One in five people in the Netherlands would welcome a Trump-style nationalist movement to “make Europe great again”, according to research by political research institute Clingendael.
A survey of 4,300 voters found that while only around 16% would have voted for Trump in last year’s presidential election, against 68% for Democrat candidate Kamala Harris, there was broader support for the ideas of the so-called Maga movement.
More than half of respondents (54%) agreed with the sentiment that western civilisation is under threat, while 21% said Europe needed its own “Mega” project and 18% supported closer ties between Washington and far-right European parties.
“There is a small but not negligible minority that would support a Maga-inspired project in Europe and see it as a good thing if the United States helped to bring it about,” the report says.
Support for Maga ideology was much stronger among voters who identified with nationalist right-wing parties such as Geert Wilders’ PVV, 95% of whom agreed that civilisation was being threatened, as well as Forum voor Democratie and JA21.
Two-thirds of voters for the liberal party VVD shared that view, along with half of people who supported the centre-right Christian Democrats (46%), compared to just 15% of those backing the left-wing alliance GroenLinks-PvdA.
However, 79% were against direct American interference in Europe, almost two-thirds (64%) viewed Maga’s efforts to forge alliances with parties such as AfD in Germany as unwelcome.
More see US as enemy
More than a quarter of respondents (27%) said the US was an enemy of the Netherlands, while just 22% currently regard it as an ally.
Some Trump ideas were met with little enthusiasm: there was low support for “tech libertarianism”, such as the idea that countries, like countries, should be run by a single visionary leader, and only one in four believed Europe’s strict digital regulation posed a threat to freedom of speech.
But Trump’s authoritarian approach to foreign policy can count on more support, with nearly half agreeing with his view that some “shithole” countries were incapable of governing themselves and 40% saying the EU should restrict imports of cheap foreign products, reflecting the US’s tariffs policy.
There was also a striking difference between men and women under the age of 35, with young women overwhelmingly rejecting Maga ideals while support among their male peers was broadly in line with older age groups.
The survey was prompted by the speech given by US vice-president James Vance at last year’s Munich Security Conference, in which he said that “the retreat of Europe from some of its fundamental values“ posed a greater threat than Russia or China.
This year US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, rather than Vance, addressed the conference. He struck a more conciliatory tone, reassuring European leaders that their and America’s fates were “intertwined”, but also issued a thinly veiled warning to fall in line with the Trump administration’s priorities.
“We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary will ever be tempted to test our collective strength,” Rubio said.
