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This kind of rhetoric is exactly what President Biden and others are warning about following Trump’s elevation as the party’s presidential nominee. The former president has repeatedly expressed support for centralized, strong-arm executive power in the United States and elsewhere, which is clearly at odds with American democracy and divided government.
Mr. Trump is effectively making Mr. Biden appear to be acting like a dictator to his supporters, and because modern dictators do not necessarily resemble those of the past, many U.S. People are likely to view these warnings as hollow.
In February 2023, YouGov asked Americans to assess whether a particular country qualifies as a democracy. Most commentators agreed that China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia do not, but the United States and Ukraine do. (Among those with an opinion, Democrats were 16 points more likely than Republicans to identify Ukraine as a democracy.)
Countries such as Turkey and Hungary are somewhere in between, and in recent years strongmen leaders have eroded democracy. Only about a third of those with an opinion still consider Turkey to be a democracy, while half of those with an opinion said that Hungary is a democracy. Republicans were significantly more likely to say that Hungary is a democracy.
Under Orban, Hungarian democracy declined. Although there are still elections to be held, there are no serious threats to his coalition government. Mr. Orban has often allied himself with authoritarian leaders in China and Russia against other European countries and NATO. But understanding of this change has not penetrated the American consciousness, and Mr. Orbán, without the baggage of strengthening the position of, for example, Russian President Vladimir Putin, has not penetrated the American consciousness, and Mr. This allows him to be admired as a leader.
Mr. Orbán spoke publicly after meeting with President Trump. approved The former president’s 2024 bid (as President Trump supported Orbán’s re-election). He said the main reason for his support was Trump’s foreign policy positions, saying on state television that Trump would not provide new funding to Ukraine if he returned to the White House.
Contrast President Orbán’s public embrace of President Trump with President Putin’s. Although President Putin is unpopular and not understood as a leader, he insisted last month that he wants President Biden to be re-elected. That’s because “he’s more experienced, he’s more predictable, he’s an old-school politician.” Perhaps that’s true. However, President Putin, who clearly tried to support Trump’s 2016 presidential election, seems to think that a president hostile to NATO is preferable to one who is not. Calling Biden “predictable” and an “old-school politician” is, of course, very much in line with the way Trump presents his own advantages.
Trump, on the other hand, has been very careful to cast Biden, not himself, as a threat to democracy. This is consistent with his long-standing efforts to obfuscate all issues on which he is vulnerable by leveling the same allegations against his critics. But for Republicans, at least, the policy is effective.
In December, YouGov asked Americans to assess whether certain authoritarian actions by their government are currently taking place or are likely to take place soon. Republicans are consistently more likely to say “yes” or “will happen,” and more than a quarter say government critics are already being harshly punished; One in six said America is already ruled by a dictator.
The same poll found that 14% of Republicans thought America would be ruled by a dictator in their lifetime, slightly less than Democrats. This suggests that some of this is simply a partisan reaction, anger at the presidency expressed by Biden’s claims that he is a dictator. However, about 1 in 11 Americans overall agreed that the United States is already ruled by a dictator. That means President Trump’s warnings about how he will change democracy face the hurdle of distinguishing his predictions from currently perceived reality.
When Americans were asked what they thought in the abstract about the broader vision of strong leadership, such as whether the president should be given the power to break rules or destroy the media, Republicans and conservatives found that liberals and conservatives have been more supportive of these ideas. Overall American.
That includes Donald Trump, who is seeking a return to the White House and plans to make the government more authoritarian. But comparisons with Hungary and contrasts with Biden may not have the intended effect among Republicans.
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