Is Trump’s revolution already over?

There were three reasons why I so badly wanted Donald Trump to win the US presidential election. One was that the alternative was Hillary; another that I knew it would annoy all the worst people in the world; but the third was a positive one: I genuinely believed that as an independently wealthy, outsider candidate with no loyalties to the DC establishment, Trump was going to be the revolutionary hero who would finally free the people from the shackles of a corrupt, sclerotic and self-serving ruling elite.

Some may scoff at my naivety. But there was evidence to support my view. Brexit had just happened and what seemed clear from Trump’s embrace of Nigel Farage was that he saw himself as part of the same populist wave. We knew from Trump’s Twitter feed that he rejected the GOP consensus of the Bush eras: he was against neocon-style military intervention, he wasn’t going to pay even lip service to global warming (‘created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive’) and he was going to stick up for the neglected ‘middle class’ — all those ordinary, hardworking Americans whose living standards hadn’t risen in 20 or more years, while the 1 per cent just got richer and richer. And we could also guess from his public manner and private behaviour (such as the infamous ‘pussy’ tape), that Trump was unlikely to share Hillary’s enthusiasm for the political correctness which is making parts of the US — notably its campuses — feel like a very un-American liberal fascist tyranny.

Then, finally, there was his campaign adviser — and later chief strategist — Steve Bannon. I’ve read lots of things about Bannon, mostly from people who don’t get him and have never met him. He used to be my boss at Breitbart — and to say I loved him would be an exaggeration because he can be foul-mouthed, quick-tempered and very, very scary.