Democrats are flummoxed that President Donald Trump can keep winning when they find his views so despicable.
Recent elections from around the world, though, provide the answer: People want conservative populism.
Argentine President Javier Milei’s recent unexpected win in his country’s congressional midterms is just one example.
His Liberty Advances alliance swept to victory in most of Argentina’s 26 states, crushing the Peronist opposition by 9 percentage points.
Milei’s allies did this the Trumpian way, by winning the blue-collar former Peronist strongholds around Buenos Aires and in rural “flyover country”.
And they did it despite relatively poor economic news: While Milei’s radical reforms did bring inflation down dramatically and usher in an economic recovery, progress had stalled.
The Argentine peso has been in freefall, prompting a $40 billion bailout from Trump shortly before the vote.
Most experts thought voters would signal their impatience with Milei’s reforms by giving the Peronists a win. Instead, they rewarded his boldness.
In recent months conservative populists have won elections in Poland and Czechia, too.
Poland’s June presidential contest was instructive: Historian and political neophyte Karol Nawrocki started the campaign in a poor position, but he won against the odds by unfailingly striking Trumpian themes on nationalism and culture.
In Czechia, October’s parliamentary elections shifted national policy rightward, with a new alliance of conservative populist parties taking the majority in the Chamber of Deputies.
Britain’s Nigel Farage and his Reform Party now leads all national polls, having swept May’s local elections, with the once-dominant Tories languishing at 20% approval.
Even apparent conservative defeats hold good news for populists.
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party — the main conservative force despite its name — lost its majority in the House of Councillors election this summer, mainly because some of its backers turned instead to two openly populist parties that promised to “Make Japan Great Again”.
In response, the LDP dumped its colorless prime minister and replaced him with Sanae Takaichi, the nation’s first female leader, a noted hawk and nationalist who strikes similar themes to the populist Sanseito and Conservative parties.
And while PVV, The Netherlands’ premier populist party led by Geert Wilders, lost ground in last week’s elections, most of its losses went to other nationalist parties.
Hellbound and Down 