We know that U.S. President Donald Trump loves strongmen. He was famously soft on Vladimir Putin’s Russia; he welcomed Hungary’s xenophobic Viktor Orban to Washington by saying he had done "the right thing” by restricting immigration; and he said he got along better with world leaders "the tougher and meaner they are,” singling out Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the toughest and meanest.
And the strongmen loved him back. Orban wrote an op-ed during the election campaign hoping Trump would defeat the Democrats, whom he called "moral imperialists.” Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro said he hoped "from the heart” that Trump would be re-elected; and Slovenia’s Janez Jansa used various conspiracy theories to justify a call congratulating Trump on winning re-election.
Perhaps it isn’t surprising that populist, right-wing strongmen get along well with each other. But their camaraderie provides yet more evidence of how these supposedly nationalist leaders place their own interests above those of their nations.