ETTD: Viktor Orbán Edition
Who's got four thumbs and just got their ass kicked? THESE GUYS!
Strongmen of the world, unite!
Not you, Donald. You stand over there in the corner.
At least, that's what Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán should have said. Instead, Orbán went the opposite way and leaned into Trump to help get him over the top in yesterday's election. Whether Orbán honestly believed he needed Trump's endorsement or if this was yet another case of a far-right politician being unable to dissuade Trump from staying away, we'll never know. But Trump and JD Vance were already pot-committed, with the latter traveling to Budapest to make a last-minute campaign stop for the four-term incumbent. With so few of his dictator friends still holding "free and fair" elections, Trump was all-in with Orbán and his latest campaign, which was generally seen as a referendum on the far-right policies that Orbán has unleashed on the Hungarian people over the past 16 years. With Orbán's center-right opponent, Peter Maygar, leading in the polls, Sunday's election was seen as a test of whether Orbán had enough political control to win a democratic election during a time when he and his party were resorting to more and more authoritarian tactics. Would this be yet another in a series of dictators subverting the will of the people and falsely claiming an election victory? Or would the anti-Orbán sentiment be so strong that not even cooking the books could lead to a result that kept Viktor Orbán in power?
As it turns out, it was the latter.
With a record 78% turnout, the people of Hungary showed up and kicked Viktor Orbán and his hard-right Fidesz party out of power for the foreseeable future. This wasn't an anti-Orbán wave; it was an extinction-level tsunami. Not only did Orbán lose bigly, but opposition leader Peter Maygar's Tisza party ended up with a supermajority, seen as a nationwide mandate allowing him to immediately fulfill his campaign promise to rid the government of Orbán's appointees. Sunday's results were seen in a positive light, not only in Hungary but throughout the European Union, as Orbán had been a thorn in the EU's side on issues like a 90 billion Euro Ukraine loan over the past several weeks. As a close Putin ally who was caught on tape acknowledging his own personal acquiescence, Orbán was committed to doing whatever he could to prevent the EU from supporting the Ukrainian people. With him out of the way, Prime Minister-elect Maygar can follow through on his previously expressed willingness to be more pro-EU, which greatly improves the odds that Hungary will no longer exercise its veto power on future Ukraine loan packages. A Maygar win is a win for the people of Ukraine and a loss for Vladimir Putin and, by proxy, Donald Trump.
You dance with the devil, then you're gonna get burnt. Viktor Orbán may very well have lost without Donald Trump's "help." But Trump's last-minute push definitely sealed his fate. Many Hungarians view Orbán as their own version of Trump; someone who was elected to a third and then a fourth term by amending the constitution, gerrymandering districts, manipulating the media, and running on strong anti-immigrant and pro-nationalist platforms. But seeing Orbán cozying up to Trump in the final weeks leading to the election was simply a bridge too far for a population growing more and more uneasy with their own prime minister's open embrace of authoritarianism. Thinking about what another four years would mean with one of Trump's BFF's at the helm was the final straw for a generation of Hungarians sick and tired of being one of the most repressed "democracies" in the entire European Union. Peter Maygar is no progressive hero by any means, but what he brings is a return to normality that has been absent for the Hungarian people for the past sixteen years. The potential exhaustion of having the "Hungarian Trump" at the helm for four more years was more than enough reason to kick Viktor Orbán to the curb this time around.
When Donald Trump loses, the world wins. This is literally the case with Viktor Orbán's loss. With him out of the picture, the Hungarian people win by removing their unpopular, nationalistic, authoritarian leader. The Ukrainian people win by striking a huge blow to Vladimir Putin, who loses a key ally in the region. The European Union wins by now having Hungarian leadership that understands the true threat to its neighboring Ukraine. And democracies around the world win, knowing that there's a strong chance that an eventual Trump endorsement of their far-right authoritarian candidate will once again be the kiss of death that will keep them from winning their country's next national election. When all is said and done, the rising 21st-century fascist movement may ultimately fail because the face of the movement is so grossly unpopular that nobody wants what has happened to the United States to happen to them.
May our cautionary tale prevent others like Hungary from going down this deep, dark path.