Trump’s far-right allies refuse to give up despite humiliating setback

U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance suffered a major disappointment when, on April 12, far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was voted out of office after 16 years. Although Trump and Vance campaigned aggressively for Orbán — who they considered a valuable ally of the MAGA movement — he lost to Prime Minister-elect Péter Magyar and the Tisza party by roughly 19 percent.

In an op-ed published by The Guardian published on May 7, however, Cas Mudde — an international affairs professor at the University of Georgia and author of the 2019 book "The Far Right Today" — stresses that Orbán's humiliating defeat doesn't mean the populist far right is going away.

"There is simultaneously a consensus that Donald Trump has gone from inspiration to 'liability' for the global far right," Mudde explains. "While the fall of Orbán has great symbolic significance and important consequences for EU politics…. we should be very careful not to read too much into it for three reasons. First, as far as lessons for how to defeat so-called illiberal democrats are concerned, we must bear in mind that Orbán was in power for an exceptionally rare 16 years. This allowed him to oversee not only a political transformation of Hungary, but an economic and societal one…. Second, while the European far right has lost its unofficial leader, it is not in decline…. Third, it is true that Trump is, at the moment, 'toxic' for the far right, although this had no significant effect on the Hungarian election."

Mudde strongly disagrees with claims that the far right is "in decline."

"Sure, some other far-right parties have also recently lost elections (in Bulgaria, for example) or power (the Netherlands)," Mudde argues. "But far-right parties remain in government in a variety of EU member states (Czech Republic, Italy), and lead the polls in several others (Austria, France). The thing is, the far right is here to stay, and many of its parties are as established as the former 'mainstream' parties. And, like other parties, their electoral support fluctuates and is affected by internal and external factors, such as corruption, infighting and crises in government."

Mudde adds, "More importantly, the mainstreaming and normalization of far-right actors and ideas continue unabated. (Prime Minister) Giorgia Meloni's Italy has become a mandatory pilgrimage site for politicians who try to present themselves as tough on immigration."

Trump, according to Mudde, "helps the European far right simply by being the U.S. president."

"Even worse," the University of Georgia professor warns, "because Trump's behavior is so extreme and often seems unhinged, it is very easy for European far-right leaders to seem 'moderate' in comparison — after all, he or she is 'not as bad as Trump.' This endless comparison, and the inability to accept that there can be various shades of far right, helps savvy politicians such as Meloni. By not acting aggressively, erratically and loudly like Trump — or, in her own country, Matteo Salvini — she is mistaken for a mere 'conservative' rather than a radical-right politician."

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