in competing factions, inside and outside the White House, who are trying to push rivals to the exits. Reporting on Trump’s inner circle is akin to writing dispatches from inside a hall of mirrors. Aides regularly lie, distort, and feed journalists misinformation. “It’s easier to understand the papal elections than to understand these fucking nut cases,” the Trump adviser who believed Bannon would soon be fired said.

Two important things changed since the “Bannon is dead” narrative took hold, in April. The first is the Russia investigation. So far, Bannon has not been connected to the investigation. He joined the campaign after Carter Page and Roger Stone, two early Trump campaign advisers caught up in the probe, left, and right before Manafort, who is a major focus of the F.B.I. investigation, resigned. Bannon is close to Michael Flynn—Trump’s former national-security adviser and the person who so far seems to be in the most legal jeopardy—but no reports have emerged that he was involved in Flynn’s meetings with the Russians.

That’s not the case for Kushner. Just as Bannon seemed to reach a low point in his relationship with Trump, Kushner’s role in the Russia probe emerged as the most important piece of White House intrigue. Kushner, though he didn’t have the title, was the Trump campaign’s de-facto campaign manager. He was at Trump’s side through the eras of Stone, Page, and Manafort. And more important, as we learned last Friday, Kushner was working closely with Flynn, during the transition, on his dealings with the Russians, and he has attracted a similar level of interest from the F.B.I.

The second change since Bannon’s low point was that a decision on whether to withdraw from the Paris climate accord finally needed to be made. It was the most important fight pitting Bannon against Jared and Ivanka yet. And it played to all of Bannon’s strengths. The first Trump adviser described Kushner and Ivanka as “more or less Trump’s conscience,” and as “more pragmatic, a little less ideological,” or perhaps “multi-ideological.” Bannon, he said, “speaks to Trump’s id.”

A third Trump adviser, more closely aligned with the Bannon faction, was less charitable. “I think Jared and Ivanka are concerned with being accepted in the right places, they care about what the beautiful people think,” he said. “They care about being well received in the Upper West Side cocktail parties. They view Steve as a man with dirty fingernails, with some weird, crazy, extremist philosophy they don’t think is in the best interest of the President. With all respect to them, they don’t understand how Trump got elected. They don’t understand the forces behind it, they don’t understand the dynamics of the situation, and they certainly don’t understand his appeal and the people who voted for him—they can’t understand it.” He added, “They would like the President to be more like George Bush: one-dimensional, predictable, neocon, mainstream.”

A White House official insisted that Jared and Ivanka’s role in the climate debate has been misunderstood and exaggerated. “Jared believes that it’s a bad deal and that the standards were too high and could hurt the economy. But his preference would have been to stay in,” the White House official said. “Ivanka’s preference was to stay in, but she saw her role as setting up a process inside and outside the government to get information to her father from all sides of the issue.”

Bannonism always thrives in the Trump White House when it can serve as a political accelerant for Trump, who, at the time of his decision on Thursday, was confronting a continued erosion of support from his own base, a widening Russia probe, and a stalled agenda in Congress.

On the climate accord, Kushner and Ivanka hardly had a chance. Bannon’s nationalism, especially when it comes to trade and immigration, is still not widely supported in the Republican establishment and conservative donor class. But when Bannon’s views line up with those of Republican leaders and donors—not to mention those of Trump—he almost always prevails. If Trump had taken the less extreme course on climate advised by his daughter and son-in-law, he would have been breaking a campaign promise and going against the wishes of the entire G.O.P. leadership. In addition, Trump, who knows little about policy, is famously narcissistic, and, easily influenced by personal slights, reportedly was perturbed by a remark from Emmanuel Macron, the French President, who said he intentionally made a show of forcefully shaking Trump’s hand at the recent G7 summit. Trump also reportedly believed that angering Europe was a “secondary benefit” of pulling out of the accord.

Given these circumstances, Bannon could not have had a stronger hand to play in this fight. Still, the climate decision is ultimately the responsibility of Trump himself, not of any single adviser. Trump generally makes decisions that align with Bannon’s views not because he is being manipulated by him but because he agrees with him.

The Republican close to the White House described Bannon and Trump’s relationship metaphorically: “Imagine you have a seventy-something-year-old very strong personality in the family,” the Republican said. “And he’s got his golfing buddy who is his best friend. And they go off golfing and drinking and smoking cigars. What he really wants to do is smoke cigars. But the family is telling him, ‘Smoking cigars is really bad for you and the doctor told you not to do it.’ He’s, like, ‘I know, I know.’ ”

“So when he’s around his family, he’s, like, ‘Look, I’m not smoking cigars!’ And then he goes off with his golf buddy. And guess what they do? They fucking light up cigars, because that’s actually who he is and what he thinks. And Bannon is like his golfing buddy that he goes and smokes cigars with. That’s actually who he is.”