Steve Bannon walked onto the stage expecting to fire up the base. Instead, he delivered a grim, rambling warning about global war and civil unrest to an embarrassing sprawl of empty chairs.
Speaking at the National Conservatism Conference in the UK, the MAGA movement’s self-styled ideologue looked out at what should have been a packed house—and found barely a dozen scattered attendees in an auditorium built for hundreds. For a man who once helped steer the White House and build a right-wing media empire, it was a visual gut punch.
Despite the glaring lack of enthusiasm in the room, Bannon plowed ahead with his doomsday sermon. He claimed the world is already at war, telling the conference, “We are in the Third World War today.” The former Trump strategist said the “kinetic part” of the conflict is already underway, citing the war in Ukraine and broader geopolitical unrest.
And then came the real eyebrow-raiser: Bannon warned the UK is “heading to a civil war as we speak.” He added, “Nigel Farage, the rise of the populist party over there, Reform is not going to stop it.”
It was the kind of apocalyptic, chaos-is-coming rhetoric that Bannon has leaned on for years—but this time, few seemed interested in hearing it.
The National Conservatism Conference bills itself as a gathering for “public figures, journalists, scholars, and students” who see nationalism as the future of conservatism. This year’s event ran from September 2 to 4, featuring a lineup of right-wing voices from both sides of the Atlantic.
But the photo from Bannon’s speech tells the real story. Vast stretches of empty chairs. A handful of attendees looking on. One of Trump’s top whisperers reduced to an almost lonely figure shouting into the void.
