If Bannon goes, then the elites will have won. If he stays, then it will be interesting to see if Kelly and others stay. It might come down to some variation on some key establishment type saying either Bannon leaves, or I do.
If Bannon stays, it will be because Trump realizes that he cannot sever his relationship from his base of aggrieved whites who elected him. Trump fears, rightly, that if Bannon goes then he, Trump, will be perceived as having caved to the Washington establishment elite and pressure form its media. And he has no desire to ingratiate himself to either. And Trump has got to be thinking that you stay at the dance with him who brought you, and that more than anybody else is Bannon and the white nationalist constituency Bannon represents. If Trump loses the white nationalist base, he will be complete isolated.
Nevertheless, the pressure might just be too great to keep Bannon on. I think Trump will resist the pressure to get rid of Bannon as long as he can, but it's hard to see how much longer he can do it. The best solution for Trump would be if Bannon would realize that his role in the administration is hurting more than it's helping his cause, and so then volunteers to leave with the promise to keep supporting Trump through Breitbart, assuming he still will have influence there. I'm sure that when Trump says "We'll see what happens" regarding Bannon it's a signal that he hoping that Bannon will voluntarily resign. Trump fears being perceived as the guy who forced him out. So a lot depends on whether Bannon is going to dig in for the long run, or retreat to fight another day.
In the somewhat longer run, I don't know that it matters. It's just hard to imagine that this presidency can survive much longer, regardless whether Bannon stays or goes. There are larger forces at work here that make a sustainable Trump presidency unlikely. And the more embattled Trump feels, the more likely he will be to hold on to Bannon who is a street fighter like him. The establishment, sooner or later, is going to win one way or the other. Trump is just too deeply a flawed person to prevail. And while an establishment win will restore stability in the short run, the establishment will do little to ameliorate the actual underlying causes of populist rage that will continue to destabilize American society and politics.
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