Did Steve Bannon just turn Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz into communists?

Donald Trump decided not to speak on the anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, so his former adviser and best-friend-turned-worst-enemy-turned-best-friend-again, Steve Bannon, decided to fill the far-right gap. And what a gap-filling exercise it was.

On his “War Room” podcast — a sweat-fueled hatefest broadcast every day of the week on Real America’s Voice — Bannon took us on a journey. His multi-part series commemorating the deadly riot featured such illustrious characters as alleged sex trafficker Matt Gaetz, “Jewish space laser” believer Marjorie Taylor Greene, and author of the snappily named ‘January 6: How Democrats Used the Capitol Protest to Launch a War on Terror Against the Political Right’” Julie Kelly.

And yet, for a group of people who have made their names claiming to be the heirs to Trump’s America First philosophy, there was something distinctly un-American about what came next — perhaps even a little, well, Stalinist.