Well, the shutdown gave us an answer: there’s no such thing as Trumpism without Bannonism. It’s worth remembering that Trump’s negotiating tactics on DACA have been a mess since he cancelled the program in September. Even as Trump said in his announcement he wanted “Congress to finally act” and “resolve the DACA issue with heart and compassion,” his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was denouncing the program as unconstitutional, adding, “there is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration laws.”  The conflicting messages — which seem to emanate from Trump’s fantasies of forcing Democrats into groveling with him and the immigration hardliners who make up Trump’s base — led National Review’s Rich Lowry to ask at the time, “Are You Shooting the Hostage, Holding the Hostage, or Releasing the Hostage?” The limits of political power on display in the shutdown talks demonstrate how, even with Steve Bannon exiled into the political wilderness, Trump can’t muster the political might to defy the brand of nationalism and xenophobia his former chief strategist etched onto his presidency.