Steve Bannon's exit caps off a month of cascading firings and resignations

The exit of Steve Bannon from his role as White House chief strategist caps a month in which the pattern of firings and resignations from the Trump administration has intensified markedly.

Bannon’s removal comes days after the mass defections of business leaders from two White House advisory councils, and only two and a half weeks since White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci was fired after just 10 days, reportedly at the request of new White House chief of staff John Kelly.

Three days earlier, on 28 July, chief of staff Reince Priebus was forced out after bing publicly humiliated by Scaramucci. Days before, Scaramucci forced out assistant press secretary Michael Short after accusing him of leaking.

Not long before, on 21 July, White House press secretary Sean Spicer resigned after Scaramucci was brought in to replace Mike Dubke, who had resigned in late May after three months on the job.

This cascade of quitting and being fired followed two other high-profile departures.

Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub Jr resigned on 6 July, concerned that Trump’s conflicts of interest put the US at risk of being seen as a “kleptocracy”.

Most notoriously, FBI director James Comey was fired on 9 May, with Trump initially citing Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation as the reason behind his decision but later admitting “this Russia thing with Trump and Russia” – ie the investigation into collusion to swing the election between the president’s camp and Moscow – had been on his mind.

Comey’s dismissal came after a period of relative stability.

Five weeks earlier, on 30 March, deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh – a Priebus ally – quit. She later said she decided to make the move after the initial failure of a Trump-backed health care bill in the House.

On 10 March, Trump fired Preet Bharara, US attorney for New York’s southern district, who had refused to comply with an order to resign.

On 13 February, less than a month into the term of the new administration, Trump fired national security adviser Michael Flynn after he apparently misled the vice-president, Mike Pence, over conversations he’d had with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Two weeks earlier, on 30 January, Trump fired Sally Yates, the acting attorney general, after Yates refused to enforce Trump’s Muslim-focused immigration ban.

This list does not account for dozens of others who have either withdrawn their names from consideration for administration positions or were unexpectedly dropped from what had appeared to be shoo-in jobs.

Others who have swung in and out of favor include Kellyanne Conway, who appeared less frequently to defend the administration since mid July when she used simplistic cue cards to reject accusations that Donald Trump Jr’s meeting with a Russian lawyer last summer amounted to collusion.

Bannon’s dismissal follows a well-publicized falling out with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who along with Trump’s sons, Eric and Donald Jr, and the chief of staff, John Kelly, now sit virtually unchallenged at the heart of Trump’s turbulent administration.