America’s Most Dangerous Export – How a Nation Is Infecting the World with Right-Wing Populism

The view of the United States in June 2025 is not a view of a lost nation - it is a view of a deliberate decision. A decision for a politics that no longer negotiates difference but governs through exclusion. Donald Trump, who began his second term on January 20, now stands at 43% approval according to Gallup, 44% with Reuters/Ipsos, and 45% with CBS/YouGov and Emerson College. Even the Pew Research Center, which reported a drop to 40% in April, has noted a stabilization. The downward slide that hit a historic low of only 39% in April, according to ABC News - the lowest approval rating of any US president after 100 days in office since 1945 - was halted by a surprising recovery in May. But this rebound is not a reaction to successful policy - it is an expression of ideological resolve. Trump’s support is not based on numbers, but on worldviews. And those worldviews are spreading. They are the most dangerous export America has to offer. The normalization of a state of exception, in other words.

In Trump’s America, a different standard prevails: deportations are considered law and order, coercive measures are seen as protection, executive orders as efficiency. 51% of Americans believe he governs too authoritatively, yet a growing number defend exactly that. In economic policy, Trump’s approval stands at 38%, even though 56% say the situation has worsened. Still, 43% of the population apparently accept - or support - it. This paradoxical stability in his approval ratings is not a matter of arithmetic, it is a cultural and political diagnosis: Trump has shifted the discourse. The question is no longer whether he is dangerous - but for whom. And while minorities, migrants, journalists, and courts are systematically being put under pressure, a large part of the country seems to have become accustomed to this state of exception. The demographic rupture is particularly stark: among Latino voters, support fell from 43% to 39%, among independents even from 43% to 29%, among women only 30% still support his economic policy. And yet - it is not enough for a political turnaround. Thus arises a global resonance chamber of radicalization.

What echoes out of Washington finds a response. Viktor Orbán praises Trump’s “clarity,” Marine Le Pen adopts his rhetoric, Giorgia Meloni imitates him. AfD strategists are using his codes. In Germany, CDU-affiliated circles are flirting with authoritarian ideas of order, in France the republican consensus is eroding. Trump serves not only as an ideological model, but as a source of legitimation. He has shown how to dismantle institutions, disenfranchise minorities, and maintain a democratic facade while doing it. This provides authoritarian actors worldwide with a cloak of normality - a manual for the self-disempowerment of democracy. Poland is now in the hands of a polished populist – a Trump admirer. What happened in South Korea was a wake-up call - a president who fell with coup ambitions, a movement that does not just speak of democracy but lives it. And America?

America appears as though it has learned nothing - as though it doesn’t want to learn. Economic insecurity, fear of losing control, social division - all of it is not understood as a warning, but used as a pretext to elevate a man who despises institutions and strips people of their rights. While migrants under Trump are being deported en masse, disenfranchised, abused, or simply disappear, the country seems more upset about gas prices than about the state of its democracy. People are shocked - but not determined. They call for justice, but only if it costs them nothing. And they criticize Trump’s style - not his policies. Outrage dissipates beyond the internet - normalcy takes hold. Even the most brutal measures no longer provoke lasting outrage: the forced deportation of migrants, partly based on the Alien Enemies Act, the deliberate starving of independent media, the dismantling of diversity programs, the intimidation of judges - all of this is documented, known, condemned. But it has no consequences. It is accepted, digested, forgotten. America has normalized its own human rights situation - and with it, its danger. And yet internationally, the picture is already clear: 66% of Americans describe Trump’s second term as “chaotic,” 59% as “frightening” - even 47% of Republicans use the word “chaotic.” And still - the president remains in office. With support, with influence - and with a dangerous mandate.

At the same time, there is still resistance in the US against Trump’s policies. The “50501” protests, held in all 50 states, as well as the “Hands Off!” demonstrations in April and May 2025, where millions of people protested against government policies, show that many Americans are not willing to accept these developments. Seven million out of more than 280 million - nothing more needs to be said, June 14, 2025 is around the corner.

Within the political system, there is pushback: over 180 judges have blocked parts of Trump’s agenda, and even conservative jurists are beginning to oppose him - the true heroines and heroes of the United States. Journalists who have joined forces are suing for the rights of deported people - a sad reality, while people continue to turn red in the face over the price of eggs.

And Europe? It recognizes the danger, but it is not acting decisively. The resistance is symbolic, not structural. Instead of clearly distancing itself from Trump’s ideology, it tolerates - in the name of transatlantic partnership - a regime that acts against the core values of the Enlightenment. Because right-wing populism does not devour the left first - it devours its enablers. The silent, the tacticians, the hesitant. Those who believe today that they can win elections with Trump-style politics and then walk it back are mistaken. You can win with it. But not return. Consequence or complicity. Trump’s support is more than a national phenomenon. It is the symptom of a global indifference toward the collapse of democracy. And this indifference becomes more dangerous with every percentage point of approval - not only for the United States, but for a world that still looks to America. For now.

If this world does not begin to take a clear position, draw consequences, rethink partnerships, then one day it will wake up - and realize that not Russia, not China, but the United States itself has become the greatest destabilizer of the international order.

America must feel the consequences. Otherwise it will not wake up.