You may have heard that Victor Orban in Hungary was a threat to democracy. May also have heard that AMLO in Mexico was also a threat to democracy.
What you almost certainly didn't hear was how these two presidents were tremendously popular and why. Let's start with Orban.

Hungarian salaries increased by nearly a third after an election-year spending spree by Prime Minster Viktor Orban’s boosted already surging wages.

Gross monthly wages rose 31.7% annually in February to 545,965 forint ($1,568), the Budapest-based statistics office reported on Tuesday. The increase was the biggest on record, according to Bloomberg data going back to 1998.

Orban, who won a fourth consecutive term in April 3 vote, wooed voters with public-sector wage hikes and bonuses, including the equivalent of six-months’ salary for soldiers and police. The moves boosted public-sector wages by 54% in February and outpaced the corporate sector, where paychecks grew 12%, according to the statistics office.
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Real wages have shot up by more than 17% in four years, the minimum wage by 72% in real terms since 1999.

I'm not saying that I'm a fan of Orban. Nor am I saying that I approve of a lot of his policies (for instance labor and civil rights), But at the same time you can understand why someone in Hungary might support him.
Now let's look at Mexico.

AMLO’s government has delivered important domestic policy accomplishments that have favored the poor. He increased the minimum wage by 85% above inflation, and enacted labor reforms that reinforced a new generation of democratic and autonomous unions. As a result, wages, as measured by per-capita labor income, have reached an all-time high on record for Mexico.
AMLO has invested a significant amount of public funding in development initiatives, like an interoceanic corridor and a tourist train, to expand employment and commercial opportunities in communities that have been investment-hungry for decades. Internationally, the Tren Maya has been criticized for its environmental impact, but a survey from October 2021 (the only public survey focused on the region) found that 87% of locals approve of its construction because they want jobs and economic opportunities. The IMF expects the Mexican economy to grow a healthy 3.2% in 2023, and according to Mexico’s Central Bank the poorer states of the south are growing more than the rest of the country.

Perhaps more significantly, the number of families receiving social assistance has steadily increased during his mandate. Today, 14 million families receive cash transfers, and the average payment has increased by 55% adjusted for inflation. These transfers take 3.5 million people out of poverty, a 52% increase over previous administrations.

His government is the most visible opponent of previous administrations that failed to deliver results to most of the population while enriching a golden upper class. By the time AMLO took office, 88% of Mexico’s citizens believed that the government primarily served the elites, and by some measures, the country was the fourth-most unequal in the world.
For decades, he has visited little communities that were previously uninteresting to federal officials. People in those communities remember him as one of their few genuine encounters with the Mexican state.

As a result, AMLO has boosted Mexicans’ perception of their democracy. During his first years in office, the proportion of Mexicans who trust the federal government approximately doubled, and their satisfaction with democracy did as well, according to the respected regional pollster Latinobarómetro. And although security remains a major concern for Mexicans, homicide rates have fallen slightly from 28 to 25 per 100,000 from 2018 to 2022, and citizens report feeling safer than at any point in more than a decade.

A renewed faith in the government and its institutions has emerged. The public perception that the federal government is not or is only rarely corrupt has tripled. According to a May 2022 survey, two-thirds of Mexicans want the next administration to continue his work.

AMLO is one of the most popular politicians in the entire world. However, he is hated by the political establishment in Mexico and the United States.
It's almost as if the political establishment is openly hostile to the idea of the government working for the people and helping workers.

Meanwhile here in America we have fake populism. Trump is a great example.
This is a guy who proudly bilked people who trusted him through his fake university, fake charity foundation, fake businesses, and fake super pac.
This is a billionaire who pretends to speak for working people. This is a guy who's primary achievement when he is president was a tax cut for billionaires.
So the question is why? Why is populism elsewhere in the world a function of benefit to the working class, while populism here in America is as fake as a $3 bill.

I don't know, but I have an idea. I think you have to start with the Democratic Party. The Democrats have absolutely no respect for their voting base. The only thing the Democratic Party offers to the Democratic voter is that they will not be as bad as a Republican.
What we are looking at is a complete and total failure of a political/economic system. Most Republican voters are so discouraged that they are willing to vote for Trump simply because he will "own the libs". They want and expect nothing else, which is a clear sign of a system in crisis.