Stephen Bannon reportedly compares himself to a famous schemer beheaded by a crazed syphilitic king with many wives

Stephen Bannon.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon apparently sees some of himself in the story of Thomas Cromwell, the deeply influential chief minister to King Henry VIII of England.

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Bannon was ousted Tuesday from his position as executive chairman of the right-wing Breitbart News, after incurring the wrath of President Trump and much of the Republican Party over his role in Michael Wolff's juicy new book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, which calls the president's mental stability into question.

As for Cromwell, after seriously pissing off his king, the minister was beheaded for treason and his severed noggin impaled on a spike on London Bridge. King Henry, you may recall, was a famously capricious monarch of enormous appetites; married six times, he may have eventually gone insane after contacting syphilis.

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In other words: If Bannon ever wants back into Trump's good graces, he may want a new analogy.

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Kelly O'Meara Morales

Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.