Steve Bannon is Not a Leftist

I studied this guy during Trump 1.0, and have kept tabs on him ever since. Here’s how I think we should understand what he’s doing.

Jul 08, 2025

∙ Paid

The Financial Times has an intriguing interview with Steve Bannon—the former Trump campaign manager, one-time Trump White House strategist, far-right media mogul, and convicted felon with strong white Christian nationalist politics.

The piece basically characterizes him as a fascist, yet somehow the prose is styled in such a way that it goes down smooth. FT puts a patina of reasonableness on all that it touches, leaving the reader in this case less uneasy than they should be about a reactionary Leninist.

The interview had a lot in it about foreign policy that was more or less predictable, some of which was comically dumb. But the bits that stood out had most to do with Zohran Mamdani, the left, and economic populism:

Steve Bannon is Not a Leftist

I studied this guy during Trump 1.0, and have kept tabs on him ever since. Here’s how I think we should understand what he’s doing.

This post is for paid subscribers