A few thoughts on the victory of Tisza

Hungarians celebrating Tizsa's electoral landslide in Budapest

On Sunday, after sixteen years of fascist quasi-dictatorship, the voters of Hungary said "enough" and kicked out long-serving prime minister Viktor Orbán, replacing him with a broad coalition assembled by center-right politician, former Orbán ally-turned fierce critic Péter Magyar and his Tizsa party. As of this writing, Tisza is heading for a super-majority in the Hungarian Parliament, meaning that he can undo all the illiberal structures which Orbán has built into the state for almost two decades.

How did Magyar win? By building a coalition of left, center, and right. By speaking to the discontent of the Hungarian people. By highlighting that Hungarians were sinking into a slough of despond under Fidesz, servants to Vladimir Putin. That a Hungarian leader could kowtow to a Russian dictator after the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 would be like Martin Luther King, Jr. breaking bread with a Klan Grand Wizard. It just don't add up.

But, of course, Hungary has had its own long history of fascism. Before the Nazis took over Hungary in 1944 to expedite the destruction of its Jews, Admiral Miklos Hórthy was the nation's "conservative authoritarian" leader. But even he balked at Hitler's demands, and was replaced in a coup by Hungary's outright fascists, the Iron Cross. Adolf Eichmann's time to shine came in destroying Hungary's 550,000 Jews, which he did with typical German efficiency.

Orbán began his career in politics on the left; that he turned to the right has a long and honored history in Western politics. His philosophy of "illiberal democracy" is a stain on and an affront to the thousands of Hungarian patriots who died in 1956 and were jailed in the years after.

He came to power promising an end to corruption and a rise in living standards. Instead? His corruption put that which came before him to shame, and Hungary has been stagnant for years, due to his feud with the European Union. He focused on culture wars and on slurping on Putin. And finally the people had had enough.

I've been told often that one cannot vote out fascism. That once it gets in, it can only be excised by violent action. Led, of course, by the revolutionary vanguard. 

Where has this vanguard been for two decades? Where are the bombed government facilities? Where are the fiery calls to arms? It took a former Orbán ally who realized that the state could not continue like this to remove his regime. Not someone versed in Marxist theory.

Hungarian leftists, indeed, chose to ally themselves with a center-right politician who campaigned on ending the reign of terror. They knew that they, by themselves, didn't have the electoral clout to unseat Orbán. This is repeated in country after country in the West: left-wing policies may poll well, but actual left-wing parties do not have enough support. Rather than double down on some Quixotic campaign, they understood the assignment and joined in a broad national unity front to dispose of the dictator. For this sober and adult decision, they have nothing be respect from me.

Meanwhile, this is the discourse on American leftist social media:

Yes, normies just wanting to get to work and live their lives will fall in with their leftist betters, sacrifice themselves to burn down the system. I have no love for the likes of Sam Altman. But to think that this will engender some Marxist uprising is not only foolish, but dangerous to the cause of effecting change. Local, democratic opposition has already blocked billions of dollars of data center construction, with no Molotov cocktails needed. What these filth are doing is not to strike against The Man, but so that they can live out their revolutionary fantasies. And local opposition struck against data centers on their own, with no need for revolutionary education.

I do think this portends well for elections not only in the US in November, but in Israel this autumn, and in France and Germany. Something is changing, as Heather Cox Richardson recently said. Normal people are awakening from their lethargy. The full ramifications of our fascist moment are coming to be realized. And unlike in the 1930s, we do not have a majority of the population who are either supportive or at least uncaring. Seven-dollar gas and neighbors being yanked off the street clarify the mind. The Leninists can continue with their febrile fantasies. The rest of us have a humanity to save.