Left-wing reactions to Tump’s victory

One left-wing commentator interprets the outcome of the US presidential elections as proof of a dangerous trend in human history, while another thinks that Donald Trump’s example may inspire the Hungarian Left to find the path to victory despite the fact that it is a clear underdog today.

In Népszava, Tamás Rónay castigates mankind for, in his words, steering the planet onto the wrong course. Primitive TV reality shows and low level propaganda create an audience that believes anything it is fed, he laments. The sober are less and less in numbers and this is why he believes Presidents Putin of Russia, Xi of China and Erdogan of Turkey are popular in their countries. Populist forces are gaining strength in Europe as well, he complains, and cites the example of Brexit.

24.hu’s Roland Reiner, on the other hand, draws encouragement from what happened in the United States. Polls could not detect an important segment of the electorate which
was reluctant to tell pollsters that it was going to vote Trump, because the Republican candidate had been depicted by the mainstream media as a pariah. Similarly, he thinks, there may be voters in Hungary whose opinion is not reflected in the polls. Such people propelled the left to unexpected victory in 2002, he recalls. Another lesson he wants the Hungarian left to learn from the US elections is Trump’s ability to come to the political forefront as an outsider and shape political discontent into a real movement. In Hungary, he remarks, discontent is represented by civic movements, but “political representation is the most efficient way to bring about change”.

Tags: Donald Trump, US