MAGA’s Global-Authoritarian Feedback Loop

While the Vice President props up far-right leaders and undermines allies in Europe, the President flirts with ethnic cleansing in Gaza and sells out Ukraine to Vladimir Putin.

From time to time, J Street staff and policy experts will use Word on the Street as a platform to share thoughts on current events and trends.

This week, J Street’s Director of Government Affairs Hannah Morris shares why - while the Jewish community’s attention has been focused on the Trump administration’s impact on the Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal - we also need to be deeply concerned by what their approach foreshadows for democracy more broadly.

Last week, President Trump unleashed an unhinged tirade against the democratically elected Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – who he called a “dictator” – while at the same time repeating talking points from the actual dictator who invaded his country, Vladimir Putin.

The week prior, JD Vance had been expected to clarify the White House position on Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference, but he instead railed against the “enemy within” and European efforts to block extremist content and marginalize fringe groups. Embracing pro-Russia far-right parties, he argued, was actually the answer to defending democracy.

While in Munich, of all cities, he also broke a long-held taboo and met with the head of the German AfD party – a far-right nationalist party with documented ties to neo-Nazis – and then urged other German political parties to stop icing them out.

In Brussels, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was busy preemptively capitulating to Putin as the administration announced Russia-US negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, entirely sidelining our European allies and Ukraine itself. And now, just a week later, we are voting with Russia at the United Nations and AGAINST Ukraine.

Meanwhile, in Hungary, wannabe dictator Viktor Orbán has heralded Trump’s return as the start of a new “Golden Age” for Hungary – which he defines as the “collapse” of liberal democracy.

All of this should be deeply troubling to Americans, and Jewish Americans in particular, for three clear reasons.

First: The very real impact this will soon have as right-wing parties worldwide take this as a green light from the United States to trample democracy, override judicial checks and balances and target vulnerable groups.

Exporting MAGA’s culture wars as JD Vance is seeking to do will have serious consequences for minority communities worldwide – from LGBT+ folks to refugees and far beyond – and it would be naive to think that Jewish communities won’t also be at risk.

A world in which authoritarians like Vladimir Putin see little consequence for wars of aggression is a world of more conflict and suffering – a retreat from the post-war protections of international law that our community championed in the aftermath of the Holocaust and WWII.

Second: The devastating, democracy-killing feedback loop.

What we’re seeing from Trump domestically right now isn’t new. Intimidating the media with threats and lawsuits; weaponizing the justice system to target opponents and give favors to allies; using a “war on woke” as a pretext to seize spending powers and override Congress.

All of this comes from the Viktor Orbán playbook, battle-tested in Hungary over the past decade and a half as he’s pushed the country into what he himself has called an "illiberal democracy.”

Fueling these cycles elsewhere will also fuel our own democratic disintegration – both further and faster.

Third: The impact this will all have on our democratic future, and our own community’s safety.

Dr. Steven Levitsky – co-author of How Democracies Die – has laid out a disturbingly convincing prediction that the US is headed toward a system of “competitive authoritarianism.”

A system short of dictatorship in which elections still proceed, but the ruling party manipulates the powers of the state to undermine the opposition and skew the electoral process in a way that enables them to maintain power while propping up a façade of democratic legitimacy.

It’s a total disintegration of the liberal democratic safeguards – imperfect though they have been – that have made the United States a country of choice for the Jewish diaspora, and which have kept our communities and so many others safe, free and prosperous for generations.

Trump’s assault on our democracy is all my community can talk about – from work to school drop off to my synagogue to my dinner table. But at the same time, I hear an astonishing silence from too many establishment Jewish leaders.

Why? Perhaps some really are out of touch. Maybe they don’t recognize the scale of the risk. Perhaps they see themselves as above politics (though that hasn’t stopped them blasting lefty academics and college students). Perhaps leaders worry that their groups may be targeted themselves – Trump is nothing if not vengeful.

What we do know is that resistance works. Tremendous opposition to the Trump agenda the first time round – in the courts and in the streets – clearly unsettled and frustrated Trump, forcing backdowns and strengthening the spines of political opponents as well.

To my mind, we face a clear collective action problem – not just in our community broadly, but specifically with CEOs and media organizations who calculate that it’s easier to stay silent or bend the knee than to fight a lawsuit or punitive regulatory decisions or to face an all out attack.

But if we follow this path, I’m deeply worried about what comes next. If Hungary is any guide, we can expect legislation to criminalize and restrict dissent, politically motivated lawsuits, attacks on nonprofits and punitive use of the Justice Department and FBI.

It’s not hard to imagine groups within our own community coming under attack, especially those who may be engaged in progressive advocacy, organizing for refugee and immigrant rights, or opposing Trump’s horrific plan to take over Gaza.

If that happens, will we as a community rally together to fight back? I hope that we would have the sense to stand united, whatever our differences, but I’m deeply troubled that if that moment comes, we may fall short. While the stakes are far higher this time round, I don’t get the sense that we’re rallying to the challenge as we did eight years ago.

For me, that means the time to speak up is now – in all the community organizations I support and am a part of. It’s time to ask the uncomfortable questions. To push for action even when staying silent may be easier. To ensure we rise to the moment when the time comes.

We have to be clear-eyed. We cannot afford to stay silent.