We are the ones who matter! Pro and anti-Trumpists’ attitudes in Hungary

ABSTRACT

Drawing on a unique dataset of Hungarian citizens (n = 767), this study investigates the importance of various populist values through the analysis of differences between the attitudes of pro-Trump and anti-Trump respondents. The results show a strong correlation between Trump sympathy and populist attitudes. While populism is often defined as an anti-elite ideology, our most important finding is that anti-elitist attitudes are irrelevant in differentiating populists from non-populists, while in-group solidarity, preferences for a homogenous society, fast-action, and anti-science beliefs are. At the same time, anti-elitism raises opposition to pluralist forms that in turn contribute to pro-Trumpism. This suggests that there is a need for further research on populist attitudes that should account for the importance of cultural and historical context in interpreting them.

KEYWORDS:

• Populist attitudes
• anti-elitism
• in-group solidarity
• pluralism
• Donald Trump

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Their publication’s year quoted in the book chapter is wrong, the original date of Schulz et al.’s findings is 2018.

2. We suppose that this long period might not affect the responses significantly, as Trump-sympathy is relatively independent from the possible changes in the Hungarian political climate. Actually, one of the reasons behind our decision to use Trump (and not Viktor Orban) as reference to a populist leader is to ensure that the answers will be independent from Hungarian actual politics.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies.