The Trump base’s seeming indifference to the president’s ability or willingness to back up his bombast with tangible results is bad news for Bannon and the so-called economic nationalism he believes handed the White House to the Republicans. If there is no penalty for failing to implement the aims of the grassroots revolution Bannon froths about, the revolution is a hollow one.

By extension, it bodes ill for the efforts of Bannon and Breitbart, the far-right website he commands, to dethrone Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and mount a hostile takeover of the GOP. Already there is a budding detente between Trump and McConnell, and should that strengthen and the president more fully throws his lot in with the GOP establishment, Bannon will have lost his point man.