I agree that presidential systems in particular are problematic, and the EU is lucky that Germany and France use parliamentary systems. But the nasty thing about populism is that it happens in waves and it does overtake parliaments. We need only look at what happened to the UK with Brexit for a recent example. It's not hard to imagine that a wave of far-right populism could one day overtake Germany, or send France's RN, Austria's FPO or Poland's PIS to a majority position.

We can cross our fingers and hope that nobody would work with them (I know that Germany's parties all have a pinky promise not to work with AfD), but it was only 10 years ago that everyone in the US was laughing at the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency – and now here we are, much sobered. These things happen, and AfD, or RN, or whoever, could wreak havoc to the EU from within the EU if they took power and started working with Hungary to block EU legislation, veto sanctions, defund programs and more.

While there is a trend toward the right in many (not all) EU countries, it's a far cry from the shit show on the other side of the Atlantic.

Most European countries have functioning legal and electoral systems, and more than two parties. On top of that, constitutional courts aren't political appointments.

So it would be incredibly hard for a political entity like AfD or RN to gain full and absolute power like the orange has achieved. Even in the worst cases, those parties usually only have ~30% popular support at most, which usually translates to at most ~30-40% of seats in parliament. Which means they cannot even get parliamentary majority, and probably can't get head of state either.

Americans just like to pretend things aren't that bad and they aren't the only ones falling into the abyss.

Not every European country, but unfortunately many countries are at risk. Someone like Orban is so deeply and openly corrupt, you have to wonder why anyone besides his cronies vote for him. But as an autocrat, you apparently only have to chase lgbti people and immigrants to cheer people up. Going to CPAC with all your kinky friends doing the Sieg Heils on stage (yes, that happened, even if someone doesn't want to hear that). Conservatism is a depressing view of the world.

And then you have all kinds of charlatans that are basically Orban doubles. You hear the same stupid talking points and bullshit, the same cozying up with Putin. And to top it off, the USA has openly vowed to fuel and fund that fire of self destruction, so the billionaires can eat the corpse. Because that is where the term conservatism came from, to conserve the power of the king and the ruling elites, as a god given construct (the only original moral aspect of conservatism).