Politics

Steve Hilton: Mattis, Kelly marched to the establishment beat. Trump was right to fire them

The new year began as the old year ended - with the establishment up in arms over generals leaving the Trump administration. How would the world survive the departures of John Kelly and James Mattis?

"Today has just been a cascade of what would be generally seen as absolutely apocalyptic news in any other presidency…Let's start tonight with the resignation of the Secretary of Defense James Mattis," Rachel Maddow lamented.

"Apocalyptic." Forget about war or disease or poverty. The apocalypse is when America's elected president is no longer supervised by the unelected ruling establishment. They even gave it a name - the "Committee to Save America." It included not just the military's Mattis and Kelly, but Exxon's Rex Tillerson and Goldman Sachs' Gary Cohn.

The Committee to Save America. Have you ever heard anything more smug, more pompous but -- most importantly -- more anti-democratic? Because it turns out that the Committee to Save America was really the Committee to Save the American Establishment. Its aim was to stop the president from delivering populist election promises.