Steve Bannon Isn’t Going to Win Power With an "Irish MAGA" Party and Neither Is Anyone Else

"Why are you intent on trying to "save" a country that you don't understand?"

Towards the end of 2025, the Trump administration published a revised National Security Strategy, outlining how it will implement America First policies in a world of competing regional interests. Politico spoke to Steve Bannon about it, resulting in the following interview, in which he seems constantly on the cusp of blowing himself (I actually like Bannon a lot so I think that’s mainly a result of a snide editorial voice, but it’s still funny):

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon is clearly gleeful as we sit down to discuss the new U.S. National Security Strategy and the hostility it displays toward America’s supposed allies in Europe.

With its brutal claim that Europe is headed for “civilizational erasure,” the document prompted gasps of horror from European capitals when it was released this month. But the MAGA firebrand — and current host of the influential “War Room” podcast — only has words of praise…

… Famously, Bannon had once claimed he wanted “to drive a stake through the Brussels vampire.” And now, he and other MAGA influencers get to sharpen their stake with the encouragement of U.S. government policy…

… Above all, it’s what Bannon describes as the commitment to “back resistance movements to the globalists” that thrills him most. “It was pleasantly shocking that it was so explicit,” he said of the document’s prioritization of support for so-called “patriotic European parties,” with the aim of halting the continent’s supposed slide into irreversible decline due to mass migration, falling birth rates and the dilution of national cultural identities…

But Bannon hopes it isn’t just the firewall that cracks — and he’s clearly relishing upcoming opportunities to amplify the radical populist message across Europe. “I think MAGA will be much more aggressive in Europe because President Trump has given a green light with the national security memo, which is very powerful,” he said. And he’s brimming with iconoclastic schemes to smash the bloc’s liberal hegemony and augment the Trump administration’s efforts.

So far, so familiar; to date, the Trump 2 White House attitude to Europe has been that of a long lost nephew who has been reunited much loved wealthy uncle - only to find the latter has lost both his money and his mind, and is living in a tumbledown mansion, ankle-deep in rat-droppings, with his dead wife’s cobwebby corpse in the bathtub and his terrified kids locked in the cellar being fed through a catflap. Whether Trump and company are in a position to make such unflattering comparisons with themselves is a whole other story, but anyway - that’s where we are. This is new, though:

Interestingly, first up is Ireland.

“I’m spending a ton of time behind the scenes on the Irish situation to help form an Irish national party,” Bannon told POLITICO.

At first glance, Ireland wouldn’t seem the most promising territory for MAGA. Last year, none of the far-right candidates came anywhere near winning a seat in the Dáil, and this year, professional mixed martial arts fighter and MAGA favorite Conor McGregor had to drop out of Ireland’s presidential race, despite endorsements from both Trump and Musk.

None of that’s deterring Bannon, though. “They’re going to have an Irish MAGA, and we’re going to have an Irish Trump. That’s all going to come together, no doubt. That country is right on the edge thanks to mass migration,” he said definitively.