In fairness, Steve Bannon has never really pretended to be a conservative.

“I’m a Leninist,” Steve Bannon told Ronald Radosh, back in 2013. “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal, too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”

That included, of course, such antiquated ideas as free markets, fiscal conservatism, and small government. “Like [Andrew] Jackson’s populism, we’re going to build an entirely new political movement,” he boasted to Michael Wolff back in November 2016. “The conservatives are going to go crazy. I’m the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. …. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution — conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement.”

In retrospect, the reference to the 1930s—not an especially great decade for conservative policy—ought to have been a tip-roff. So it probably should not come as a great shock to hear that Trump’s chief ideologist’s grand new vision includes incorporating a socialist as a part of the future of his movement, while flirting with the far right European parties.