Obviously, Bannon-backed protest candidates don’t always lose. But the perception that he is a brilliant tactician is wrong. As Rich Lowry argues, “The genius in the Trump operation wasn’t Bannon; it was Trump, whose power as a communicator, gut-level political instincts, and celebrity overcame his manifest failings in a race against a Democratic opponent who proved one of the worst candidates in modern presidential history.”

And even when Bannon wins, he loses. He purports to be a populist, a nationalist, someone who understands that the Republican coalition has shifted and that its politicians are serving up stale policy. But he couldn’t secure anything of consequence when he had Trump’s ear, and since Bannon’s unceremonious exit, Trumpian populism has been supplanted by GOP orthodoxy leavened by cynical culture-war fights.