Napoleon Bonaparte was the author of memorable quotes; several of them entered history. Others did not. But one of the ones that did manage to endure is: “When a king sees that his people are about to rebel against him, he begins a war against another country”. No explanation is needed about the importance of the quote in the current geopolitical context. What does deserve reflection is the internal “rebellion” that the wavering empire of Trump is living.
It all begins with a name: Nick Fuentes. This guy, who learned to use streaming as a pulpit, just like so many others, has managed (and done so very well) to turn rage into spectacle. His rhetoric is nothing other than the old supremacist discourse mixed with the digital aesthetics of new radicals: memes, live streams on social networks, calculated provocations. Honestly, he hasn’t invented anything new, but he has certainly learned to condense the discontent that multiplies on the margins of the Republican Party (and of the MAGA movement), where hate always finds new ways to cloak itself in identity.
Now, before continuing, let us briefly see how Trump’s “populist wave” went from sweeping the polls to cracking on the eve of the midterm elections. In 2024, still a candidate and two months after being judicially convicted, he was the target of an attack (the one that grazed his ear) that lit several alarms about the veracity of what happened. Despite that judicial blemish, the MAGA movement and the more conservative sectors of the United States backed him at the polls and, after a sweeping election, sealed his return to the presidency. Once he took office (for the second time), Trump did not hesitate to show the world his bold, brawling, and defiant side: he began a tariff war with all those he labeled as enemies or trade rivals: China, Mexico, and the European Union, primarily. Then it got worse. His warlike impulses were not satiated and he redefined the geopolitical alliances of his Administration (with Israel and Argentina, mainly). And thus began, with his voracious expansionism: first, the snub to Greenland; then the threats of military intervention in Mexico; not long after came the invasion of Venezuela, and, while the ruins of Caracas were still smoldering, the Iran war collapsed. And the leader’s devastating popularity, the one who would lead “his people” to glory once again? Divided, eroded; top brass with resignations on the table and internal opinions as divided as they are painful. So things stood, in a little under two years.
“It has become plainly evident that the war in Iran was more a commitment of Trump to Israel than a matter of American security and interests”
Coupled with the above, Trump’s Achilles’ heel is (and remains), without a doubt, the Epstein case. Since that cesspool was uncovered (and only the tip of the iceberg has been seen) at the beginning of the year, the MAGA movement has not stopped cracking. We have already delved here into the impact of that scandal on geopolitics, but now, it seems, it is the issue that has done the most damage to the president’s popularity: once those pieces were revealed, it became evident that the Iran war was more a commitment by Trump to Israel than a matter of American security and interests.
And it is precisely that which brings us to this article. There are two issues that Trump’s internal detractors accuse him of: having sold out to foreign interests (primarily Israel); and, because of the above, sustaining a war that already costs his country around 30 billion dollars.
For now, in November the United States will hold the midterm elections. What will be the impact of this split within the MAGA movement’s internal ranks (and within the Republican Party) in the second half of Trump’s second term? November is around the corner, and there is no deadline that won’t be met.
A far-right digital army that Trump no longer serves
An important fact: Nick Fuentes, one of the most visible faces of those who have turned their backs on the American leader, is only twenty-seven years old. It is worth noting that on his father’s side he has Mexican ancestry, and on his mother’s side Italian and Irish. In other words, three cultural heritages deeply rooted in Catholicism. He studied Political Science and International Relations in Boston, but never completed a degree.
His media career began in 2017 (still a minor in his country), at a supremacist rally called Unite the Right (“Unite the Right”), and, that same year, he began streaming his program America First (“America First”), in which, with furious intent, he spread ultranationalist and conspiratorial ideas. In short, like every child of his generation, his voice found a perfect showcase in the digital ecumene, far more than in the traditional political podiums or party headquarters.
One of the voices who has best chronicled this phenomenon from within is Antonia Hitchens, in an article titled No enemies to the Right, published in The New Yorker. The journalist for the prestigious magazine describes how Fuentes and his groypers embody a paradox within the American right: they present themselves as the most radical, the most pure, but at the same time reject Trump, the leader who seemed to have opened the doors to the pathway to power. One of the most notable points in that piece is that these groups feed on the idea that any political compromise is synonymous with betrayal, besides the idea that the only way to maintain identity (national, political, cultural, racial, etc.) is through constant confrontation.
“The groypers don’t want to bargain or govern; they want to display their radicalism, to prove they are more ‘authentic’ than Trumpism”
The rejection of Trump (and his improvised way of conducting politics), as Hitchens notes, is not a minor detail: that is precisely the mark between those who seek power and those who aim to wage a cultural war. The groypers do not want to negotiate or govern; they want to display their radicalism, to prove they are more “authentic” than Trumpism and that they will not be tamed by the populist electoral logic (you know, the one that controls the less advantaged socio-economic classes and older generations). And in that sense, Fuentes has become a symbol of the ideological purity he seeks to impose; although, in reality, that supposed purity is nothing more than a dead end.
Now, setting aside the discourse and the words that drift away, what Hitchens emphasizes is that this new radicalism is not measurable by political parameters or party criteria, but by provocative gestures and the ability to recruit followers in digital spaces. It happens as if white supremacy and antisemitism were recycled into live streams, as if what happens in the darkest corners of the digital depths were as real as what happens at the polls, and as if memes and content manipulation on social networks were replacing the rules and statutes of parties and institutions. In short, it is a radicalism more performative than politically formal, sustained essentially by visibility and the indignation that spreads (always) like a pandemic.
In this way, Hitchens’s analysis shows how Nick Fuentes, more than a leader, functions as a symptom: he is the face (always necessary) of an ecosystem that feeds on resentment and expands at the margins of American politics. The new radicals are not seeking a political future (defined by statutes, rules, institutions); their aim is to live a present built and fed in and from confrontation. The key point here is that, as the author notes, in that present, Trump no longer serves them. They, stated this way, operate far better in the vacuum and chaos than under the ambiguous guidelines of a leader who always ends up negotiating (and, not infrequently, with Israel, a nation they constantly deride).
