Hungary Begins De-Viktor-Orbánification, At Long Last
Let there be nice time!
Little more than two weeks ago, the voters of Hungary removed their gloves, went to the polls, and delivered unto Viktor Orbán’s “illiberal” ruling Fidesz party a stinging 10-finger slap and a fuck on off, assholes. Then Budapest exploded in celebratory jubilation!
The incoming parliament — dominated by the more moderately conservative Tisza party — and new Prime Minister, Péter Magyar, are expected to be sworn in around May 9, details pending. And they sure have a rocky road to hoe, undoing 16 years of an Orbán-ified government, wherein he and his party captured the legislature, the judiciary, the civil service and media, thought-purged them all, and did their rank and sweaty best to dilute the opposition’s influence, dismantle the country’s checks and balances, and suck up to Russia and Donald Trump. What a familiar-sounding tune!
And while their power is not yet official, the writing is on the wall. Magyar has been urging remaining Orbán loyalists to self-deport to the private sector. Hungary dropped its opposition to a $106 billion loan from the European Union to Ukraine last week, helping clear the pipeline for a funding lifeline as its war with Russia — and Trump’s starving Ukraine of defense funds while begging for its anti-drone technology at the same time — drags on. But Hungary has now also fixed a literal pipeline so Ukraine can get in some more oil, yay!
Nature is healing. With oil!
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Magyar and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk have reportedly been having bro-chats about how to go about repairing Hungary’s relationship with the EU. Tusk is like, just call up Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, she’s cool! Maybe tell her you’ll be glad to welcome some incoming briefcases from the European Public Prosecutor’s Office to go after the dirty grifters? Fun projects like that could really help get the old band back together again!
Magyar also claims that right now, as you read, Orbán’s billionaire pals are attempting to make off with tens of billions in filthy lucre, bound for locales without extradition treaties, such as the UAE, Uruguay and Dubai. Magyar “called on the National Tax and Customs Administration to immediately freeze assets he claims were illegally acquired. He also urged the Prosecutor General and National Police to arrest those responsible for ‘damaging the Hungarian people by many trillions of forints’” before his government officially takes office in May.
Donald J. Trump et al. might want to PAY ATTENTION TO THAT MATTER! Consequences ahoy! All the Heritage Foundation’s biggest-brained men, JD Vance’s infectious charms, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s finest AI slop-a-ganda, having control of most of Hungarian media, years of anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ+ hate and fearmongering, none of that was enough to keep together the base of the strongman’s ruling coalition.
MORE!
Now we look to the sun rising in the east upon the bloating corpse of non-liberal democracy, and dream about how such a thing might play out here, when (and if, sigh) such a glorious day ever arrives.
Maybe sooner than we think, maybe even in midterms in November?
It turns out that no matter how many hate and fearmongering campaigns Orbán and Fidesz threw at voters, they could not help but to notice that Orbán had never delivered on any of his promises of draining the swamp of corruption, delivering cheap prices, or more affordable housing. Even better, it also seems that in the end it was not The Gas or The Groceries that voters ultimately refused to tolerate any longer. Pre-election, most voters cited “politics/government” itself, specifically “Government spending/debt, corruption, taxes” as their biggest concern, even more so than the economy.
Though of course those two are related. As the saying goes, when a rising tide fails to lift all boats, it is easier to spot the yachts!
Nor was Orbán’s put-sugar-in-daddy-and-his-buddy’s-bowl-style corruption particularly subtle. The European Union halted billions in loans until the country got its corruption sorted out and agreed to fund Ukraine’s defense, and while Hungary’s money is still on hold at the moment, Brussels is now open to engaging on reopening the cash path. It seems being a pariah on the world stage isn’t as romantic as it might sound. (Benjamin Netanyahu, you might want to take some notes here too, golly, look at all those protesters hitting the streets in Israel again and Netanyahu’s rivals retrying that coalition thing!)
Hungarians also do not agree with Orbán that “Brussels” was the cause of all of Hungary’s issues, and most have always supported Hungary remaining a member of the European Union. One poll conducted in the weeks before the election found that while 15 percent of Hungarians did not trust the EU at all, that number was 47 percent when it came to Viktor Orbán. Maybe it was his AI slop, or the ridiculous fables he kept trying to spin about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy threatening him, and that Ukraine was practically about to invade Hungary’s borders. Or the way Orbán came up as a politician opposing the Soviet government, and what a nimble flip-flop with a double-pike twist he made, to allegedly asking and getting propaganda help from Russia!
Either way, it seems a strongman can’t keep the dizzying shell game of failure twirling around forever. Over at the Heritage Foundation, the resident Freedom Fellow of the Margaret Thatcher Center for European Thistletwattery Thinkin’ is still insisting that “Viktor Orbán Lost the Election but He Won the Argument.” C’mon guys, Europeans are still racist! They still get rock-hard like bull at straight-strongman culture warrioring! O, generous billionaire oligarch donors, we beseech, do not let some teensy weensy little sprinkle-dash of a Hungarian setback keep your checkbooks sewn shut! Immigrant hate can still steam this train!
But, alas, facts, feelings, care about, they do not! The Peace Train is riding again, and commuters at the hate depot can buy a ticket to the Equal Protection of Laws, or a one-way to Uruguay with final destination, Hell for Lying Liars.
We don’t make the rules.
[Kyiv Post / Reuters / NYT / ECFR / Further viewing from DW]
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"His monologue about my family isn't comedy- his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America. People like Kimmel shouldn't have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate." –Melania Trump
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Huh? Has she been listening to her husband at all these last ten years?? Yeah, just fuck off Melania.
The new leader of Hungary is named "Magyar", which means "Hungarian". It's as if we had a President named "Frank American".