When Steve Bannon took over as the head of Trump's floundering, disorganized, and underfunded campaign, electoral victory seemed a dim possibility. The Republican establishment, in their panic, went into damage-control mode: prominent figures such as Mitt Romney scathingly criticized their candidate in public, while House Speaker Paul Ryan expressed that his priority was to preserve the Republican majority in Congress rather than putting effort into supporting the presidential campaign. The Democrats simply gloated, confident of their victory.

The crisis of capitalism in the West has taken centre stage, with the spectacle of Donald Trump's election, and Brexit. China has dropped out of the limelight, for the time being retaining a degree of stability. This at least is the message the party leadership would like to present.