But the animating spirit of Bannon’s projects, including Breitbart.com, is anti-leftism. That is where his venom and animus most surfaces, whether expressed by lashing out at “a bunch of dykes” from northeastern colleges, or union organizers, or Barack Obama, or those who don’t fight leftists as Bannon believes they should. Like an eager Iraq War hawk circa 2002, Bannon is so dominated by a desire to wage war and vanquish his enemy that he cannot think clearly about damage wrought by his destructive, polarizing approach or the long term consequences.

In that sense, Bannon is radically anti-conservative, with no apparent regard for custom or continuity or prudence or the need to fear and restrain populist passions.

He has allied with Donald Trump against Tea Party politicians he formerly lauded and conservative intellectuals like George Will and Charles Krauthammer, who he once praised, because for him, most on the right were never allies to engage in a cautious, constructive project. They were inconvenient obstacles that lay in the way of fighting the real enemy––a Belgium to blitzkrieg through en route to the real battle.

This anti-left focus was illustrated by Bannon’s telling responses to the 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing bailouts. Despite his Goldman Sachs past, he repeatedly harkened back to those events as if they radicalized him, aptly noting that they constituted unconscionable crony capitalism in a country where the middle class is struggling. He even expressed worry about young people, noting “70 percent of our college graduates are either unemployed or underemployed––we’re in a crisis.”

Yet the big banks were never the focus of his animus.

"Goldman Sachs isn’t the firm it once was when I worked for it,” he explained in a gentle 2010 critique, but “is still one of the building blocks of our capitalist society."

In contrast, the following autumn, when protesters outraged by the bailouts descended on Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, inspiring a movement that took hold around the country, Bannon did make the Occupy movement the subject of a hostile film.

Released just prior to Election 2012, it savaged the protests. “After making the Occupy movie, when you finish watching the film, you want to take a hot shower,” he said that October. “You want to go home and shower because you’ve just spent an hour and fifteen minutes with the greasiest, dirtiest people you will ever see.”

An entire ecosystem of irresponsible finance industry professionals had created toxic mortgage-backed securities, given them egregiously misleading ratings, brought about a global catastrophe, and left millions of Americans worse off. Occupy Wall Street was mostly underemployed young people who never wielded enough power to do anyone harm. Still, Bannon’s visceral disgust turned to hippy-bashing soon after they set up camp in Zuccotti Park. He chose to target a movement that, like it or not, had grievances he shared and that caused no significant harms.