Thank you for watching! In the face of unrelenting disinformation and authoritarian actions, clear truth-telling and independent media are a necessity. If you value pro-democracy journalism, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to my newsletter. Paid subscribers empower this work and gain access to exclusive benefits. Your support makes a difference.
This week’s Across the Pond, where we bridge the gap between U.S. and European politics, was one of the most wide-ranging and important conversations James and I have had. We started with genuinely good news, something we don’t get to say often enough, and ended with one of the most sobering reports I’ve heard on this show.
In between, we laid out a thesis that the data is now starting to confirm: the global far right is losing, Trump is accelerating that collapse, and the world is paying a steep price for what he has set in motion.
The good news first. Viktor Orbán is gone. After 16 years of entrenching himself in Hungary’s institutions, eroding the judiciary, corrupting the media, enriching his allies, and serving as the global far right’s blueprint for authoritarian statecraft, he lost in a landslide. The opposition party led by Péter Magyar won with 53% of the vote, enough for a supermajority. Orbán, somewhat surprisingly, conceded on election night. We also talked about what it means for the far-right project more broadly, including Project 2025, which Orbán inspired.
Mark Carney’s Liberal Party victory in Canada added another data point to the same pattern. Leaders who stand up to Trump are being rewarded by their electorates. Leaders who try to walk the tightrope, as Keir Starmer has been doing in the UK, are struggling. James brought the breaking news: Trump threatened to tear up the UK-US trade deal, reportedly as punishment for Britain’s refusal to join the Iran War. Starmer’s response was to say he wasn’t changing his mind. His polling has gone up for tough stances against Trump. The lesson keeps repeating itself, and some leaders are still not learning it.
Then James shared something that stopped the conversation cold. A good friend of his, a journalist on the ground in Lebanon working with the Sky News team, called him shaking before the live. In the past 48 hours, 33 children have been confirmed killed in Lebanon by Israeli military action. One of them, a 12-year-old girl named Zayna, survived with 65% burns on her body. If she makes it through the night, someone will have to tell her that her entire family on both sides was killed. James said it broke him. It broke me too. And we both said plainly: this has to be said out loud, not buried in a news cycle, not treated as an acceptable casualty of war.
We closed the show talking about collective amnesia, about trauma, about the cycle that keeps repeating when people choose to forget rather than reckon. James used a therapy analogy to make the point. I connected it to Germany and Japan after World War II, nations that reckoned with what they had done and built something better because of it. The United States keeps pulling back from that reckoning. And people are dead today, including those schoolgirls in Iran and children in Lebanon, who would not be dead if we had chosen differently in November 2024. That is not a hyperbolic statement. It is a factual one.
Thanks to all of you who made it live! You helped enrich our talk. If you’re just catching it now, I appreciate you being here. This conversation was incredibly wide-ranging. You’ll want to stick around in full.
You can watch it in full above and read key takeaways below.
Orbán Has Fallen & The Global Far Right Is Losing
Viktor Orbán was not just a Hungarian politician. He was the blueprint for far-right authoritarianism globally. The Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts explicitly called him “the model” for “conservative statecraft.” Project 2025 drew directly from what Orbán built, which I’ve written about extensively. His fall is indicative of a wider erosion of the global far right.
I laid out Orbán’s record directly: 16 years in power, replacement of civil servants with loyalists, targeting of political opponents, enrichment of allies through government contracts and straight corruption, coercion of media and universities. I asked the audience to notice how familiar it sounds. It is Project 2025 implemented, tested, and now repudiated by the Hungarian people.
James said he was genuinely shocked that Orbán conceded. The result was so overwhelming, turnout so high, that even a leader who had spent 16 years eroding democratic institutions could not manufacture a different outcome. Our takeaway was important: it shows that even entrenched authoritarianism can be voted out if the opposition is unified and the public is motivated.
James described Orbán as not just an inspiration but an active collaborator for the European far right, a font of far-right energy that drew support, funding, and strategic guidance from Hungary. He also noted the direct strings running back to Putin. The oligarchic model, the enrichment of friends, the erosion of independent institutions: it was Putin 101 applied inside the EU.
We made the point that the global far right has been operating as a coordinated international movement that we have not discussed with the same urgency we once applied to international communism. Elon Musk beaming himself into German rallies, Tommy Robinson being invited to Congress. These are not isolated incidents. They are a network. Orbán’s fall damages that network.
I noted that the global far right is now seeing enough data to see a pattern of losses: the AFD in Germany, the far right in France and the Netherlands, and now Hungary. I made the argument that Trump’s toxicity is accelerating this. Far-right rhetoric can win elections. But you cannot govern as a kleptocratic, corrupt, authoritarian regime and expect to maintain power. Orbán proved it. Trump is proving it.
The Magyar Playbook: How You Beat an Authoritarian
Péter Magyar won by being anti-corruption, pro-democracy, and economically populist. That combination matters for anyone thinking about what the playbook looks like on this side of the Atlantic.
I described Magyar as what you would get if Mitt Romney came back to take down Trump in an authoritarian third term. He is a moderate conservative, a former member of Orbán’s own party, not a progressive. He did not beat Orbán by out-lefting him. He beat him by being honest about what Orbán had done and offering a credible alternative.
Magyar ran on tax cuts for working families, expanding healthcare, larger child benefits, and a staunch anti-corruption platform that included asset recovery. The asset recovery piece is significant: he told voters we are going to take back what was stolen from you and return it. That is a populist message that works across ideological lines.
James and I both noted that a viewer in the chat pointed out that Magyar has given the U.S. a playbook for defeating authoritarianism. I agreed. The core of it is not ideology. It is moral clarity about corruption, a credible economic message for working people, and a unified opposition that refuses to fracture.
James raised questions about areas where Magyar’s record is less clear. But James made the pluralist argument plainly: if you get someone in power who you disagree with on some things but who respects democratic institutions and can be removed, that is infinitely preferable to an entrenched authoritarian. Democracy requires that trade-off.
I made the point that Trump has speed-run his authoritarian project so badly that it may be too late for him to course-correct. He has already lost Marjorie Taylor Greene, Alex Jones, and Candace Owens. There is now an America First anti-Trump segment of the Republican Party. He overreached, and he has not done enough to consolidate power before his coalition started fracturing. That trajectory points toward 2026 and 2028 losses.
Carney Wins. Starmer Watches. The Lesson Is Clear.
Every time a world leader stands up to Trump, their electorate rewards them. The data on this is no longer ambiguous.
I framed Carney’s Liberal Party win in Canada as another entry in the same pattern we are seeing globally. Carney delivered one of the most important speeches of the Trump era at Davos earlier this year, laying out in clear terms what Trump has done to the global order. He was rewarded politically for it. The lesson is direct: do not appease, do not triangulate. Stand up.
James reported breaking news directly from his network during the live. Sky News’s chief American reporter received a call with Trump in which Trump threatened to tear up the UK-US trade deal, apparently as punishment for Britain’s refusal to join the Iran War. That threat caused immediate panic in British political circles. The Liberal Democrat leader raised it at Prime Minister’s Questions the same day.
Starmer’s response to the threat was to say he was not changing his mind on Iran. James reported that his polling has gone up as a result of standing firm against Trump. The same dynamic played out in Canada. The more you resist Trump, the more your electorate recognizes it as leadership. The more you try to walk the tightrope, the more you look weak to everyone.
James made the point that Trump’s threat to tear up the trade deal would hurt American businesses and workers as much as British ones. He is willing to destroy agreements that benefit his own people out of spite for not getting what he wants on Iran. That is not a foreign policy. That is a tantrum.
James raised the upcoming King Charles’ state visit to the U.S. and argued it should be reconsidered or reframed. He pointed out that Trump admitted in an interview that he did not know the Prime Minister controls where the king goes, not the king himself. James’s argument was that sending the king to visit Trump right now, after the trade deal threat and the Iran War conduct, sends the wrong signal. I agreed. Carney’s model is the right one. Treat this president as the pariah he is.
Trump Is Losing the World
The Gallup numbers are in, and they are staggering. The United States now has lower global leadership approval than China. That is the result of what Trump has done to America’s standing in one term.
I cited the Gallup International poll directly: U.S. leadership approval is at 31%, China’s is at 36%. That is the widest gap in 20 years. The world is looking at Chinese hybrid authoritarian capitalism as more stable than Trump’s erratic, impulsive leadership. Given what Chinese-style governance actually means for the countries it reaches, that data point should alarm everyone.
James added polling from European countries showing that majorities in several nations now consider the United States the primary threat, ahead of China. He wrote a Substack piece on this. America’s reputation on the world stage, as James put it plainly, is in tatters.
I connected this to a conversation I had with Adam Mockler earlier in the week. Trump is not transactional. He is extractive. He is not making deals where both parties gain something. He is squeezing. And when the most powerful nation on earth operates on a might makes right basis, it licenses every other nation with geographic leverage to do the same.
I made the point that China and Russia’s fundamental critique of America has always been that we are unstable, hypocritical, and unreliable. Trump validated that critique. The world now has to plan for both a Republican United States and a Democratic United States as if they are different countries. That instability is itself a form of weakness, independent of any specific policy.
I noted that Trump is also deliberately yielding the future of renewable energy to China by doubling down on fossil fuels. If we had a domestic renewable energy base, we would not be fighting wars over straits and oil routes. The strategic cost of this shortsightedness is going to compound for decades.
Lebanon: The Human Cost We Should All Be Talking About
James received a call before this live from a journalist friend on the ground in Lebanon working with the Sky News team. What they reported should be front-page news everywhere.
James shared the report with a content warning. In the past 48 hours, Israeli military action in Lebanon has killed 33 confirmed children. Sky News correspondent Alex Crawford, who has covered every major conflict for 25 years, said she has seen similarities to Gaza but nothing on this scale with the bombing in Lebanon.
James told us about Zayna, a 12-year-old girl with 65% burns on her body who, about six hours before the live, began moving her pinky finger to communicate with nurses. If she survives, someone will have to tell her that her entire family on both sides was killed overnight. James said the journalist who called him was shaking. I said there is no excuse. There is just no excuse.
James cited the child casualty percentages directly. In the Ukraine-Russia conflict, children represent 1% of casualties. In Lebanon, in just the past few weeks, that figure is already 32%, according to James. James made the point clearly: that is not collateral damage. That is deliberate targeting of civilians.
I laid the accountability plainly: I put this at the feet of Netanyahu and at the feet of the U.S. government for backing it. Netanyahu is doing this to stay out of prison. He was headed toward the end of his political career and a corruption conviction. Instead, he chooses a war because war keeps him in power and out of a cell. He is allergic to ceasefires because a ceasefire ends his political life.
I was direct about the electoral connection. Those schoolgirls in Iran killed in the U.S. strike on the Minab school would be alive today if Trump had not won. The Iran War would not have happened if Trump had not won. I said it on the live, and I will say it in print: that is not hyperbole. It is a factual statement about cause and effect. People who enabled this president own a share of these consequences.
Collective Amnesia and the Cycle We Keep Repeating
James and I closed the conversation with a framework about political trauma. I want to give it the space it deserves.
James made the argument that as a populace, we keep repeating the same cycle because we have not reckoned with our trauma. He used the analogy of someone who keeps dating people who remind them of an abusive parent, unable to understand why, because they have never done the work to face what happened to them. The United States keeps electing versions of the same disaster and wondering why.
I connected it to the Germany and Japan examples. After World War II, both countries sat with what they had done, reckoned with it collectively, and built something better because of it. Germany today is a different country because it chose not to forget. The United States has never fully done that. We get moments of reckoning, and then they get rolled back. Reconstruction, then the Southern Strategy. The Civil Rights Act, then the backlash. Every gain gets erased because we never fully processed what produced the wound.
James made the point that collective trauma produces a flight response. COVID is the clearest example: it is spoken about as if it never happened, because processing it is too painful. But as anyone who has been in therapy knows, unaddressed trauma does not disappear. It lives in you and expresses itself in behaviors you cannot fully explain, like maybe electing a psychopath.
I made the point that the Trump project, the broader authoritarian project, is in the process of failing. The judiciary has not fully capitulated. Elon Musk combusted within months. Project 2025 has been pursued but not fully implemented. Trump overreached and did not consolidate power before his coalition started fracturing. I believe we are watching the end stage of what happens when kleptocratic authoritarian governance meets a public that is hungry and angry.
James closed with something I want to hold onto. He said love has more stamina than hatred. Hatred consumes the people who carry it and destroys. Love creates. The people in our audience, showing up every week, maintaining the fight, not losing their edge: that is what bends the arc. As I said to close the show, good always wins. But not unless we push it.
Bottom Line
Orbán is gone. Carney won. The global far right is fracturing under the weight of its own failures. And Trump is losing the world, not just in polls and perception, but in the human cost of what his presidency has incentivized into existence.
Zayna is in a Lebanese hospital with 65% burns on her body. Her family is gone. She is 12 years old. That story belongs in this write-up because it belongs in the conversation about what this moment actually means. Numbers numb us. Individual stories do not.
James is out there in Edinburgh fighting this fight. I am here in Brooklyn doing the same. Support independent journalism that tells the truth about what is happening. Subscribe to James Matthewson. And if you have not yet become a paid subscriber to Ahmed Baba News, you can do that below. And if you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you! It truly means a lot. Independent media runs on the people who back it.
