I traveled to Europe recently, where right-wing movements and governments are allegedly on the rise. I visited two countries where I vote and exercise my rights as a citizen. Neither Slovenia nor Italy are known as authoritarian states in the way Hungary currently represents the right-wing nation in Europe. As far as I know, the Hungarian regime does not(yet)resemble early Hitler’s Germany, with the paramilitary groups marching the streets, destroying Jewish shops. But the phobia against immigrants is growing parallel to the accruing of power by the little dictator, Victor Orban. The right-wing forces, first in Hungary and later in Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, started to show their appetite for authoritarianism during the COVID-19 pandemic by implementing draconic measures. In Slovenia, the lockdown at 10 pm lasted six months, except for walking the dogs. As my Slovenian friends told me, the population of dogs grew faster than humans, who, for long months, were chained to their counties by strictly implemented bans on traveling. 

One night in Rome, on the other hand, my friends took me to the large terrace on the rooftop of their building in Trastevere, a famous district in Rome. They pointed to the pile of white plastic chairs, chaise lounge, little tables, and parasols as part of the cheap outdoor furniture for the long evenings they had to spend on the roof terrace during Covid, watching down at the eternal city they used to be part of. “The only thing we could hear of the usual buzz of the old city was the gurgling of fountains,” said my friend, with some horror but also with some curiosity for it is an unusual sound by itself, as if produced in a cinematic studio. Perhaps we all thought of “Identificazione Di una Donna,” a film by Michelangelo Antonioni, shot entirely in empty Rome. More than that, an enhanced image of a city devoid of humans remained printed in my mind since the devastating earthquake in L’Aquila in April 2009. There in that year, I walked alone in narrow, demolished streets lined with the ruins of Baroque and Renaissance buildings and churches; I was staring with horror at the elegant piazzas devoid of any life—the impression of demolished L’Aquila. The next day in Rome, I walked around the city with the image of a devastated L’Aquila in my mind. I ignored the people; I only looked at the streets, squares, palazzos, and churches, fearing that an earthquake might soon hit Rome. I wanted to remember every corner and embrace the city I loved. 

When walking in Rome that day in 2009 I remembered dry fountains in L’Aquila and wonder what would happen to the fountains in Rome if the city was hit by a strong earthquake. As Rome is built on a vast stone platform that practically floats on water, the eternal city would probably keep its endless fountains alive. This fall evening on the terrace in Rome, a strong flashback, composed of lockdowns in Rome and Ljubljana, bombed Gaza and demolished L’Aquila hit my head. What a horror a human race can provide us with; if pandemics and earthquakes are natural disasters, the lockdown in Ljubljana, for instance, had turned fear of nature into the fear of the authoritarian government! For all the years of the pandemic, the Slovenians were challenging the authoritarian right-wing government with cycling protests. Like the Umbrella movement in Hong Kong years ago, Slovenians invented a protest against the government by organizing bike rides around the government buildings. With the persistence and growth of the bike movement once a week for three years in a row, it became evident that the threatening right-wing government would lose following elections. As predicted, it did happen: against a power-grabbing, pathological, and vengeful violent form of the government, Slovenians voted for a democratic and charismatic government option. Yet, after only a year and a half, the democratic majority turned into a government run by a completely narcissistic prime minister.

Besides the violence and rudeness against protesters, the Slovenian government, led by Janes Janša, imposed total control over the public media. For example, the method with which the national TV was filled with government lackeys was embarrassing and laughable. The faces on TV in Slovenia changed overnight, and the government silenced critical voices. After the change to a more democratic government, the situation in Slovenia improved a bit, while in Rome, after one year of a right-wing neo-fascist government, the purification of the state-owned media is in full swing. The massive outflow of good journalists and editors has turned the public media RAI into a laughing stock. Literally. The mainstream Italian media now shows sit-coms, missing the serious information and education programs that for decades were part of public programming. 

But let’s get to the crucial point. While my two countries are showing symptoms of populism and, therefore, inclinations towards rightwing power assets, it is hard or perhaps too early to talk about an authoritarian regime. The downsizing of the middle class in the societies of many European countries currently leads to more confusion and chaos than dictatorship. United Europe remains the only possible project for the old continent. Notwithstanding the Hungarian extremist Victor Urban, the recent electoral results in Poland and Slovakia indicate the turn towards democracy. 

What is more worrisome, to my mind, is the speed with which the United States is gliding into the possibility of an authoritarian regime if Donald Trump returns to win the presidential elections. All the current polls are showing Trump as a winner of GOP primaries, a position he keeps without participating in any of the GOP presidential debates. If the results remain unchanged, Trump will become the GOP presidential candidate with a good chance of becoming the next president of the U.S. Regardles of several indictments from various courts, Trump’s electoral team seems to be much better organized than it was four years ago, when he was defeated by Biden with the substantial help of his blundering policy about the Covid Pandemic. Besides the intense campaign, Trump’s lawyers are trying to drag out the court processes closer to the November elections or beyond. Counting on the help of the Supreme Court, which has the conservative majority, Trump is escalating his campaign. It is unbelievable how fast and extreme the Trump campaign is becoming. Two weeks of my absence from the in U.S. made me feel that I had returned to a different country. Regardless of the pleasant greeting at passport control at the Dulles airport in DC, “Welcome back home, Sir,” the headlines composed by the recent Trump speeches were saying something else: “The American dream is dead, the world is in flames,” said Trump to Iowa voters as he raised the specter of a global nuclear conflict that will result in complete “obliteration.”

“Former President Donald Trump also doubled down on his recent controversial public comments suggesting that the ‘blood of our nation is being destroyed by immigrants, ’” reported the Washington Post. Trump seems unstoppable, and for the first time after many years I have spent in what I thought was a fascinating country, I am worried and scared. Besides all the people who made America great and who deserve respect and protection, am I, as a guest in this country, also spoiling Trump’s blood? Or is Melania Trump, the first lady who’s is Slovenian like me, enough that I can feel safe? Cause let’s make it clear: Trump uses the blood of Americans (who are they, really?) to protect himself in front of the law that is after him. Morally speaking, he should never be the president of any country. A person who got caught on the microphone saying that a man with power is allowed to grab and abuse women, then later answered a question, claiming that he would be pardoned if walking down 5th Avenue and out of the blue killed a person! In any other country of law and ethics, a person with this attitude should resign from the campaign and not run for the highest position in this country. It is well-documented that Donald Trump is not American Hitler. Not even Hitler was the sole author of the nazism. The reason why Trump suddenly started using nazi language and what Hitler learned from Americans to build the terrific nazi ideology I will try to explain in the next Yonder.