Trump Will Always Be Trump, Even Without Steve Bannon

After being dismissed from his job, White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon called it the end of an era—for the country, not just his career. “The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” he said. It’s the kind of self-aggrandizing comment to a reporter that contributed to his departure from the White House. It’s also probably wrong. Trump’s conduct of the presidency so far has reflected his own predispositions more than it has Bannon’s influence, and so the strategist’s departure is unlikely to change it as dramatically as he expects.

Trump didn’t campaign on standard Republican views. In contrast to other GOP politicians, he was more hostile to foreign trade, skeptical of overseas interventions, opposed to immigration, supportive of entitlements, and enthusiastic about infrastructure spending. These views attracted a different kind of voting coalition than Republicans usually assemble: He lost whites with college degrees but gained whites without degrees. Bannon functioned at the White House as the chief ideologist for this brand of populist nationalism.