LONGitude — Arriving in Europe this week, the “Make America Great Again” roadshow hosted events in two countries where American conservatives see prime chances for a new transatlantic political culture — one shaped by President Donald Trump’s right-wing populism and imbued with grand “clash of civilizations” rhetoric.
Tuesday in Jasionka, Poland, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) hosted its week of European events featuring Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem among the speakers, exhorting Poles to support right-wing presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki in this weekend’s runoff contest.
Like other government officials including Vice President JD Vance, Noem rejected the diplomatic convention of non-alignment in elections in allies. “You will be the leaders that will turn Europe back to conservative values,” she advised Jasionka attendees.
“We need you to elect the right leader,” Noem stated, discounting opponent liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski as “an absolute train wreck of a leader.”
Noem stated, “Donald Trump is a strong leader for us, but you have an opportunity that you have just as strong of a leader in Karol if you make him the leader of this country.”
Hosted by populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an icon of the European anti-establishment right wing who has long enjoyed close ties with Trump, CPAC’s next stop will be in Budapest, Hungary, on Thursday.
Director of the Political Capital Institute in Budapest Peter Kreko noted Orban is presenting himself as “another recipient of the MAGA soft power export.”
“Orban is still positioning himself as someone who is exporting his campaign tactics, who can help others in terms of campaign consultancy and provide help from the United States,” Kreko added. “He’s trading off his good cooperation with Donald Trump.”
On the web website advertising CPAC’s Hungary event, the group attacked “corrupt elites” it said “betray all that once made us great: patriotic virtue has been replaced by internationalism, common sense by bureaucracy and tradition by woke madness.”
“People on both sides of the Atlantic have risen up against this repackled version of socialism; but, success only can be complete when the tides of change converge and the age of patriotism begins at both poles of the West,” CPAC said.
