Personality Cults

For one thing, Trump’s return assures them that a cult of personality has immense appeal in electoral democracies. Trump has fashioned himself as the straight-talking, hard-nosed “outsider” with little patience for the political waffling of the career politician. Rather, he presents himself as a single-minded leader, willing to transgress all political norms and democratic checks and balances for the national cause. This model is inspirational for politicians like Javier Milei in Argentina and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador.

The fiery economist and self-styled anarcho-capitalist president of Argentina rose to power touting his “chain-saw” policies that would slash the supposedly overgrown state and rescue the country from a severe financial crisis. He found global fame thanks to a 2023 TikTok video where he can be seen ripping off the names of various government agencies, like the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Environment, and the Ministry of Women, Gender, and Diversity from a whiteboard, and then yelling afuera (“out”).

His antics on the campaign trail, where he often brought along a chain saw, worked. Since coming to power, Milei has kept his promise and taken the chain saw to the public sector. The victims, however, have been Argentina’s poorest. More than half of the country has slipped below the poverty line, while 18 percent of the population now lives in extreme poverty.

Bukele also took power in El Salvador as a rock-star political outsider, promising a no-nonsense approach to the country’s gang violence. His mano dura, or “iron fist,” policies have led to 1 percent of the entire population being held in fortress-like megaprisons. This includes three thousand children.

According to Amnesty International, Bukele’s crusade against the gangs has led to “massive human rights violations, including thousands of arbitrary detentions and violations of due process, as well as torture and ill-treatment.” Despite this, Bukele’s approval rate has hovered around 90 percent, and his fans have dubbed him the “world’s coolest dictator.”

War on Woke

The global right finds Trump’s anti-woke agenda just as appealing as his leadership style. He has said that universities are dominated by “Marxists, maniacs, and lunatics” and promised to roll back DEI policies and antidiscrimination protections for trans people.

Viktor Orbán sees himself as a first mover in such matters. At the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest, he boasted:

Hungary is actually an incubator where experiments are done on the future of conservative policies. Hungary is the place where we didn’t just talk about defeating the progressives and liberals and causing a conservative Christian political turn, but we actually did it.

The sign over the entrance to the conference venue read “No Woke Zone.” Presumed “woke journalists” were banned from attending the conference.

In 2021, the Orbán government banned the “depiction of homosexuality or sex reassignment” in media programs catering to children under the age of eighteen. References to homosexuality are banned in sex education at schools.

The Hungarian authorities also implemented a new law targeting foreign universities and forced the George Soros–funded Central European University (CEU) to leave the country. CEU was the primary target of the law because it was seen as a liberal hub of anti-Orbán thinking.

Scapegoating Muslims

Finally, right-wing leaders see their own worldviews reflected in Trump’s xenophobia and Islamophobia. At home, he has promised to round up and deport undocumented migrants en masse. Previously, Trump falsely claimed to have seen Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the 9/11 attacks. He has also called for additional surveillance of Muslim Americans and introduced the infamous Muslim travel ban.

All of this resonates with the likes of Orbán and the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. Both have been at the forefront of the European anti-migrant movement. Meloni has championed the “right not to migrate” and worked to stem what she views as illegal immigration by outsourcing European border control to non–European Union  countries. She has presented her policies as a model that other European leaders should follow, though critics have called them “dehumanizing and illegal.”

For his part, Orbán has fashioned himself as a savior of European, Christian civilization. He has railed against the arrival of the allegedly terroristic and culturally alien Muslim migrants to European shores, presenting his draconian anti-migration policies as a way to keep Europe safe and Christian.

Thousands of miles away in New Delhi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, would agree with the talking points of Meloni, Orbán, and Trump. Under his decade-long leadership, anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence in India has been at an all-time high.

Leaders from Modi’s party have demolished the homes of Muslim activists and called for the boycott of Muslim-owned businesses. The Modi government pushed forward the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 that only grants non-Muslim undocumented migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan the right to fast-track citizenship. Critical journalists have faced trumped-up terror charges, while civil society organizations have been accused of unlawfully receiving foreign funding.

Global Fraternity

Of course, all of these illiberal moves are not happening in the vacuum of individual national contexts. The Trumps, Modis, Orbáns, Melonis, and Bukeles of the world are well aware of each other’s existence and are in the process of forging a global alliance.

Elon Musk — sitting at the helm of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the second Trump presidency — proclaims himself to be a big fan of Milei’s chain-saw policies. Trump and Milei also share a special bond. After Milei won his election, Trump congratulated him on Truth Social: “I’m very proud of you. You will turn your Country around. Make Argentina Great Again!” Milei was the first foreign leader to meet Trump after US election this November and was a guest at Trump’s inauguration.

The Salvadoran leader, Bukele, also had a highly publicized meeting with Musk back in September. Under Orbán, Hungary has hosted three international CPAC gatherings, where speakers have included the likes of the far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders, right-wing commentator Candace Owens, Republican congressman Andy Harris, and Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro. Orbán delivered the opening address at the 2022 CPAC summit in Dallas.

Since winning the presidential election, Trump is reported to have had several calls with the Hungarian leader, seeking his advice on the Ukraine war. Orbán has been a vocal critic of military aid to Ukraine and has maintained friendly ties with Vladimir Putin.

Modi is equally popular with right-wing leaders around the world. Trump and Modi have held two joint megarallies: “Howdy Modi” in Houston in 2019 and “Namaste Trump” in Ahmedabad in 2020. Both have publicly celebrated each other’s political accomplishments. Trump has fondly called Modi his friend, who “looks like your father” but is also a “total killer.”

Meloni and Modi have also embarked on efforts to strengthen India-Italy ties in “defense, security, trade, and technology.” Of course, in the European context, Meloni and Orbán are kindred spirits in their anti-immigration stance.

2025 might be shaping up as the best year yet for the global fraternity of illiberal conservative leaders.