‘Has the world gone mad? It has’: foreign reporters share a view of Trump from abroad
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Journalists from countries that have seen challenges to democracy give their view on the second Trump presidency. What is the view of US democracy from abroad, and what can Americans learn from other nations with a history of political tumult?. During his first term Donald Trump tested democratic norms by undermining trust in fair elections, encouraging political violence and demonizing the media and public servants. He has promised to be a dictator “on day one” of his second term.
As Trump is inaugurated for a second time, we asked political correspondents at newspapers around the world – from Hungary to El Salvador – to share their view of what’s happening in America. These are countries who have endured strongmen leaders and challenges to democracy. Do they see analogies with what is happening in the US today – and if so, what do they think the future holds for the world’s most powerful democracy?.
Americans should stop telling themselves “this can never happen here”. You have to brace yourself for the worst scenarios, because anything can happen. In the first couple of years of the Orbán regime, when they proposed curbing the powers of the constitutional court and they appointed a member of Fidesz, Orbán’s party, to the state audit office, which is very important in controlling how spending public money is spent, I thought: “This would never happen in a democracy.” And then we learned that actually anything can happen, because if they have the power, they can and will [do] whatever they want.
