Meanwhile, Trump has heaped praise on autocrats and admitted he would act like a dictator, albeit only on “Day One” of his presidency. He rejects these criticisms, defending his norm-busting approach as an attempt to “reclaim our democracy from Washington corruption.”
The anxiety is palpable across the Atlantic.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, one of the European Union’s presidents, warned lawmakers last month that Trump’s possible return meant “a year where our democracies and liberties will be put to the test.”
And former American diplomats of all stripes have repeatedly warned that Trump’s rhetoric and falsehoods have done irreparable damage to Washington’s ability to preach democratic values abroad.
His victory “would have a ripple effect that would embolden autocrats across the whole world,” said Nic Cheeseman, one of Europe’s leading experts on authoritarianism and co-author of the 2018 book “How to Rig an Election,” which analyzes the methods used by despots to stay in power. Cheeseman, a professor at England’s University of Birmingham, said this would undermine “America’s commitment to democracy abroad.”
In Europe, nationalists and the far right could gain a quarter of the seats in June’s European Parliament elections, according to polling by the European Council on Foreign Relations, a Berlin-based think tank, and others.
The main players are France’s National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy, and the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, whose youth wing is classified as an “extremist” right-wing group by the country’s own intelligence agencies.
Hungary has already shown how being aligned with the hard right can mean more than just anti-immigration policies. Since 2010, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has pushed through constitutional changes giving him control over the judiciary and other institutions, according to the Washington watchdog Freedom House.
If other countries do “head in that direction,” then it will be harder for other lawmakers “to hold the line against the continued erosion of democracy, rule of law, and civil liberties,” the European Council on Foreign Relations said in a report last month.
Meanwhile, Russia, China and others will likely continue the election meddling that Western intelligence agencies now routinely expect, but which Beijing and Moscow deny. This year’s Global Risk Report, by the World Economic Forum, said misinformation and disinformation were the top risks of the next two years — more so than war or climate change.
Democracy needs defending
If some leaders seek to subvert democracy, young people seem increasingly willing to welcome them doing so.
In a poll of 36,000 people across 30 countries last year, 35% of people ages 18-35 said they were “sympathetic to the idea of a strong leader who does away with parliaments and elections,” according to the study by the Open Society Foundations, a pro-democracy group funded by the billionaire philanthropist George Soros.
In Britain, a 2022 survey of 8,000 adults by the center-right think tank Onward found 61% of this age group said such a strongman was a good way to run a country — up from 25% in 1999.
That’s effectively already happened in Russia, where President Vladimir Putin will face little competition when he runs for a fifth term in March, having stamped out the free press and silenced opponents.
Chief among them was Alexei Navalny, sent to an Arctic penal colony where he died Saturday. North Korea doesn’t even bother with such pretense, listing only one candidate in each district for its April parliamentary elections. In Rwanda’s elections in June, President Paul Kagame is expecting a repeat of his 98.63% victory of 2017.
In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has overseen a democratic backslide since 2016, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House and others. Modi is accused of cracking down on opponents, restricting press freedom and persecuting the country’s Muslim minority.
And some observers also worry about the direction of travel in Mexico, where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has tried to push constitutional reforms that “undermine electoral authorities’ independence, putting free, fair elections at risk,” according to Human Rights Watch.
A month and a half into 2024, elections held so far do not augur well.
Pakistan’s election earlier this month was notable for the absence of the popular former cricketer turned politician Imran Khan, jailed on what his supporters say are…
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