Trump, like an ageing gladiator, has entered into a clinch with his own amphitheatre. MAGA is no longer a choir of admiring heralds. It is now a fractal of interests, where patriotism is mixed with paranoia, and ideology with algorithms
Carlson and Bannon are not just characters, but carriers of fragments of the core. They are not against Trump. They are against his claim to monotony. MAGA has long ceased to be a movement — it is an autonomous ecosystem where charisma has been replaced by the architecture of influence, and the leader is only a temporary hub for a multitude of subjects. A hybrid subjectivity that has spiralled out of the architect’s control.
The Iranian factor is the trigger, but not the cause. The cause lies in the difference in strategies: Trump still thinks in terms of deals, while his ideologues already think in terms of history. Carlson, speaking about the collapse of American hegemony, raises the question not even about the Middle East, but about the borders of the empire itself. Where does America end? Perhaps where Israel begins.
Bannon sees military intervention not as a manifestation of power, but as a loss of sovereignty over meaning. Intervention in the Middle East conflict could be the final act that causes viewers who previously applauded Trump to start throwing their TVs at him. Globalists are just waiting for this. Not to win, but to take what remains in 2026.
