As countries around the world celebrated the arrival of 2026, the Trump administration took the opportunity of a new year to herald in historic levels of chaos in diplomatic quarters. And as the events unfolding in Venezuela have shown, the US is clearly not averse to meddling in the politics of smaller nations.

Meanwhile, a former trusted adviser of the US president, Steve Bannon, gave an interview to Politico, where he claimed that we are "going to have an Irish MAGA, and we’re going to have an Irish Trump”. Making it clear that some elements of the alt-right movement have set their sights on Ireland.

Bannon’s statement begs a number of questions, such as how exactly would he and other MAGA influencers pull this off?

Tabitha Monahan is joined by Declan Lynch (Sunday Independent columnist) and Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc (author of Burn Them Out! A History of Fascism and the Far Right in Ireland) to ask how has this kind of nationalism fared with Irish voters in the past, what could MAGA influence look like, and how vulnerable are we to outside influence in the social media age?

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