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Gerald Koh
Gerald Koh
1 year ago

Interesting explanation as to why there may be valid reasons to be mindful of whether Orban’s government has authoritarian leanings – was an explanation, that, thankfully, did not dive into angry, easy stereotypes that the Western libs love to invoke but laid out some context behind how Orban has governed and why.

In any case, don’t mind me saying that I’m hopeful that he wins and continues to stand up to the EU and neoliberal intelligentsia of our 21st century globalised world

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
1 year ago
Reply to  Gerald Koh

This is an insight into the success of Orban and why the EU Parliament dislike him that I have not read before and is far more illuminating then other explanations. Basically he has done what conservatives elsewhere, particularly in England have failed to do – indeed not even attempted – namely to ensure conservative thinkers are in positions of influence.
Instead we have an anti-democratic elite who know better than the people what policies should be followed and ensure from their well paid positions of influence that such policies are followed and the electorate are nudged in the correct direction. Brexit was won in the teeth of opposition from both state and non-state players.
It was interesting to hear that referenda are used by Orban to embed popular but not liberal policies that even so called conservatives in England would run a mile from because they know they would be crucified by the so called liberal MSM. You can see who are the more democratic and why Orban is attacked by the self proclaimed liberal organs of the EU and MSM. He seems to be an effective conservative who listens to what his electorate want instead of viewing them as a basket of deplorables.

Margaret Tudeau-Clayton
Margaret Tudeau-Clayton
1 year ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

Some of the links are eye opening including to the upcoming referendum on gender ideology. ‘Alapjogokért Központ, a pro-Fidesz legal analysis and research institute, said on the matter. “Western political elites have basically adopted as official policy the madness called gender ideology without asking the people first,” .
Most people in most European nations don’t even realise what gender ideology is! A recent study (by serious scholars from Eastern Europe) showed that even the bureacrats in Brussels are confused!
Kováts, E. – Zacharenko, E. The Right-Wing Opposition to “Gender” in the Light of the Ambiguity of the Meaning of the Term in EU Documents. In
Politické Vedy
. Vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 56-82. ISSN 1335 – 2741. Available at: https://doi.org/10.24040/politickevedy.2021.24.4.56-82

Last edited 1 year ago by Margaret Tudeau-Clayton
Gayle Rosenthal
Gayle Rosenthal
1 year ago
Reply to  Gerald Koh

I would have to disagree. It’s a trashy, anti-intellectual rant from another progressive globalist who wants to see cultural norms break down even further in Europe. Because Orban is under attack for limiting pedophiles and deviants’ access to school children, and because he is protecting Hungarian culture and citizenry from migrant influx, it might be natural that he would expect to contemplate new friends in the future. With a friends like the EU, who needs enemies ?

Bruce Luffman
Bruce Luffman
1 year ago
Reply to  Gerald Koh

While I agree with you particularly about his attitude towards the EU, I cannot help thinking that all the aspects of government that Orban has used – contolled press, right types in important jobs and changing his story on sometimes a daily basis – is a carbon copy of Sturgeon and the SNP government in Scotland. The only difference is that she wants to cosy up to the EC – but in all other aspects, she is a dishonest dictator.

R Wright
R Wright
1 year ago

The fact that their nation has coffee shops dedicated to Sir Roger Scruton whereas in Britain he was hounded into his grave just illustrates how much things have gone wrong here. Hungary is now on my bucket list. Thank you for the interesting essay.

Last edited 1 year ago by R Wright
Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
1 year ago

“In the 12 years of rule that have followed three landslide electoral victories.”

“ Where conservatives in Britain and America can win elections but find their governance impeded by a liberal powerbase in the media, NGOs and the judiciary.”

“I don’t think that in Western Europe politicians would dare to hold a referendum about migration.”

“ Western European politics is itself undemocratic, as government policy is driven by a “very, very powerful NGO network, which drives this kind of ongoing aggression against those countries who would like to step out of line in migration and all these big liberal trends dominating European policy today.”

Who’s living in the illiberal democracy, us or them?

A Gramscian conservatism may well be the only way back. It will take an 8 year presidency, or 10 year prime minister, to even lay effective groundwork. What hope?

R Wright
R Wright
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

No hope. 12 years of Tory rule has led to no throwing back of the deep state, no bonfire of the quangos, no shredding of university funding.

David Owsley
David Owsley
1 year ago
Reply to  R Wright

because they are not Tory; they are not Conservative either…in fact they are not even conservative!

Insufficiently Sensitive
Insufficiently Sensitive
1 year ago
Reply to  R Wright

No hope. 12 years of Tory rule has led to no throwing back of the deep state, no bonfire of the quangos, no shredding of university funding.
Likewise in the US, the savage ‘progressive’ lock on media/education/government employees is quite well fortified against any mere four-year Republican administration. It’ll take a full root-canal of the emplaced savages to achieve ‘change’, and the Republican party is quite too stupid to even plan, let alone achieve it.

ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
1 year ago
Reply to  R Wright

In short ‘an absolute disgrace’!

Gunner Myrtle
Gunner Myrtle
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

What it takes is a conservative government that is prepared to fight the culture wars for keeps. Defund state broadcasters, defund and reorganize universities and the post secondary sector, restructure the public sector, stop funding NGO’s and other politicized publicly funded organizations, pass sunshine laws so people know who is funding organizations that intervene in politics – for example the environmental movement. So much of the liberal deep state is supported by taxpayers money that it could be crippled very quickly if a government had the resolve to do it.

Brian Villanueva
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

I noticed that too. The author used the term “liberal democracy” several times even though it’s actually a contradiction. You can be committed to liberalism (seeking to liberate people from restrictions to maximize individual autonomy) or committed to democracy (seeking to have the will of the majority expressed in the society). But outside of industrialized Anglo-sphere, these rarely intersect.
The Left today is more committed to liberalism than to democracy which makes them “liberal authoritarians”.

Brian Villanueva
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

yeah, the way it departs is by allowing the democratic will to be expressed in law rather than suppressed by courts and bureaucrats.

Kevin Carroll
Kevin Carroll
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

We had a referendum in Ireland in 2004 on citizenship. Because of the widespread abuse by Illegal immigrants.Trying claim citizenship.78% turn out. With 80% rejection of there claims. But still our corrupt eltes are trying to undermine the referendum result.

Lindsay S
Lindsay S
1 year ago

“I am very sorry that cheap Russian oil is now more important to Hungarian politicians than Ukrainian blood.”
I suspect it may also be more important to the people too. If the economic/energy crisis that is hitting us here is effecting the Hungarians too then only once we are secure in our own homes, warm and fed, are we able to think beyond to the needs of others. Looking after your families and your own basic needs first and foremost is not greed but human instinct.

Derek Smith
Derek Smith
1 year ago
Reply to  Lindsay S

They are also concerned about the treatment of ethnic Hungarians in western Ukraine, so they have tried to be neutral.

Lindsay S
Lindsay S
1 year ago
Reply to  Derek Smith

Which is completely understandable.

Brian Villanueva
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago
Reply to  Lindsay S

Such a line could only be spoken by someone who doesn’t have to worry about freezing next winter.

Peter LR
Peter LR
1 year ago

The power of elite liberalism was expressed here in the concerted attempts to overthrow the Brexit vote. Perhaps there has not been true conservative governance here since 1990: all PMs since then have been social democrats of one colour or another. The ‘burying of bad news’ by the legacy media in the Blair era continues now with the connivance of media tech elites banning information which does suitably gloss their preferred candidates. Maybe Orban is on to something. It reminded me of Singapore which has been a conservative economic success – do they exercise the same media influence? It’s interesting how quickly Covid has dropped off the radar in the Hungary hustings having had the second worst death rate per million in the EU.

Last edited 1 year ago by Peter LR
ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter LR

Nor do we have anything now that even remotely resembles a Tory Government. The Regicides of Margaret Thatcher have a lot to answer for.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 year ago
Reply to  ARNAUD ALMARIC

They possibly do, but they sensed, probably correctly, that Thatcher would be done for at the next election. Is Trump perhaps your hero? He is not mine, destroying the prospect of true conservative (not reactionary) government, and in any case a one term loser.

ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

Here in deepest Arcadia, the word ‘trump’ is only associated with playing of Bridge and Whist.

I know the Tory ‘traitors’ narrative was that Lady Thatcher had gone ‘bonkers’* and had to be replaced. No Englishman I knew thought that, and most were frankly disgusted by the antics of Hesseltine, Howe,Hurd, Major etc.

Judging by what happened, we were perfectly correct in our revulsion as to what the ‘traitors’ were capable of. Lady Thatcher had at least another four years in her, and her loss brought immeasurable damage to this country, damage that will probably never be repaired.

(* The Poll Tax on the miserable Scotch.)

Derek Smith
Derek Smith
1 year ago
Reply to  Peter LR

The Singapore government controls the media here – they own it. They would not permit it to become a cultural opposition to their rule.

Last edited 1 year ago by Derek Smith
Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago
Reply to  Derek Smith

The government in the US owns the media here, too. They just won’t admit it.

Ray Zacek
Ray Zacek
1 year ago

By government, you mean the Democrat party? Most corporate media coverage in the U.S. is an in-kind contribution to the Democrats.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ray Zacek
Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
1 year ago

One often wonders if the media doesn’t own the government along with multiple corporate interests.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago
Reply to  Hardee Hodges

Good point, and a likely one.

Insufficiently Sensitive
Insufficiently Sensitive
1 year ago

The government in the US owns the media here, too.
Er, it’s actually the other way around.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
1 year ago

You should try and be precise in your language on a forum of ideas. The US government do not by any stretch ‘own’ the media, otherwise why did not Trump own it?. Fox News? The media may well have a strong liberal leaning (on the whole) but that is not the same thing.

Insufficiently Sensitive
Insufficiently Sensitive
1 year ago

Opposition candidates are given significantly less airtime on state broadcasting networks than government figures, with the result that Fidesz narratives dominate the airwaves;
Gosh, they’re just following the lead of the monolithic Democrat/Media party in the glorious United States of America, who in 2020 elected the least capable President in their history by using ‘private enterprise’ oligarchs to choke off news which would have exposed his corruption to voters nationwide, and likely elected the Other Guy.

Insufficiently Sensitive
Insufficiently Sensitive
1 year ago

the opposition are united in an awkward marriage of convenience by one goal only: to depose Orbán. 
The 2020 US election was a perfect example of that effort of fanatic reaction. It’s been disastrous, as a win by Hungary’s opposition ‘coalition’ would be. All tantrum, no governance.

ARNAUD ALMARIC
ARNAUD ALMARIC
1 year ago

“All tantrum, no governance”, what a splendid expression!
It perfectly encapsulates what has been going on in the wretched UK for past two years, since the very start of the Great Covid Panic.
Well said sir!

Colin Elliott
Colin Elliott
1 year ago

The author describes Hungary’s policy with some disapproval, but I can’t see much difference between it and that of Germany, at least until very recently, and I’ve yet to see much proof of that change.
In both cases, they put their trust in Putin for national interest, not expecting him to do something so outrageous as launching an invasion of a weaker neighbour. Of course they are now between a rock and a hard place.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago
Reply to  Colin Elliott

And with Germany at least, it cannot be said they didn’t know all about Putin. Merkel said of Putin in 2015: “…he is living in another world…”. And still they kept entrenching both their dependence and their relationship with Russia. And I have yet to see a satisfactory answer why they did this.

Jesse Porter
Jesse Porter
1 year ago

Eastern European politics is very much similar to American politics. Historic forces are in contrast to today’s movers and shakers. Anti-Soviet feelings, built on the crass materialism of Marxism disguised as concern for the poor and powerless, while raping and murdering them by mindless policies of collective centralizing power in the hands of a relative few apparatchiks. Absolutely blind leaders of the blind piling them in ditches trying futilely to hide their mistakes while doubling down on their failed policies. And when it becomes evident that a number of the masses might be waking up to the idiocy that is destroying, diverting their attention with foreign intrigue and warfare.
The American socialism of Wilson, Roosevelt and Johnson, sold as care for the poor and downtrodden, in very like manner as European-Russian-Chinese communism, blinded well-meaning “liberal”, intelligencia to follow destructive social policies to the ruination of American culture and weakening of defense by over-reliance on military technology in place of moral backbone.
Europeans, including Briton, also eschewed morality as strength and solidarity as multi-culturalism, and surrendered to the invasion of savage and heathen forces interested only in plunder and pillage.

Austin Ruse
Austin Ruse
1 year ago

Good grief. As if liberal/leftist elites in the United States don’t do exactly what Orban critics charge him with. They dominate the airwaves. They dominate the federal bureaucracy.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago

“…Donáth is a Fidesz opponent straight from central casting…”

She sounds exactly like a member of the Labour party to me – blame the governing party for twisting people’s minds, because you can’t exactly blame people for not wanting to listen to you. Not that that stopped the Labour party, especially the Remoaner wing from trying that tactic very hard. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work well as a strategy.

Last edited 1 year ago by Prashant Kotak
Richard Goodall
Richard Goodall
1 year ago

The EU is not a liberal democracy. As a country whose people have experienced communism in their living memory what do Hungarians see? To the East a warmongering fascist and to the West a cultural marxist state run by diktat. Good luck to them!

Brian Villanueva
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago

Liberal democracy is an oxymoron. Either democracy or liberalism is the highest good; both cannot be. Hungary presents a conflict between democracy (the Hungarian voters’ will) and liberalism (Drag Queen Story Hour and Blues Clues Pride Parade). The EU chose their side — liberalism over democracy. As a result, they are liberal authoritarians.

Last edited 1 year ago by Brian Villanueva
Benedict Waterson
Benedict Waterson
1 year ago

Difficult to see how Orban’s position on the Ukraine war is much different from Germany’s, and influenced by similar energy considerations

Anton van der Merwe
Anton van der Merwe
1 year ago

The deeply flawed argument here seems to be that illiberal democracy is more democratic that liberal democracy because in the latter the metropolitan elite are more leftwing than the rest of the country. I suspect the author would feel differently if the leader of the illiberal democracy had socialist inclinations. Liberal democracy would suddenly appeal more.

Wilfred Davis
Wilfred Davis
1 year ago

I’m not sure that the point is whether policies are in this direction instead of than that direction.

Rather, it is whether the policies are in tune with the concerns of the majority of voters, rather than of an unrepresentative minority (an ‘elite’ exercising power or influence disproportionate to its numbers).

By definition, what is democracy about: the wishes of the majority of the people, or the wishes of a minority of the people?

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
1 year ago
Reply to  Wilfred Davis

Given how the majority has given up freedom for security in this pandemic, sacrificing minority rights enshrined in the US Constitution, what then? Pure democracies in history always have failed.

Brian Villanueva
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago
Reply to  Wilfred Davis

The Hungarian voters just gave Orban’s Party a 2/3rds majority in Parliament and voted to approve his family protection bills.

We’ll see if our liberal Western press can accept the results of a democratic election or not.

Dustin Needle
Dustin Needle
1 year ago

Well I trust the longest serving, democratically elected leader in the EU is being duly celebrated and feted in our media today?
I get the points made, and some of it troubles me as well, but it’s a reflection of the times. The seeds of the UK’s own “juristocracy” were planted in 1997 and have been operating in plain sight since 2010. The personnel it can call on from time to time on a range of issues is incalculable. The money it can draw on to run it’s campaigns of influence and resistance is enormous. The mainstream media is bought and sold, there is no challenge.
How big does an effective Government rebuttal system need to be to combat all that – and at what cost to the taxpayer? I don’t think it can be done. And Hungary is not a rich country.
No wonder Orban feels he has to do what he does to operate the country in the way his core voter base instructs him.
Congrats to Aris for managing to make his points far more effectively than any other journo I have read, which follows his fascinating piece Ukraine recently. Top man – more power to his elbow.

Douglas McNeish
Douglas McNeish
1 year ago

In the opening paragraphs I thought the writer was describing the dominance of the Democrat party in the US, what with tipping the electoral scales by legislation and silencing opposition views in the media. In an inverted paradigm, perhaps they have become a role model for Orban.

Insufficiently Sensitive
Insufficiently Sensitive
1 year ago

but it departs from the stated norms of European liberal democracy in a number of ways.
Funny, that. Can anyone identify who elected the commissars of ‘European liberal democracy’? Do any of those voters live in Hungary?

Alex Tickell
Alex Tickell
1 year ago

There is a covert attempt to equate the conservative “right” with the “Liberal left” in this article, which I dislike.
We may be seeking the same electoral advantages after the death of Democracy, but we have totally different goals, in that the left have descended into psychological chaos, while we conservatives are attempting to reset the destruction to society brought about by two decades of “liberalism”

LCarey Rowland
LCarey Rowland
1 year ago

Several years ago, my son-in-law, a US AirForce pilot, was stationed in Hungary, at the NATO air base near Papa, Hungary.
At that time, I often took pride in telling our friends here in the US that . . . my daughter and her husband, my son-in-law, were stationed at a NATO airbase that had FORMERLY been a Soviet air base. I would reinforce the statement with a brag:
“Now I call that progress!”
But now, with this discouraging report on Mr. Orban’s Putinesque shenanigans, I am hoping that the Russia-sympathizing Fidecz will not turn back the clock by supporting Vlad the Mad.
Let’s keep that airbase at Papa Hungary a NATO stronghold, no matter what Orban may do. And let us, as Allies, do all we can. . . to keep Hungary in the European fold. If this election does not work in EU favor, let us maintain a vigilance that will not permit Hungarian retrogression back to Russian concussion.

Brian Villanueva
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago
Reply to  LCarey Rowland

LCarey, please do not trust what our press says. Rod Dreher at The American Conservative has spent more than half the last year in Hungary and has done some truly great reporting, particularly on the family protection referendum that was on the ballot yesterday (and passed.) Your press (this author here is better than many) honestly cannot give you the truth about Hungary because they can not admit, even to themselves, that there is a conflict between democracy and liberalism.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 year ago

The Orbán model, that is to say the Soros model, has been more effectively duplicated in the US by the Democrat Party, which also has the support of Big Media, Big Tech, Bigs Pharma and all the other bigs.They put their heads together to steal the last election, and I’d give plenty to find out what criminality they will be capable of in 2024.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago

I understand that the Tories have a new MP candidate for a Kent seat, Invicta Suborban….

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
1 year ago

I expect Orban will get re-elected, but his stance on Putin has hugely reinforced the EU’s position against him, and annoyed the USA too, and the Hungarian people will find out the consequences of that over the next 5 years. What goes around comes around.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

Orban seems to have walked a fine line in trying to manage Putin. Putin has betrayed that trust and I might imagine concern in Hungary where many can recall the 1950’s. Few other places have had their hopes crushed so well.

Brian Villanueva
Brian Villanueva
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

The EU and the entire global liberal establishment already hate him. The EU froze his COVID aid because he dared to pass a law that children couldn’t have LGBT propaganda marketed to them. A law which was put on the ballot yesterday and passed resoundingly.

Orban gets 80% of his oil and gas from Russia. He has to walk a fine line because his citizens will freeze and starve next winter if he doesn’t. Were Russia to cut him off, you know what the EU/US liberal authoritarians would say: “gee, we’d love to sell you LNG… as soon as you repeal that law and let us sexually groom your 7 year olds again. Otherwise, you’re a dictator and we can’t help you.”

Peter B
Peter B
1 year ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

I see – let’s blame the stupid voters. How’s that been working for Hilary Clinton, the Labour party, the Remain campaign ?
EU bureaucrats (none of them elected) are surely in no position to lecture Hungary on democracy. Nor is the rubber stamp EU Parliament (negative value – can do nothing useful, but runds up huge expenses) with its maximum 2 minute speeches and MEPs unable to initiate legislation any sort of model.
Sure, there are things to object to about Orban’s control of the media. But the EU should put its own house in order before claiming to be an authority on democratic values.
As for cultural values in Hungary, that is surely no business of the EU.
I notice that there is no serious dispute that Orban won the election by a significant majority or that this was not an essentialy free and fair election.
I suggest we let the Hungarians choose who they want to govern them and that the EU should butt out. Their attempts to interfere are clearly having the opposite effect to what they hoped. But that’s the EU for you !