US Presidential election in focus

Just days ahead of the US presidential election, pundits in the leading Hungarian dailies and weeklies assess the possible impact of election victory either candidate on US foreign policy and global politics.

In Magyar Hírlap, Ervin Nagy finds it sad that the US Presidential election has turned into a cult of personalities and personal attacks rather than a competition of political programmes. The conservative philosopher contends that both candidates are trying to “morally annihilate” each other through personal attacks and petty vulgarism rather than outlining their own credible political visions, values and policy recommendations. Nagy goes on to note that the style of the US Presidential election will be copied by politicians throughout the world, including in Hungary. 

In Kettős Mérce, István-Szilárd Pap believes that for Hungary, the victory of Hillary Clinton would be more desirable. The left-wing blogger calls Donald Trump an “authoritarian, far-right populist”, noting that the Republican candidate “would dare to nuke Europe” (Donald Trump in an interview in March said that he would be the last person to use nuclear weapons, but added that he wouldn’t revoke his power to use them for anybody, including Europe). In an aside, Pap suggests that the Democratic Party should take inequality in the US more seriously, otherwise it will sooner or later be defeated by a populist right-wing candidate – Donald Trump or another similar candidate.

In Élet és Irodalom, János Széky also contends that from the perspective of Hungary, Hillary Clinton is the better candidate. The liberal columnist suspects that Hillary Clinton would be supportive of active global American engagement, while Donald Trump as a president would follow an isolationist foreign policy that “would lead to tragic consequences similar to what happened between 1914-1941”. Széky thinks that “Trump would yield Hungary to Putin”, and goes so far as to suggest that “Trump’s Hungarian supporters are traitors who support Putin”.

In Magyar Demokrata, István Gazdag also hopes that Hillary Clinton will be elected President of the United States, but for entirely different reasons. The right-wing commentator thinks that the US has become a “Leviathan state” ruled by financial elites. If Hillary Clinton wins the presidential race, she will accomplish the work of the previous presidents and the US may collapse, Gazdag speculates.

Magyar Idők’s Lénárd Sándor, on the other hand, suspects that whoever is elected President, the US can no longer act as a global policeman. The conservative columnist writes that although the US was the main beneficiary of global capitalism, even the US had to give up part of its sovereignty over the economy. As a result, the lives of average Americans have become less secure and they find it impossible to achieve anything close to the American dream. Sándor predicts that due to this growing discontent about welfare and economic opportunity, the next American president will need to focus on strengthening national economic sovereignty and will have less opportunity to engage in global foreign policy projects.

Tags: foreign affairs, Hillary Clinton, Trump, US