'Diabolically unpopular': Hard-right Trump allies worried 'about MAGA muddying their own brand'

30 March

Former President Donald Trump (L) and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (R) in August of 2022 (Image: Orbán Viktor / Facebook)

International allies of President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement are starting to worry their affiliation with the U.S. president will negatively affect their own popularity, the Economist reports.

According to the report, “Some leaders on the hard right are now beginning to worry about MAGA muddying their own brand.”

As the Economist reports, though “Trump has had few clear wins and many chaotic policy turns ... much energy has been devoted to targeting domestic political enemies for grievances that do not resonate outside America."

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Trump “is diabolically unpopular in many liberal democracies,” including France and Britain. London pollster Luke Tryl told the Economist Trump “has not given the right-wing parties in Britain new political verve. Instead it seems to have pushed crucial undecided voters farther out of their reach,” the Economist reports.

Per the Economist:

Any benefit Mr Trump might have given right-wing parties is “being overshadowed by an expansionist and aggressive political nationalism”, says Eric Kaufmann, a professor at the University of Buckingham (and a self-described national conservative). America First, he says, “is activating political defensiveness in other countries”. Views of America have turned sharply negative across polls in several Western countries.

This “Trump effect” is seen most keenly “in countries where the American president has picked fights,” including Ukraine and Canada," the report notes.

“MAGA’s international allies (who describe themselves as ‘national conservatives’) had expected Mr Trump’s victory to make radical right-wing politics more credible with voters elsewhere,” the Economist reports. “… But a populist Trump-bump has failed to materialise, despite efforts by many of Mr Trump’s lieutenants to make his administration and the wider maga movement an inspiration to and example for right-wing populists around the world.”

As the Economist reports, the net effect of Trump’s presidency “has been to boost mainstream incumbents at the expense of populist outsiders.”

“Fears of trade wars and real wars tend to suck oxygen from culture wars,” the report notes.

Read the full report at the Economist (subscription required).

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