Few political figures have fallen from grace as quickly and as completely as Steve Bannon. Less than a year ago, Time magazine was asking, “Is Steve Bannon the Second Most Powerful Man in the World?” Then the President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, Bannon was widely credited as the mastermind behind the populist right-wing campaign that won Trump the White House. He was supposedly going to remake the Republican Party by sidelining establishment figures like House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and getting the GOP to accept trade protectionism, immigration restriction, and major infrastructure spending, and to reject neoconservative foreign policy hubris.

But Bannon quickly lost clout in the White House, often outwitted by both the Republican establishment and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. In August, he was fired from the White House, and returned to his former job as CEO of the right-wing Breitbart News. This was followed by another defeat, in December, when the insurgent Republican candidate he backed in the Alabama Senate race, Roy Moore, lost in an upset to Democrat Doug Jones. Stripped of his White House post, and his reputation as a political guru in tatters, Bannon still had his ample media megaphone. But on Tuesday, he lost that as well when he was forced to resign, a move apparently engineered by wealthy patron Rebekah Mercer, who, along with her billionaire father Robert Mercer, owns a stake in Breitbart.

Bannon’s exit was occasioned by an act of lèse-majesté against Trump: He was indiscreet enough to tell journalist Michael Wolff that it was “treasonous” for Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. to meet with Kremlin-connected lawyer during the presidential campaign. Trump saw this as a betrayal, and last week his Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Breitbart should “look at and consider” firing Bannon.

I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don’t exist. Look at this guy’s past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018

The Mercer Family recently dumped the leaker known as Sloppy Steve Bannon. Smart! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 5, 2018

If Bannon’s demise was instigated by the White House, what made it possible was the compliance of the Mercer family, which preferred staying in Trump’s good graces to being loyal to Bannon. Rebekah Mercer made this clear in a statement: “My family and I have not communicated with Steve Bannon in many months and have provided no financial support to his political agenda, nor do we support his recent actions and statements.”



Bannon’s political fall reveals a major weakness in his brand of right-wing populism: the overwhelming power wealthy donors have over the right-wing media and the Republican Party. Bannon’s strength is as a ideologue. The fusion of economic populism and racial resentment that he espoused at Breitbart has proven popular enough to win a presidency. But to enact those ideas, Bannon needed both a potent media outlet and a compliant party, neither of which he now has.