From MAGA to Matchday: How Trump’s Travel Bans Rig the Stands
Part 1: Why the next World Cup might look more like WrestleMania than a celebration of global unity.
I’m not a sports fanatic—but I know a cultural weapon when I see one. And the World Cup is being weaponized. Not with cleats, but with executive orders, racialized immigration policies, and a war for who gets to be seen in the global arena.
A thought came to my mind: Maybe 47 & The Republican regime are trying to steer global politics by turning the World Cup into a tool for oppression.. Yes, I think that’s a high possibility—there's evidence to suggest that Trump is "fixing" the World cup. Particularly through exploiting the tribalism of sports and the hooligan groups.
Inherent tribalism, warrior mentality of the game and the battle for the ball, territory to fight for on the pitch, invading the other's territory in order to score, is about close to war or sovereign defense as these beer swilling, arena food-chomping back seat coaches will ever get. To superfans, a touchdown feels like a military conquest. A loss? That’s war. Or at least the closest these tailgate warriors will get.
People consider their sports teams sacred and frankly they consider themselves a part of those teams. I’m in the Seattle area. Here the fans call themselves the number 12. As in a member of the team.. In fairness, Seattle has actually caused seismic activity cheering for their team—so they might have a right to that claim.1 With the anti-Brown people immigration moves of 47 and KKKlan recently, Travel bans that suspiciously impact the fans. I began a unique thought experiment in one of my AI creations.
(Side note: I’ve been training a custom AI since EO #1. It double-checks my assumptions and flags bias—because this fight demands both fire and accuracy.)2
So with that said: Away we go..
Hooligans, Ultras, and the Far-Right Playbook
I’ll utilize a well-documented phenomena in this example. So buckle in: And remember this might sound a little outlandish, but if you stick with me, it’ll make sense. And remember this is not just 47.
He's no mastermind. The people who got him where he is however—along with the rest of the Republican regime—are this smart collectively. Massive Think tank, with many contributors.. Weaponizing our institutions against itself..
Sentinel and I welcome outside perspectives and evidence to the contrary of our findings.. Collaboration is key and the only way we’ll feel the pulse of this regime. Our findings are as follows:
Trump’s new travel ban targets 12 countries outright, with tighter restrictions on 7 more. Many of these nations—like Iran, Haiti, Libya, and Sudan—either have qualified or are still in contention for the 2026 World Cup. While the executive order includes exemptions for athletes and essential team staff, it notably does not extend to fans. That’s a huge deal. At the 2022 World Cup, tens of thousands of Iranian fans traveled to Qatar. Under this new policy, that kind of turnout would be impossible in the U.S..
Now, layer in the optics: the U.S. is co-hosting the 2026 tournament, and Trump has repeatedly touted it as a personal achievement. He’s also been vocal about “deficient” vetting systems in the targeted countries—language that echoes his first-term bans and reinforces a racialized narrative of security and legitimacy.
Trump’s post-presidency business and political ties in the Gulf—especially with figures linked to sports investments and regional influence—add another wrinkle. The UAE has been expanding its soft power through sports diplomacy (see: Manchester City, LIV Golf), and aligning with that strategy could serve multiple purposes: economic, geopolitical, and reputational.
Can a sport still be “the world’s game” when it’s curated for white nationalism?
Russian President Vladimir Putin says Russia's critics are mixing sports and politics, but the combination is as old as the games themselves. **Click the photo to read the Atlantic article.
Bread, Circuses, and Border Control
So, is he trying to “fix” the World Cup? Yes, it’s quite likely–in the sense of curating the audience, shaping the narrative, and controlling who gets to participate in the spectacle? That’s not far-fetched. It’s a form of soft exclusion that reinforces a nationalist image of who belongs on the world stage—and who doesn’t.
I’m thinking this is deeper than just political maneuvering—it suggests a choreography of exclusion masquerading as security policy. The travel bans might not stop players from hitting the pitch, but they certainly reshape the cultural and emotional fabric of the event. Who gets to cheer, to wave a flag, to feel present in that global moment? That’s power—not just soft power, but something more insidious: symbolic gatekeeping. Not to mention the possible tourism hits. Click each image for more info.
I'm no maths expert, but I can positively say that the taco treatment by 47 on topics like tourism and immigration is a terrible business decision-making.
And as far as exceptions??
The man who brokered a deal to deport US citizens to El Salvador is also the same guy who gets to decide if you get the exception or not.. Because that makes total sense..
Pair that with the UAE ties, and suddenly this isn’t just nationalist bluster—it’s about curating spectacle for an audience that reinforces certain values: Western-aligned, economically desirable, and racially palatable. It's a convergence of ideology, commerce, and performance—what some scholars might call “imperial pageantry.” A vision of global dominance not through war, but through who sits in the stands and who gets left outside the turnstiles.
I also wonder if this is Trump’s way of hijacking a unifying global event to serve a deeply divisive domestic narrative. The World Cup becomes another wedge—a tool for constructing an “us” and “them” on the world’s biggest stage.
There’s something especially chilling about the use of international sport—a traditionally neutral, even sacred space—to subtly reinforce borders, both literal and psychological. When you impose travel bans that effectively keep out entire fanbases, you’re reshaping the emotional geography of the World Cup. The event stops being a true global gathering and becomes a curated theater of allies, spectators, and narratives that serve a geopolitical message.
It mirrors how authoritarian regimes have historically manipulated cultural arenas to project strength and unity while controlling dissent. Think Mussolini’s 1934 World Cup(video further down), or how Putin used the 2018 Cup as a soft power stage amidst global condemnation. But what Trump’s maneuvering suggests isn’t just about nostalgia for “strongman” optics—it’s about weaponizing the illusion of openness. The doors appear open: athletes can still compete, the games go on. But the atmosphere—the crowd, the flags, the chants—is engineered. Dissent is not silenced with force, but absented by design.
Pair that with his transactional diplomacy—cozying up to Gulf investors, amplifying nationalist pride, and holding sports events hostage to exclusionary immigration policy—and what emerges is a regime strategy dressed in cleats and national colors. It’s the sporting equivalent of gerrymandering: shaping the field so the outcome feels fair, even when it’s carefully stacked.
And there’s also a more insidious effect: global audiences begin to normalize these curated spectacles. The sight of a lopsided stadium, with some regions glaringly underrepresented, becomes part of the new normal. It’s a soft erasure that doesn’t provoke headlines, but it quietly reinforces power divides.
This isn’t just about policy, it’s about narrative dominance. Trump doesn’t need to fix the games, he’s fixing the audience.
Trump’s Spectacle Machine
The WWE Connection: The Trump family connection to the McMahon family... Impossible to ignore when so much has been spectacle.
It hits like a steel chair to the discourse. The WWE parallel isn't just metaphor—it’s a framework. Trump’s long-standing ties to the McMahons, his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame, the kayfabe theatrics, the crowd psychology—it’s all there. He didn’t just learn from spectacle; he mastered it. In this light, politics becomes performance, and the World Cup becomes an arena not unlike WrestleMania: flags waving, faces booed or cheered on cue, and whole nations cast as “heels” or “faces” depending on the script.
Not just a game—it’s nationalism in cleats
And then there’s that second thread—soccer’s dark undercurrent: the co-opting of ultras and hooligan groups by far-right nationalism. In countries like Russia, Serbia, Italy, and even parts of Germany and England, football terraces have long been spaces where racial hatred, nationalism, and organized violence find a home under the guise of team loyalty. Those movements are tightly choreographed too—chants, banners, symbolism, even myth-making. It’s another kind of spectacle, but with real-world consequences.
📢📢📢SOUND OFF: What do you think Trump’s co-opting next? The Olympics? Beyoncé’s next tour?
Now imagine a 2026 U.S.-hosted World Cup carefully shaping which nations can enter the “arena,” while simultaneously knowing that far-right groups—already emboldened and organized—could use the event to amplify their message or even assert dominance in public spaces. In that sense, the event becomes a battleground not just for goals scored, but for narrative control, both domestically and globally.
Early in 47’s campaign, I made the connection to the WWE.. Initially used it as a joke to show the ineptitude of the supposed Secret Service—calling them WWE “jobbers”3. There has been a pervasive pattern of constant ridiculousness, of bread and circuses, distractions and look at the birdie—all while feeling like a badly written TV show. It subtly reframes Trump’s strategy: it’s not just to win—it’s to write the script and cast others in roles that serve his show. Fans are props, villains are preselected, and patriotism becomes a costume rather than a principle.
Fascism knows how to leverage sporting events:
The overlap of sport, nationalism, entertainment, and authoritarian spectacle isn't coincidental—it’s orchestrated. Next time we’ll discuss the historical use of mass entertainment for regime messaging, Or maybe explore how FIFA itself has been complicit in allowing these dynamics to fester beneath the surface.
📢📢📢Sound off: Should FIFA call this out or are they too deep in the propaganda profit machine?
If you want a solution to all of this: We have the blueprint..
Breaking it Down-"Upstream Alliance"
I’m calling it the Upstream Alliance—because fuck trickle-down anything. This system has been pissing on us from above for decades and calling it rain. This? This is about climbing upstream and burni…
DENY, DEFEND, DEPOSE…
Liberté, Égalité, Solidarité
~~☘️ Ginge ☘️
Sentinel Mapping is what the framework is called. A human/AI collaboration to deduce likely intentions/ends, recognize patterns, using historical and behavioral data, history and interviews/interrogations/hearings of the, ehem, *high* Command/Cabinet vs Project2025, etc.. to minimize damage/loss/hardship and act proactively and informed by data.
Wrestlers who routinely (or exclusively) lose matches are known as jobbers or "dummy wrestlers".