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ANNALS, AAPSS, 699, January 2022 101
DOI: 10.1177/00027162211070060
The Far-Right
Threat in the
United States:
A European
Perspective
By
CAS MUDDE
1070060ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYTHE FAR-RIGHT THREAT IN THE UNITED STATES
research-article2021
The rise of Donald Trump has weakened the domi-
nance of the “American exceptionalism” paradigm in
analyses of U.S. politics, but the pivot to views of
the United States as part of a global trend toward
democratic backsliding ignores important, uniquely
“American” cultural, historical, and institutional attrib-
utes that make the country more at risk for democratic
erosion than most other established democracies. This
short article puts Trump, and his Republican Party, into
the broader comparative perspective of (European) far-
right studies. I argue that Trump in many ways fits
the “fourth wave” of postwar far-right politics, lay out
the unique challenge that the United States is facing
in terms of democratic erosion, and draw on the case
of Viktor Orbán in Hungary to learn lessons for the
United States. The article ends with some suggestions
of how democrats (not just Democrats) should address
the far-right Republican challenge to U.S. democracy.
Keywords: U.S. politics; democracy; far right; populism;
Donald Trump
It is rare for political scientists to write a New
York Times bestseller, but Steven Levitsky
and Daniel Ziblatt did just that, with their
insightful book How Democracies Die (2018).
It is the best contribution to what has quickly
become a new and popular genre of political
doomsday books, declaring the end of democ-
racy, liberalism, or both. What makes the suc-
cess of How Democracies Die even more
remarkable is that the authors look to other
countries to help explain what is happening
in the United States. Based on the authors’
extensive research on early-twentieth-century
Europe and late-twentieth-century Latin
America, Levitsky and Ziblatt provide an origi-
nal and thought-provoking understanding of
Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF
Professor of International Affairs and a distinguished
research professor at the University of Georgia (USA)
as well as a professor II at the Center for Research on
Extremism (C-REX) of the University of Oslo (Norway).
Correspondence: mudde@uga.edu
102 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
contemporary U.S. politics. With this comparative approach, the authors went
against the “American exceptionalism” paradigm, claiming that U.S. politics is
unique in the world, which has long dominated academic and political debates in
the United States.
Ironically, for a politician who championed an isolationalist “America First” pol-
icy, Donald Trump has done more to open the country up to comparisons with the
rest of the world than possibly any U.S. politician before him. Few analyses of his
ascendence failed to note similar developments in other countries, from Brazil (Jair
Bolsonaro) to Italy (Silvio Berlusconi) and France (Jean-Marie and Marine Le Pen).
The most ahistorical accounts declare Trump the trendsetter of a global “far right”
surge that, in fact, started at least 25 years prior in Europe. The pivot from
“American exceptionalism” to views of the United States as part of a global trend
toward democratic backsliding might be therapeutic to those who oppose Trump,
but it ignores important, uniquely “American” cultural, historical, and institutional
attributes that make the United States more at risk for democratic erosion than most
other established democracies.
In this short article, I put Trump, and his Republican Party, into the broader
comparative perspective of (European) far-right studies. In the first section, I argue
that Trump in many ways fits what I have called the “fourth wave” of postwar far-
right politics. In the second section, I lay out the unique challenge that the United
States is facing in terms of democratic erosion; and in the third section, I draw on
the case of Viktor Orbán in Hungary to learn lessons for the United States. The
article ends with some suggestions of how democrats (not just Democrats) should
address the far-right Republican challenge to U.S. democracy.
The Fourth Wave
Far-right groups and parties remained largely limited to the political margins in
a minority of (Western) democracies in the first three waves of the postwar era
(see von Beyme 1988). The first wave, roughly from 1945 to 1955, consisted of
relatively small “neo-fascist” groups, few of which achieved any political signifi-
cance. The second wave of “right-wing populism,” roughly between 1955 and
1980, was characterized by so-called flash parties, like the Poujadists in France
and the Progress Party in Denmark, which shocked their countries with short-
lived electoral successes. In the third wave, between 1980 and 2000, “populist
radical right parties” started to achieve electoral breakthroughs in several (West)
European countries, including Austria, Italy, and Switzerland.
Far-right politics only became a relevant political force, however, in the vast
majority of democracies in the “fourth wave” of the twenty-first century (Mudde
2019). For instance, in 2019 and 2020, some two billion people, roughly one-
quarter of the world population, lived under far-right rule—the populations of
India, the United States, Brazil, Poland, and Hungary. In many ways, the rise of
Trump, as well as the (full) far-right turn of the Republican Party, is in line with
key characteristics of the fourth wave.
THE FAR-RIGHT THREAT IN THE UNITED STATES 103
Extreme heterogeneity
The Right encompasses all ideologies, individuals, and groups that believe that
social inequalities are natural and should be protected rather than overcome by
the state (Bobbio 1997). The far right includes (only) the extreme right and the
radical right—not the liberal democratic or “mainstream” right. Extremists reject
the essence of democracy, that is, popular sovereignty and majority rule; while
radicals accept this but reject fundamental aspects of liberal democracy, such as
minority right, rule of law, and separation of powers (Mudde 2019). Today, most
relevant far-right groups and parties are radical right, while extreme right groups
tend to be more local and marginal.
Things are shifting, however. The contemporary far right does not just vary in
terms of ideology and, partly related, political relevance. Some far-right groups
are exclusively involved in street politics (e.g., Pegida in Germany), while others
almost exclusively pursue electoral politics (e.g., Party for Freedom, PVV, in the
Netherlands). Even far-right electoral politics varies radically. We have well-
established and well-organized parties, like Le Pen’s National Rally (formerly
FN) or Narendra Modi’s Indian People’s Party (BJP), allegedly the largest politi-
cal party in the world with 180 million members. But there are also many new
and fairly poorly organized parties, like the Alternative for Germany (AfD) or
Forum for Democracy (FvD), as well as parties that practically or formally are
just one man, for example, Portugal’s Chega or the Netherlands’ PVV, which only
has one official member, party leader Geert Wilders.
Trump has added another variety to the mix: a far-right leader who was elected
on the ticket of a mainstream party—a trick repeated a few years later by
Bolsonaro in Brazil. While the Republican Party had long been home to far-right
representatives, such as Jeff Sessions (Alabama) and Steve King (Iowa), the party
leadership was, in word rather than deed, liberal democratic. It remains unclear
to what extent Trump has changed the party. He never invested energy or
resources in either capturing the party or building his own far-right infrastruc-
ture, either within or outside of the Republican Party. For now, though, the
Republican establishment has decided to continue to embrace Trump, albeit
more as an outside mobilizer and supporter than the current or future leader.
Consequently, the Republican Party can be seen as his far-right party.
Mainstreaming and normalization
During the third wave (1980–2000), various far-right parties achieved their
electoral breakthroughs but, despite being represented in the national parlia-
ment, remained largely excluded from political power and marginalized in the
public debate. Only one West European far-right party entered a national coali-
tion government before 2000, the Northern League (LN) in Berlusconi’s first
government (1994–1996). There were a few more in postcommunist Europe,
notably in Croatia, Slovakia, and Romania, and the BJP entered its first coalition
government in 1998; but overall, far-right parties remained moderately success-
ful political newcomers and outsiders (e.g., Mudde 2007). This changed in the
twenty-first century.
104 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
As a consequence of both slow structural transformations and quick political
shocks, or “crises” such as the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the Great Recession, and
the so-called refugee crisis, far-right parties and politics have become (more)
mainstreamed and normalized around the world. In many democracies, far-right
parties are now considered “Koalitionsfähig” (i.e., eligible for coalitions) and have
become part of national and regional governments. Even more important, far-
right frames and issues have become mainstreamed and normalized, to the extent
that they are now propagated by mainstream parties, from the conservative
Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) to the Danish Social Democrats.
But the mainstreaming and normalization is not limited to the political realm.
Many media have long advanced far-right frames and obsessed over “far-right
issues” (like corruption, crime, and immigration), but most would neither publish
articles by far-right politicians and public intellectuals nor support far-right par-
ties. Today, there is a growing number of new (online) far-right media (e.g.,
Breitbart News), conservative media that have become mouthpieces for the far
right (e.g., Fox News), and liberal media that regularly publish far-right politi-
cians and pundits (e.g., New York Times). Not to speak of the impact of social
media, through which the far right is able to reach billions of people directly, but
also indirectly, as traditional media increasingly amplify loud social media voices.
Simply by being U.S. president, the most powerful and visible democratically
elected position in the world, Trump was crucial in furthering this process of
mainstreaming and normalization. When “the leader of the free world” makes
nativist and populist statements, they are automatically mainstreamed and nor-
malized inside and outside of the United States. Moreover, few political leaders
dare(d) to openly oppose the most powerful man in the world, thereby again
implicitly legitimizing his statements. Although Trump himself was never inter-
ested or invested in building a “Populist International,” despite endless assertions
and speculations in the media, several of his ambassadors actively tried to main-
stream and normalize the far right in the countries in which they served, includ-
ing Richard Grenell in Germany, Pete Hoekstra in the Netherlands, and
particularly David Friedman in Israel.
Porous boundaries
A logical consequence of the increasing adoption of far-right frames and issues
by mainstream parties, in particularly conservative parties, is that the boundary
between conservativism and the far right has become less clear. In fact, some
formerly conservative parties have fully transformed into far-right parties, such as
the Hungarian Civic Alliance (Fidesz) and Law and Justice (PiS) in Poland; while
other parties, like the British Conservative Party and the Dutch People’s Party for
Freedom and Democracy (VVD), have gone so far right on issues like immigra-
tion and security that their policies and rhetoric are often difficult to distinguish
from their national far-right competitors.
This issue is not limited to political parties, as conservatism and radical right
have merged also in media and public debate, to the extent that several estab-
lished conservative media outlets now advance almost identical content to radical
THE FAR-RIGHT THREAT IN THE UNITED STATES 105
right outlets—think of National Review in the United States or The Spectator in
the United Kingdom. In fact, there is a new, more elitist, initiative to create a
“national conservatism,” which tries to merge the two in a more highbrow, estab-
lishment and donor friendly movement, bringing together “conservative” and
far-right media personalities like Fox News host Tucker Carlson; politicians like
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán; professors like the late political philoso-
pher Roger Scruton; and “think tankers” like the Israeli Yoram Hazony, president
of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem (Applebaum 2020).
Of course, Trump has been a prime example of this broader phenomenon. In
many ways, he is a hybrid (U.S.) conservative far-right politician and also gov-
erned as such. In line with the far right, he emphasized opposition to immigration
(“Build the wall”), propagated authoritarian measures (“I am your president of
law and order”), and claimed to represent the pure people against the corrupt
elite (“Drain the swamp”). But in line with conservativism, and the Republican
Party establishment, he gave tax breaks to the rich and deregulated and defunded
the state. As discussed above, Trump also pushed the “Grand Old Party” (GOP)
even further to the Right, shaping it in his own image, that is, a conservative-far
right hybrid (see, for example, Galvin 2020).
Radicalization of the radical right
Another logical consequence of the mainstreaming of the radical right is its
radicalization. When the key frames and issues of the radical right are increas-
ingly normalized, and propagated by mainstream parties, radical right parties and
politicians have to radicalize even further to stand out from the mainstream. For
a long time, there was only one “iron law” in the study of the far right: parties that
openly expressed extreme right positions cannot be successful (e.g., Ignazi 1992).
Open antisemitism and racism, or the propagation (let alone use) of violence, was
an electoral death sentence. This is no longer the case in the fourth wave. Openly
neofascist parties were elected to both European and national parliaments in
Greece and Slovakia.
Again, Trump fits this picture perfectly. Not only did he have a well-
established track record of antisemitic and racist statements before he entered
politics, he continued them as president (Leonhart and Philbrick 2018). For
instance, he has said that Jews “are only in it for themselves” (Miller 2020) and
told four Congresswomen of color to “go back to the country you came from,”
even though three are U.S.-born citizens and the fourth is a naturalized citizen
(Rogers and Fandos 2019). But he also openly praised the (violent) extreme right,
infamously saying that there were “very fine people, on both sides” after the
deadly “Unite the Right” demonstration in Charlottesville and calling upon the
violent Proud Boys gang to “stand back and stand by” (e.g., Drobnic Nolan 2019).
Further, he has a record of inciting violence (Cineas 2021), including in the run-
up to the storming off the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to the extent that the
House of Representatives impeached him, for the second time, for “inciting an
insurrection” (Gambino 2021).
106 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
A Unique Challenge?
Even though the rise of Trump, as well as the far-right turn of the Republican
Party, fits global developments within the far right, the U.S. situation is also
unique in several important aspects, in particular with regard to the threat to
(liberal) democracy (see, for example, Mettler and Lieberman 2020). In fact, I
would argue that the far-right threat to U.S. democracy is more acute and signifi-
cant than in most other countries—with the possible exceptions of Brazil, India,
and Poland (Hungary is already past this stage, as I lay out in more detail below).
Let me explain myself.
The way that Trump came to power remains unique. While there have been
more directly elected far-right presidents, and even far-right presidents that were
elected on the ticket of a non-far-right party, Trump came to power as the candi-
date of one of the (two) major parties of the country, which at that time was not
(seen as) far right. This is essential, and it sets him apart from even Bolsonaro in
Brazil, who essentially ran as a third-party candidate. Given that roughly 90 per-
cent of Republicans voted for Trump, the 2016 presidential election was an ordi-
nary victory for the Republican Party rather than an exceptional victory for
Trump (Bartels 2016).
Although the Republican Party has slowly but steadily become Trump’s party,
most of his four years in office were characterized by an awkward and often conten-
tious power-sharing relationship of Trump and the Republican establishment (cen-
tered on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell). Consequently, most of his
administration’s policy successes were on issues the two camps saw eye to eye on,
like tax breaks for the rich, judicial nominations, defunding the federal bureau-
cracy, and further deregulation of the economy (e.g., Haltiwanger 2021). On points
where the two diverged, Trump was much less successful, from funding “the Wall”
to undermining judicial independence. In this sense, his relatively limited damage
to U.S. liberal democracy is more in line with (right-wing) populists in government
coalitions than with far-right one-party rule (Albertazzi and Mueller 2013).
But Trump is also the first democratically elected far-right president to be
voted out of power—Bolsonaro is still in office, and Croatian president Franjo
Tudjman died in office in 1999. Of course, far-right parties have lost their posi-
tion in government before, but they were (almost) always junior partners in coali-
tion governments, consequently losing far less power than Trump and the
Republican Party did.1 Although there are examples of authoritarian right-wing
presidents in Latin America, like Alvaro Uribe in Colombia or Alberto Fujimori
in Peru, I think that a comparison to prime minister Orbán in Hungary is more
instructive, as I discuss below.
The Hungarian Model
Unlike Trump, Orbán was one of the least likely politicians to become a major
threat to (liberal) democracy. He famously started his political career in 1988 as
THE FAR-RIGHT THREAT IN THE UNITED STATES 107
the leader of the Alliance of Young Democrats (Fidesz), one of the few dissident
movements in then–still communist Hungary. Fidesz was a liberal youth move-
ment, staunchly prodemocracy and pro-Western; and when communism fell and
the movement turned into a party (restricting membership to people under 35),
Orbán became the darling of European and U.S. democrats, the poster child for
a democratic and “Western” postcommunist Europe (see Lendvai 2017).
But the first two elections showed that there was only a small electorate for a
liberal party in Hungary, so Orbán moved right, transforming Fidesz into a
(national) conservative party, aiming to take the place of the dissolving Hungarian
Democratic Forum (MDF), a collection of liberal and nationalist former dissi-
dents that initially constituted the “antileft” bloc. This paid off, and Orbán
became prime minister in 1998, leading a right-wing coalition with two smaller
parties, all of which had strong nationalist and populist factions within them.
During his first term in office, Orbán still pursued pro-Western policies, includ-
ing membership of the European Union, but also showed some nationalist and
populist features, creating tensions within Hungary and with its neighboring
countries (Fowler 2004). Still, Fidesz was considered part of the mainstream
right and was deeply integrated into center-right international structures, like the
Liberal International (until 2000) and the European People’s Party (until 2021).
At the same time, Fidesz was often referred to as “national conservative” rather
than just conservative (e.g., Roose and Karolewski 2019), a term not commonly
used for right-wing parties in Western Europe or North America, indicating a
more overt nationalism.
In the 2002 parliamentary election, Fidesz massively increased its electoral
support, by and large absorbing the electorates of the other right-wing parties,
but nevertheless lost. The loss of power came as a massive shock to Orbán, who
did not take it well. While he did leave office, he never fully accepted electoral
defeat. Instead, he openly stated that “the homeland cannot be in opposition,”
seemingly equating Fidesz (and himself) to the Hungarian nation (Kim 2021).
From that moment on, Orbán devoted his time to making sure that this would
never happen again. Creating the so-called civic circles movement (Greskovits
2020), Fidesz built a state within the state, an alternative cultural, media, and
political infrastructure, tightly controlled by Orbán and his inner circle.
Still, Fidesz lost again in 2016, but it was given a lifeline shortly after, when an
audio recording emerged of a secret meeting of the leading center-left MSZP
party, in which prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsán stated, in rather coarse lan-
guage, that the party had won reelection on the basis of lies. The country erupted
and was engulfed in (often-violent) protests for one month, two weeks, and four
days. There were protests throughout the country and in the capital, Budapest,
protesters stormed the building of the national public television (MTV), which
was forced to suspend transmission for several hours (Mátay and Kaposi 2018).
Orbán’s civic circles played a major role in the protests, often working hand-in-
glove with football ultras and (other) far-right groups like the 36 Counties
Movement and the Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik). The government
survived but lost most of its public support, and Fidesz remained mobilized and
radicalized. For instance, in 2007, Orbán stated, “The people has the right to oust
108 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
the government in a democracy too if it governs against the will of the people, if
it endangers the existential interest of the people” (quoted in Kim 2021).
When Orbán returned to power in 2010, winning on a moderate and vague
program of “change,” he wasted little time to use his constitutional majority to
fundamentally change the Hungarian political system. Through a well-timed pro-
cess of institutional and personal changes, Orbán transformed the country from an
admittedly struggling liberal democracy into an illiberal democracy, buying up
most of the national media (through cronies) and politicizing the judiciary (e.g.,
Bánkuti, Halmai, and Scheppele 2013; Krekó and Enyedi 2018). In fact, today, a
growing group of scholars argue that Hungary no longer constitutes a democracy
and should be considered a (competitive) authoritarian regime instead (e.g.,
Scheiring and Szombati 2020; Way and Levitsky 2019). It is important to note that
almost all of these changes were done “democratically” and “legally,” in the sense
that they were initiated and passed by democratically elected politicians and
within the (increasingly redefined) legal structure of the country.
Orbán in America?
I think many readers will see important similarities between Orbán and Trump,
most notably in their responses to electoral defeat. Although Orbán never legally
challenged the outcome of the 2002 (or 2006) elections, he consistently chal-
lenged the legitimacy of the center-left government in his discourse. Moreover,
there are clear similarities between the 2006 storming of the MTV building in
Budapest and the 2021 storming of the Capitol in Washington, DC. But there are
also important differences, partly in terms of the challengers, but mainly in terms
of the institutional structure in which they operate, which mean that even if
Trump and the Republican Party would mount a similar challenge as Orbán and
Fidesz did in Hungary, the results in the United States would not be the same.
The storming of the Capitol on January 6 was a direct attack on U.S. democ-
racy and should not be minimized or forgotten (as the Republican Party is trying
to do), but the more fundamental challenge takes place in the legislative offices,
both then and now. The key threat to U.S. democracy comes from politicians like
Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, not the “Q Anon Shaman” or the “Auschwitz guy.”
Since Joe Biden took office, the Republican Party has launched a full-frontal
attack on democracy in most red states (see also Slater, this volume). The overlap
in content and timing of the law proposals indicates that this is a coordinated
attack, in which we can also see the hand of shadowy “conservative” organizations
like the American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC). Of course, these state
laws also function as blueprints for future federal laws, in the case the Republican
Party regains the presidency (and Congress) in 2024. In that sense, there is a
clear similarity with Orbán, who also returned to power with a plan to transform
Hungarian democracy, slowly but steadily changing it from a liberal democratic
regime into a competitive authoritarian one.
Before I discuss domestic factors, a few words on the so-called international
dimension. The democratization literature has ascribed a lot of power to the
THE FAR-RIGHT THREAT IN THE UNITED STATES 109
international dimension, particularly in the euphoric “End of History” 1990s
(e.g., Whitehead 1996). While this optimism was seriously tempered in the early
twenty-first century, in particularly in the wake of the Iraq War, some literature
on “democratic erosion” still considers the international context an important
mitigating factor. Hungary is a good reminder that the (role of) international
context is more complex than most academic accounts suggest. Arguably, few
countries have a more restraining international context than Hungary, a medium-
sized country in the most integrated project of transnational democracy in world
history. And yet, despite some minor amendments and withdrawals, the EU has
not prevented the fundamental democratic erosion in the country (Kelemen
2020). In fact, Hungary remains one of the largest net receivers of EU subsidies
(by population) and an inspiration for aspiring autocrats in neighboring countries,
like Poland and Slovenia.
But even if the international context would be an effective hindrance to demo-
cratic erosion, this would be much less the case for the United States. After all,
much of the democratic pressure of the international community comes from the
EU and the United States, with the latter as the only true enforcer of this pressure.
With the United States out of the democratic (enforcement) game, do not expect
authoritarian regimes like China and Russia or right-wing populist governments
like those of Bolsonaro in Brazil and Modi in India to care about U.S. democracy.
In short, the international dimension is not as effective or powerful as stated in
much of the academic literature but would always play a minor role in reigning in
U.S. autocrats. Which brings us to the much more important domestic factors.
Authors have argued that various factors of the Hungarian political system
have enabled Orbán’s relatively easy power grab, most notably a highly dispro-
portionate electoral system, a unicameral legislature, and a unitary state (e.g.,
Bánkuti, Halmai, and Scheppele 2013; Krekó and Enyedi 2018). Of these, the
United States only shares a highly disproportionate electoral system with
Hungary, which is, in many ways, the source of the Republican Party’s continued
power. This is not to say that proportional representation is the solution, as
Drutman suggests in this volume. For instance, Poland has a proportional system
and so does Italy, where a far-right coalition is the most likely next government
according to recent opinion polls.
In sharp contrast to Hungary, the United States has not just a bicameral legisla-
ture, like most European countries, but a much rarer, almost perfectly asymmetric
bicameral legislature. This means that, to wield the type of power that Orbán holds,
the Republicans Party needs to win (clear) majorities in not one but three elections
and institutions, the presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.
Obviously, this is not impossible, and it might happen again in 2024; but even if so,
there are important counterpowers that Orbán never had faced.
Most importantly among them is U.S. federalism, which provides elaborate
(symmetric) and constitutionally protected powers to the individual states. U.S.
federalism is the key reason why the U.S. political system is one of the most com-
plex in the world, with extreme diffusion of powers, which stands in sharp con-
trast to Hungary’s political system, which is considered one of the least complex
in Europe. While federalism might benefit the elites more than the marginalized,
110 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
as Grumbach and Michener argue in this volume, it still constrains the federal
elites much more than a unitary state structure.
And not only does (U.S.) federalism prevent the federal government from
controlling the whole political agenda, given the sizable competencies of the
states, it makes changing the constitution, the essence of Orbán’s power grab,
nearly impossible. Ironically, however, while the complex U.S. political system
means that the Republican Party can do less damage to democracy in (federal)
power, compared to Fidesz in Hungary, it also means that Republicans can do
more damage in (federal) opposition. The current coordinated onslaught on vot-
ing rights at the state level is a striking example of this damage potential (see
Brennan Center for Justice 2021).
Conclusion
U.S. democracy dodged a bullet under the Trump presidency. Although Trump
attacked key elements of liberal democracy for four years, including independ-
ence of the judiciary and media, the political system overall held. This is not
because of “American exceptionalism”; neither the institutions nor the people of
the United States are immune to undemocratic politics. It is true that the U.S.
political system is unique, and particularly difficult to control by one party given
the many veto points, but it is highly likely that the Republican Party will control
the presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court by 2025. And if they return,
the Republican Party—with or without Trump—will be much more focused and
lethal, just as Viktor Orbán was when he returned to power in Hungary in 2010.
As has become clear from the past year, Trump and Trumpism remain in full
control of the party, which is preparing itself for the 2022 Midterm and 2024
presidential elections with a “tidal wave” of restrictive voting legislation, while
purging the party of people who have not supported Trump in his attempts to
overturn the 2020 results (Brennan Center for Justice 2021).
Given the fact that Orbán has changed Hungary from a liberal democracy into
a competitive autocracy, and what little national and international opposition
there was failed, there are no clear lessons to show how US democracy can avoid
suffering the same fate. However, the recent developments in Hungary do teach
us some important lessons about what (not) to do. I discuss four.
Appeasement doesn’t work
Faced with the precursor of the “Trump revolution,” the Tea Party revolt that
(for a short period) captured the Republican Party (Blum 2020), President
Barack Obama responded with a dogged bipartisan strategy, by and large wasting
his first two years of Democratic control of Congress trying to appease a Senate
Minority Leader (Mitch McConnell) who had sworn to do everything to make
Obama a one-term president. Despite having seen the Republican Party radical-
ize over the past decade(s), including as Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden
THE FAR-RIGHT THREAT IN THE UNITED STATES 111
fought his (successful) presidential campaign on “bringing the country together”
and promising the return of “bipartisan” politics to Washington.
The EU has tried to appease Orbán for over a decade (Kelemen 2020).
Leaders of the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest political group in the
European Parliament of which his Fidesz party was a member, often lovingly
described Orbán as “the black sheep” of the group. Confronted with growing
criticism of EPP membership of Fidesz, both from inside and outside of the
group, Orbán defenders would claim that it was better to keep him inside, so that
he would moderate, than kick him out and have him radicalize (Herman,
Hoerner, and Lacey 2021). In reality, Fidesz remained in the group, radicalized
anyway, and Orbán used the EPP protection to destroy liberal democracy in
Hungary. When the EPP finally kicked Fidesz out, in April 2021, it was too late.2
Hungary now has a comparative authoritarian regime, and Orbán wannabes
abound across Central Europe.
The first months of the Biden presidency have shown no signs of Republican
moderation. The party is now opposing policies it had supported under Trump,
and ambitious Republican politicians regularly travel to Mar-a-Lago to get
Trump’s blessing. And as President Biden feverishly tries to appease Republican
leaders in Congress to get his signature “infrastructure bill” approved, we get
closer and closer to the 2022 midterm elections and the likely end of a Democratic
“majority” in the Senate. If the Republicans do regain the Senate, not to speak of
the House, Biden will quickly become a lame-duck president, stonewalled by an
obstinate Congress, just as Obama was for most of his two terms.
Build “progressive circles”
There is a strong belief, particularly among liberals, that “a thriving civil soci-
ety is necessary to generate the dynamism needed to sustain, repair, renew, and
propel the democratic project” (Han and Kim, this volume). While a “thriving”
civil society can be good for democracy, it can also be bad. As Sheri Berman
(1997) has shown, the far-right Freikorps groups were among the most active civil
society groups in Weimar Republic and a key reason for its demise at the hand of
the Nazis. Today, from India to Ukraine, far-right “uncivil society” groups
threaten both minorities and the political system. Similarly, in Hungary, Orbán’s
“civic circles” were crucial to his return to power (Greskovits 2020), while the Tea
Party played a major role in the far-right takeover of the Republican Party (Blum
2020). In other words, whether or not democracy thrives depends (in part) on
which civil society is dominant.
Despite its proud tradition of progressive civil society mobilization, U.S. civil
society has long been dominated by the (far) Right. Against the Christian Right in
the late twentieth century and the Tea Party in the early twenty-first century, pro-
gressives have mainly had the Occupy movement and the Women’s March. As
Han and Kim argue in this volume, “Realizing the promise of civil society to be a
foundation of democratic life necessitates investments in civil society as a vehicle
for both expressing choice and negotiating power.” The progressive “movements”
have mostly expressed choice, whereas the (far) Right movements have been very
112 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
successful in negotiating power—using it to influence school boards, change the
composition of state legislatures, and ultimately capture the Republican Party.
In building a more powerful civil society, U.S. progressives have been
weakened by a broad variety of factors, from an obsession with the federal state
to a distrust and outright rejection of centralized leadership. As Vanessa
Williamson and Theda Skocpol (2017) have argued, progressives should learn
lessons from the highly successful Tea Party mobilization. In particular, progres-
sives should build stronger structures at the state level, including in so-called
purple states (most of which are more purple than red anyway). Moreover,
rather than parachuting DC-based operatives for short-term, election-focused
activities, DC-based progressive organization should support local grassroots
groups with structural finances and personnel to help build grounded progressive
civil society groups.
Create broader alliances
In How Democracies Die, Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018) argue that “institutional
forbearance” and “mutual toleration” are the key to preventing democratic ero-
sion. This may be true, but it helps little when facing a political opponent that
rejects these features in word and deed. Tolerating a party that does not tolerate
you, and is antidemocratic in word and deed, is not a democratic virtue, it is
political naivety, which will ultimately cost you democracy. Similarly, institutional
forbearance might work well in a system in which democracy is “the only game
in town” (Linz and Stepan 1996), but it is political suicide when one of the main
parties is undemocratic. Ironically, this is, of course, exactly the same argument
the Republicans use in their efforts to dismantle democracy.
Another suggestion of the authors is to create broad coalitions but limit your
allies to other liberal democrats. This makes sense, and it might still work in the
United States; but in the case of Hungary, the exclusion of the far-right opposi-
tion party Jobbik means an almost certain victory for Orbán. Irrespective of how
broad your coalition will be, it is essential for progressives to separate two over-
lapping but ultimately separate political struggles: one for progressive politics
and one for liberal democracy. In the latter, when push comes to shove,
Democrats should be willing to work with all democrats, including those that
support pro-rich economic policies (like the American Enterprise Institute) or
“pro-life” sociocultural policies (like certain Christian groups). Obviously, both
will be adversaries in the struggle for progressive politics, but without a (liberal)
democratic system, the progressive struggle stands no chance.
Beware the Frankenstate
Finally, we must change the way we assess liberal democracy and the (far-right)
threats to it. Most people still think that democracies die at the hand of open
antidemocrats using fundamentally undemocratic means, like military coups. But
today, most democracies are threatened by elected officials, who slowly but stead-
ily erode the political system, usually in the name of democracy (Levitsky and
THE FAR-RIGHT THREAT IN THE UNITED STATES 113
Ziblatt 2018). This applies from India to Venezuela and from Austria to the United
States. Orbán is a master in using democratic arguments to defend his authoritar-
ian politics. Whenever a law proposal is criticized by the EU, he will point out that
the same law is already in place in another EU member state and is “thus” per-
fectly democratic.
The U.S. legal scholar Kim Lane Scheppele (2013) has pointed to the weak-
ness of the “checklist” approach that most international actors use in the fight
against what she has called the “Frankenstate,” that is, an authoritarian regime
created by a specific combination of individually democratic laws. She has
instead called for the use of “forensic legal analysis,” in which legal orders are
approached as “integrated wholes, using a series of targeted ‘what if?’ questions
to run problems through the legal system to see how they come out” (Scheppele
2013, 562). So, instead of discussing the specific problems of individual electoral
laws that Republicans have submitted and passed in state legislatures, we should
look at the way all the laws together affect the right and opportunity to vote for
both the whole electorate and specific (targeted) groups within it.
Again, the United States is not Hungary. It has a much longer and stronger
democratic history and tradition as well as a highly complex political system,
which makes the full capture and dismantling of U.S. democracy less likely. That
said, neither a chauvinistic, idiosyncratic American exceptionalism nor a self-
defeating, universal “end of democracy” approach will save U.S. democracy from
the current far-right threat. Democracies around the globe are struggling, but in
different ways, and the best way forward is to learn lessons from abroad while
keeping in mind the specific context of the United States.
Notes
1. Perhaps the first period of PiS rule comes close, but Poland has at best a semipresidential system,
and PiS was not broadly considered to be far right at that time. Moreover, it held both the presidency and
premiership for only two years (2005–2007) and lost power gradually—fun fact, for over a year Lech
Kaczyński was president, and his identical twin Jarosław was prime minister.
2. Officially, Fidesz left before being formally kicked out.
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