by Scott Jacobsen and Irina Tsukerman
Irina Tsukerman is a human rights and national security attorney based in New York and Connecticut. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in National and Intercultural Studies and Middle East Studies from Fordham University in 2006, followed by a Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law in 2009. She operates a boutique national security law practice. She serves as President of Scarab Rising, Inc., a media and security strategic advisory firm. Additionally, she is the Editor-in-Chief of The Washington Outsider, which focuses on foreign policy, geopolitics, security, and human rights. She is actively involved in several professional organizations, including the American Bar Association’s Energy, Environment, and Science and Technology Sections, where she serves as Program Vice Chair in the Oil and Gas Committee. She is also a member of the New York City Bar Association. She serves on the Middle East and North Africa Affairs Committee and affiliates with the Foreign and Comparative Law Committee.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen is a contributor to The Washington Outsider. Also, he is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews(ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN 0018-7399; Online: ISSN 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Further Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Now, Statecraft and Faultlines: How should we focus on this for this series? This is your wheelhouse, so I want to make sure we are aligned.
Irina Tsukerman: There is a great deal of fragmentation within the MAGA world. One notable development in recent days is the way “America First” is being asserted as a distinct identity rather than treated as interchangeable with MAGA—most visibly in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s televised remarks, which then triggered a rapid round of responses and counter-responses across the pro-Trump ecosystem.
Jacobsen: One of the more sophisticated—though not especially telegenic—operators associated with that broader world is Stephen Bannon. He has certainly built a recognizable brand in those circles. More recently, Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes drew significant backlash on the right and publicly exposed divisions over who should be treated as “in bounds.” Then Fuentes was interviewed by that British guy, Piers Morgan. That added another high-visibility moment to the same pattern: arguments over whether giving Fuentes a central platform is strategic coalition-building or reputational sabotage. Fuentes functions less as the sole cause of these splits than as a stress test that makes existing fractures harder to ignore.
Tsukerman: At one point, there should not have been a big difference between these groups, because they supported both ideas simultaneously: “Make America Great Again” while also putting America first. “Make America Great Again” itself was a recycled Reagan-era slogan that Donald Trump repurposed and strategically reframed. Some Trumpian speeches about a past or future “golden age” echoed a broader vision of prosperity and security—a strong America that avoids unnecessary external entanglements, guards its sphere of influence, focuses on domestic affairs, and prioritizes its own interests above all else. In theory, there was no inherent conflict between these positions.
In practice, however, they diverged. A segment of this movement came to believe that strict isolationism, hardline anti-immigration policies, and near-total economic self-sufficiency were the only ways to safeguard American interests. By contrast, those aligned with a more traditional “America First” framing still tend to accept limited alliances—most notably with Israel, often with the United Kingdom, and selectively with other countries perceived as aligned with U.S. priorities. The more absolutist wing treats even those relationships with skepticism, pushing the movement further toward disengagement.
The America First faction represents a much more extreme variant. It emphasizes complete isolationism, total self-sufficiency, and hardline anti-immigration policies. This is not necessarily Christian nationalism across the board. Within America First, there are multiple subgroups: some are explicitly Christian nationalists; others are pseudo-Christian nationalists who are not particularly religious and, in some cases, not even aligned with traditional white evangelical culture, but who attempt to blend in while advancing similar priorities through different identities and rhetoric.
The real clash is now between those who are comfortable with what might be called “Trump-light”—Trump as he governed in his first term, perhaps with somewhat stricter immigration enforcement, selective tariffs, and incremental adjustments—and those in the America First camp who want to push these ideas to their most extreme conclusions. The latter are far more ideologically rigid and less transactional than Trump himself. They are less interested in using populist language as a veneer for conventional Republican policy and more focused on fully implementing maximalist versions of these ideas.
Jacobsen: What else follows from this?
Tsukerman: This kind of fracturing creates both vulnerability and opportunity—for Democrats, for independents, and for international diplomacy. Historically, broader coalition politics and alliance-based foreign policy tend, by most economic and geopolitical measures, to produce greater stability and prosperity in both the short and long term.
For Democrats specifically, the 2026 midterms are arguably theirs to lose. We see warning signs for Republicans in the number of retirements, including among Trump-aligned lawmakers. We also see electoral losses in places that were previously considered reliably Republican, such as several local races in Connecticut and, notably, Miami, which elected a Democratic mayor for the first time in nearly three decades. Whether Democrats can capitalize on this, however, depends on their ability to articulate a cohesive message.
That message cannot simply mirror left-wing populism. There is growing tension within Democratic politics over more extreme ideological currents, including candidates and campaigns associated with a more rigid, activist-driven style. In New York, for example, relatively mainstream Democratic figures such as Congressman Dan Goldman face challenges from candidates aligned with more radical platforms, including Brad Lander, whose appeal rests more on ideological momentum—particularly around Israel and socialism—than on personal popularity or a governing record. This pattern is not confined to New York; similar dynamics are emerging across the country.
We are seeing more strident and extreme sentiment, particularly around Israel. Even though the Israel–Gaza war is not, by most recent polling, a top priority for average Americans, it feeds into a broader ecosystem in which both the extreme left and the extreme right are questioning traditional alliances. On the Republican side, this does not translate into uniform isolationism, but there is an observable shift in rhetoric. In some quarters, long-standing alignment with Israel is being rhetorically downplayed in favour of warmer postures toward actors such as Qatar, and in some cases even toward Russia.
On the left, these shifts are not necessarily replaced by a coherent alternative alliance framework. Support for Ukraine, for example, has remained relatively stable in policy terms, but it is no longer a central campaign issue for Democrats in foreign policy discussions. Instead, the emphasis has moved toward a grievance-driven approach that surged for a period, receded when it appeared electorally costly, and has now been re-amplified following recent electoral successes by candidates associated with the Mamdani-style platform. Rather than recalibrating toward the center after recent losses, parts of the Democratic Party appear to be attempting to nationalize strategies rooted in California and New York, which does not bode well for 2028.
There is, of course, a contingent scenario in which this strategy could still succeed—namely, if Donald Trump were impeached or otherwise politically neutralized, followed by a period of instability or poor governance under a successor who performs even worse. That is possible. However, absent such a disruption, the Democrats’ strongest path forward would likely be a conventional centrist nominee with credible progressive credentials, but anchored in a broadly unifying message. If the Republican nominee were someone like J.D. Vance—who is already unpopular even within parts of his own party—the likelihood of a general election collapse on the Republican side would be significant. That is the opportunity currently visible.
Whether Democrats can capitalize on it depends on their ability to resist the impulse to chase short-term ideological enthusiasm—the current flavour being Mamdani-style politics—rather than prioritizing long-term electoral common sense. That remains an open question.
For diplomats, this internal fragmentation is a liability, though it can paradoxically reassure allies. Fragmentation can constrain Trump’s ability to implement sweeping domestic changes, forcing him to focus inward rather than pursue disruptive agendas toward Ukraine or Europe. From an international messaging perspective, that is perhaps the most important takeaway.
However, because senior diplomatic posts are filled with Trump political appointees, it is unclear whether they will exploit this opportunity to reassure allies. Instead, they may continue advancing rhetoric about reshaping Europe in America’s image—an approach that has already shown signs of backfiring, much as U.S. intervention in Canadian political discourse did.
Jacobsen: All right, let us call that Session Two of Statecraft and Faultlines. Thank you as always, Irina.