Orban: Made in Hungary, America, and Russia

Turns out that self-dealing, serving the Kremlin, wrecking education, and impoverishing the country are not popular governance moves

Orban: A Compromised Candidate with a Terrible Track Record

Today Hungarians will cast their votes on two starkly different visions of the country and civil society. Will they re-elect Viktor Orban, who has prioritized personal enrichment and fidelity to the Kremlin and MAGA, casting himself as a protector of white Christian identity and national security against the depraved forces of “globalism” and the interferences of the EU?

Or opt for change with Péter Magyar, a former top member of Orban’s Fidesz party, who campaigned on a platform of restoring Hungary’s democracy and turning around a downward economic spiral caused by Orban’s policies?

From polls to Polymarket, the expectation is that Magyar will triumph in the popular vote, powered by young Hungarians who want a future for their country. A New York Times story cautioned that the elections may be free, but they won’t be fair, and years of electoral and political machinations could make it difficult for Magyar to govern and realize his agendas, even if he wins.

It’s good to know about these structural limitations, but it’s even more important to understand this:

Voters, and young people in particular, are having no more of aging strongmen who openly and shamelessly destroy their countries for personal gain, and who answer to another aging strongman —Vladimir Putin—rather than to those who elected them.

I have said since early 2025 that Trump is in office to solve Putin’s problems. Orban provides a template. Bloomberg published revelations that on a phone call last October, Orban reportedly told Putin “I am in your service” - and compared himself to a mouse and Putin to a lion. Hungary’s current afflictions are the outcome of this path and these priorities.

A recent anti-Orban rally in Debrecen, Hungary. Dániel Németh @444hu

As I wrote in a January essay on resistance, the combined effects of autocratic overreach, blatant corruption, and economic hardship are driving the global renaissance of protest, including Gen-Z protests that are numerous as to now constitute their own category.

Our Time of Resistance

Hungary is the latest case. “With all of the marches and gatherings that are happening, it kind of feels like history is being made,” said 24 year old Betti, voicing the feelings of many young people in Hungary right now.

Below you will find some of my previous essays on the propaganda, foreign relations, educational policies, and weaponization of homophobia that have made Hungary a hub of the far right and Putin and MAGA’s “man in Europe.”

Please read in particular this incredible story of how the construct of “Orban” and his nemesis “George Soros” is the product of American PR operatives:

Orban: The Strongman Made in America and Hungary

And this essay for the hypocrisy of the Orbán as the theoretical “defender of Christianity,” and actual persecutor of 300 small churches run by non-loyalists. His government stripped them of their legal status and subjected them to court proceedings that exhausted their finances

In Budapest, Mike Pence Sells American Autocracy

Defunding public education? Passing a “vengeance” law that punishes teachers, staff, and students who have engaged in protests for almost a year against low pay and disappearing intellectual freedoms? Having educational policy now under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior? Far-right dreams made into reality by Orban.

How Authoritarians Target Universities

As for the targeting of LGBTQ populations, in this essay the Hungarian lesbian activist Dorottya Rédai describes as the “emotionally and psychologically devastating impact” of being “treated as an enemy.” Rédai’s 2020 children’s book, “A Fairytale for Everyone,” which adapts well-known fairytales into stories with heroes from LGBTQ, disabled, Roma, and other marginalized populations, was branded by the Hungarian government as propaganda.

From Budapest to Boca Raton, Illiberal Politicians Target LGBTQ Populations

Trump’s administration has hooked itself to this losing agenda, and it was appropriate that Vice President J.D. Vance’s visit to Hungary further harmed Orban in the polls.

All of this is why the recent history of Hungary, and these elections, deserve our careful attention. Whatever the outcome, the will of the people to have leaders who serve them, rather than doing the bidding of kleptocrats and war criminals, cannot be erased.