The West was moving to the right — and then Donald Trump got elected again
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Something is happening among America’s allies, and it’s a tremendous relief. For some years now, we’ve seen the MAGA-infused global right gaining a foothold amongst western democracies, largely driven by the same demagogic, nationalist, pseudo-populism that has fueled Donald Trump’s dominance on the American right.
Some countries like Hungary have served as a sort of experiment for the kind of post-democratic autocracies dreamt of by the modern right wing in which government co-opts, intimidates and de-legitimizes the political opposition to create an authoritarianism that dominates the culture and the politics without a lot of overt violence.
But the rise of the far right among the Western allies seems to be stalling out.
The trump voters I know of aren’t really people who want others to suffer. I am sure there are plenty who do of course. But ask why. The answer is that they have been fooled into thinking other people are effectively attacking thier way of life. Or that the people suffering are murderers and rapists. They simply don’t have the mental abilities to realize they have been fooled.