The world sees America for what it is
Two international surveys suggest non-Americans understand Trump better than Americans do.
Any of a number of recent images plucked from American politics might serve as a distillation of President Donald Trump’s second term. Tanks moving through the streets of the capital, part of a parade planned for Trump’s birthday (and, secondarily, the Army’s). Soldiers on the streets of Los Angeles to — in the words of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem at a news conference Thursday — “liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership” of the elected governor and mayor. And, of course, law enforcement pinning to the ground and handcuffing Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California) at that same news conference, after the senator attempted to ask Noem a question.
A popular strand of commentary has emerged in which the events unfolding in the United States are described as though they were unfolding in some remote, less traditionally stable nation. How would we view troops dispatched to a city controlled by the rival party, or a military parade in the national capital, if it occurred in, say, Brazil? Brazil and other nations have a longer record of governmental instability, of course, but that’s the point: Stability is not indefinite, and however slowly the earthquakes within our system are occurring, they’re still shaking American democracy.
Two recent international polls, from Ipsos and Pew Research Center, show that many people in Western democracies understand what’s happening here, even if some Americans are slow to see it. Perhaps more instructive are the views of people in nations that have watched their own democracies erode, such as Hungary, Poland and Turkey.
It has been the case for some time that international views of the U.S. depend on the occupant of the White House. Pew’s data goes back several decades, showing that nations such as France, Canada and the Netherlands are more skeptical of the U.S. when the president is a Republican. Those shifts are even more stark when foreign respondents are asked about their confidence in the U.S. president. Since the beginning of the Biden administration, net confidence in the president has plunged by more than 100 points in a number of countries, including Sweden, Spain and Germany.
Our Western partners (if that term is still warranted) are skeptical that American democracy is working well. Nations without strong traditions of liberal democracy, or which have recently experienced their own democratic backsliding, are often less likely to view U.S. democracy negatively.
Remarkably, though unsurprisingly, Pew also found that international respondents on the ideological right are more positive about U.S. democracy than those on the left. This tracks within the U.S., too, where concerns about democracy among Republicans — stoked by Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election — receded once he returned to power.
Pew also found that those who viewed right-wing international parties positively expressed more confidence in Trump. Those who viewed Hungary’s Fidesz or Germany’s AfD positively were at least 48 points more likely to express confidence in Trump.
Follow Trump’s second term
In 2021, I interviewed Thomas Zimmer, a historian of democracy.
“There’s a reason why, when Trump got elected in 2016, every far-right movement all over the Western world rejoiced,” Zimmer told me. They “looked at America as sort of an advanced test case for whether or not it would be possible to erect a stable, functioning, multiracial democracy.”
That’s how the German far-right saw Trump’s ascent, he said. “They basically said, ‘Look, there you have it: We were right, multiracial pluralism is bad, it cannot work, it’s not stable, it will destroy our societies, Trump is the proof.’”
Ipsos’s polling explored various elements of populist rhetoric, including assessments of the stability of respondents’ home nations. It found that Americans were about as likely as people in other countries to say that their country was in decline and slightly more likely to say their society is broken. Interestingly, though, Ipsos also found that Americans were less likely than most international respondents to believe that a strong leader who broke the rules was needed to fix the nation’s problems.
There was a significant partisan split within the U.S. results. Asked, for example, whether they believed that immigrants took work away from “real” residents of their home country, Americans were generally less likely than average to agree. U.S. Republicans were more likely to agree.
The distinction between the views of Americans overall and those of the party in power is vital. Trump is governing as though only Republican views matter, views that he has helped shape. He and his team regularly assert that his authority is preeminent in the federal government — consistent with his well-documented affinity for authoritarian leaders.
People in other countries (and, as this weekend’s planned protests suggest, in our own) see Trump for what he is. And note that none of the polling above — conducted a few months ago — accounts for the most recent developments described in the first paragraph of this column.
They are, instead, a measure of where we were several earthquakes ago.
What readers are saying
The comments reflect a widespread international perception that American democracy is in decline, largely attributed to Donald Trump's leadership. Many commenters from various countries express concern over Trump's authoritarian tendencies, his impact on America's global... Show more
This summary is AI-generated. AI can make mistakes and this summary is not a replacement for reading the comments.
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