After Trump: MAGA no longer seeks a president - but a messiah

We took a look at the future of MAGA this past weekend - and it no longer carries the name Donald Trump. What was revealed at the memorial service for Charlie Kirk was more than mourning. It was catharsis, dress rehearsal, and consecration all at once. The old Trump format - rally, punchline, cult of personality - was overlaid by something greater: a political liturgy. The icon remains orange, the aesthetic remains stadium, but the message shifts. From "Make America Great Again" to "Make America God Again." The future leader? Not an entrepreneur, but a redeemer. Not a CEO of the state, but a savior for the nation.

This movement has understood that Trump was indeed a catalyst, but never kerygma. He was priest of rage, not prophet of the idea. Now in his place comes a program that seeks to reorder politics, culture and law in the name of the "Christian nation" - and that by definition cannot be voted out. Whoever opposes this order does not contradict a president, but "the truth." Whoever disagrees stands - so the logic goes - against God. From personality cult to politics of revelation. From campaign poster to catechism.

It could be seen in gestures, words, images: martyr narrative instead of party convention tape. Kirk as fallen soldier in the culture war; the stage as pulpit; the crowd as congregation. Where once the punchline stood, now stands the sermon. Where once "Lock her up" ranked, now resounds "revival." That is strategically clever. Because the question "Who follows Trump?" is thus elegantly avoided. The answer is: No one - and everyone. A collegium of earthly stewards is forming. Names like J.D. Vance, Mike Johnson, Stephen Miller, the think tank architects of "government by decree" - they are not the new Trump. They are deacons of a doctrine that defines political power as divine mandate.

Historic march of the Ku Klux Klan in the USA in the 1920s. Such images are documented multiple times: during this period the Klan reached its greatest membership numbers (estimates speak of up to 4-6 million members). They often marched in cities - not only in the South, but also in the Midwest and Northeast - and carried signs with slogans such as "America First" or "One God, One Country, One Flag."

The motto "America First" was indeed in the 1920s a central Klan slogan and was also used by other nativist movements in the USA.

The trick lies deep: if sovereignty is no longer anchored in the people, but in the "will of God," checks and balances suddenly become questions of faith. Administrative law becomes moral theology. The independence of courts - "relativism." Freedom of the press - "sin of lying." Minority protection - "attack on natural order." This is not accidental drift, this is design. The backdrop of grief serves perfectly as shield. Whoever objects "instrumentalizes" a death; whoever remains silent legitimizes the new orthodoxy. Thus private pain becomes a fantasy of public order.

One must not be deceived: this future does not need Trump - but it uses him. As an icon, as a relic, as a doorman to the realm of sacral politics. The applause for him will remain, but he is no longer the sentence, only the punctuation mark. His true legacy is not his second term, but the normalization of the state of exception: the idea that politics is not negotiated, but proclaimed. That defeats are "heretical," institutions "cowardly," compromises "sinful." What comes now is the encapsulation of these affects into codes, decrees and personnel policy.

MAGA 2.0 thinks in liturgy, infrastructure and long-term perspective. Curricula are being rewritten, agencies staffed like sacristies, moral absolutes written into technical paragraphs. What once circulated only as "Project 2025" in PDFs now comes into flesh and blood - under tears, flag bearers and chorales. One promises "order" and delivers enforcement power, one calls "freedom" and means obedience, one preaches "truth" and decrees interpretive authority. The movement has matured - not more moderate, but more methodical.

Whoever wants to counter this must understand: this is not an election campaign, this is a missionary movement. It cannot be beaten with sharper slogans, but with secular self-enlightenment: explain institutions, protect procedures, detoxify language, defend common good. Deromanticize the myth without mocking the pain. Respect the grief, name the instrumentalization. And above all: make the liberal-democratic narrative majority culture again - not as sermon, but as practice.

We have been researching deep inside the MAGA environment for months, speaking with insiders and following the threads being pulled in the shadows. What emerges is a picture that could hardly be more disquieting: the movement is not breaking into resistance, but into currents that outdo each other in delusion. Who stands at the top of this dynamic is clear: J.D. Vance, who stages himself as the prophet of a "Christian nation" and declares the break with democracy a duty of faith. And at his side, tech billionaire Peter Thiel provides the know-how - a network of data power, strategy pools, and financial pliancy. With Rockbridge, the connection of capital and culture emerges, aiming to turn the state of exception into a permanent institution. It is the most dangerous combination: ideological fanaticism, fueled by technocratic precision.

And while America plunges into this new sacral politics, the toxic patterns are already being exported to Europe. The AfD attempts what Charlie Kirk demonstrated in the USA: to build a right-wing youth culture that occupies digital spaces and transforms anger into identity. Already it is evident that it grows stronger the more it fills its economic vacuum. Precisely where until now only slogans stood, it begins to present itself as supposed alternative for Germany's economic decline. That is exactly what makes it highly dangerous. The parallel to Weimar is obvious: a democracy that does not resolve its social crisis will be hijacked by those who sell simple lies as future. Its growing power feeds not only on rhetoric, but on the broad support it receives in almost all areas - from anonymous donors to international networks to digital platforms and social milieus that normalize its narratives. This backing transforms radical minorities into movements that suddenly appear majoritarian. Particularly dangerous is that this support cuts across all strata: from the worker who feels betrayed in decline to the corporate executive who expects profit from deregulation and authoritarian order. It is exactly this alliance of bottom and top that makes the right so powerful - and so difficult to stop.

Europe stands at the tipping point. Instead of developing its own answers to the collapse of globalization, it copies the dark sides of the USA - and with them the political poison. What once were Starbucks and Hollywood are today Rockbridge strategy papers and MAGA dogmas that are fed into right-wing networks. Whoever believes these are distant American experiments need only look at the AfD: a party that no longer lives only in the mode of provocation, but seeks to conquer the infrastructure of the state. Here the full dimension reveals itself: if the connection of Vance, Thiel and Rockbridge sets the rhythm, then in Europe too parties will grow that regard democracy only as a transitional stage.

The hour after Trump has dawned. It will not come quieter, only holier. The question is no longer whether one man goes. The question is whether a republic endures when politics disguises itself as religion. The answer will not fall in the stadium, but in the arduous everyday life of democracy - there where laws are made, rights guaranteed and differences endured. If we forget that, the messiah is already here. Only that he does not come to redeem, but to rule.