I t’s telling, therefore, that apocalyptic imagery and ferocious racialised nationalism both arise at moments of perceived cultural crisis. Men like Bannon (and plenty of fascists before him) see a multicultural, globalised nation-state as inherently threatening; in the absence of cultural uniformity, they think, the whole system breaks down. If they are lonely, whether on a personal or a political level, they can blame a society whose institutions no longer seem geared exclusively to them. The promise of shared violence in a “cleansing war” doesn’t just appeal to a male fantasy of glory, it also advertises a group identity: a vision of a country in which “we” (or at least, whomever Bannon deems “we” to be) exist in a single, streamlined, narrative of history: easily reducible to “turnings”, crises, and regenerations. History, of course, is never that simple, nor is the alt-right’s “we” so easily defined. That götterdämerung, if it comes, isn’t going to spare a Bannon any more than the rest of us degenerates. The fourth turning is no less a fantasy than Valhalla burning down. To men like Bannon, the reality of a country not reducible to one single community – or one foundational myth that unites us – is more terrifying than the chaos they idealise. Let’s just hope that none of us find out the hard way. Tara Isabella Burton is a Clarendon Scholar at Trinity College, Oxford, where she is finishing a DPhil in Theology