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From Democracy to Dictatorship—Is America Going the Way of Hungary?
The calamitous first weeks of the second Trump Presidency look very little like his first term. Aside from the similar rantings and harsh rhetoric of both inaugural addresses this administration is making no effort to adhere to established norms of a modern-day democracy. Trump and MAGA have rejected reasonable appointments and pragmatic policy prescriptions and, instead, set in motion retribution, revenge and a wholesale executive takeover – blowing up the government – intent on ignoring the law and the constitution and 250 years of democratic tradition.
They are deliberately testing America’s patience, and the world’s.
It is at first hard to believe. But not if you look at the many signals that have been hiding in plain sight. His staff and appointees have been clear about their agenda to dismantle government from the get-go. The blueprint of Project 2025 has been their playbook, with two-thirds of his initial executive orders taken right from it according to CNN, and the focus on demonizing immigrants and government have been front and center since Trump came down that escalator in 2015. Trump’s coy pre-election denials about Project 2025 last year were always laughable.
If you look at one tell-tale sign of where this is headed look straight to Viktor Orban and what has transpired in Hungary. Many like to point to past dictatorships such as Hitler and Mussolini but we need to look no further than recent Hungarian history.
Let me get personal. In the spring and summer of 1990 I spent quite a bit of time in Hungary after the fall of the Soviet Union, the advent of elections and the growth of Hungary’s political parties. My colleagues and I were part of a group from the National Endowment for Democracy and the National Democratic Institute to assist in encouraging and helping parties with the elections to establish their fledgling democracy. We were given barbed wire pieces of the Iron Curtain by the American Ambassador when we met with him as symbols of a hopeful future for Hungary.
We were young; we were energetic; we felt we were doing important work. We were helping a number of political parties but one that caught our eye was Fidesz, a group of
30-somethings who had formed the Alliance of Young Democrats in 1988, were center left and committed to a civil society. They were smart, understood politics, and were well educated on policy – and they were fun to drink beer with after the meetings!
There were a number of key leaders of Fidesz — at the top, Viktor Orban, and close behind Gabor Fodor, Peter Molnar and Klara Ingar. They were committed in the early 1990s to civil rights, joined the Liberal International and were considered an example of an open, progressive, pro-democracy youth movement. In the late 1980s they were an underground collection of anti-communists who rejected authoritarianism.
That changed quickly as Viktor Orban moved the party to the right, and leaders like Fodor, Molnar and Ingar left the party in the late ‘90s. Orban increasingly became a strongman but not quite strong enough as he lost power in 2002 due to scandals and splits within his coalition. Not a good first term (1998-2002), sound familiar?
By 2010, Viktor Orban was back in power – no longer the young Oxford-educated disciple of the George Soros Foundation where he worked, but very much a changed man. For the last 15 years Orban has put in place a plan of “Christian illiberal democracy” that has become the MAGA example for Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson and the members of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) which will be part of Hungary CPAC for the fourth consecutive year at the end of May. They are joined at the hip.
Orban and Hungary are also the model for the Heritage Society’s Project 2025. The President of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, said in December of 2022:
“Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft but the model for Americans, Brits, Spaniards, Australians—everyone should learn from it.”
Learn from it they have. What we are seeing at the beginning of Trump’s second term is just what we have seen from Orban’s lengthy second term:
*A PARTY BUILT ON ANGER TOWARD GOVERNMENT AND SUPPORT FOR RIGHT WING POPULISM
*A PARTY BUILT ON ANTI-IMMIGRANT FERVOR
*A PARTY COMMITTED TO UNDERMINING THE JUDICIARY AND THE RULE OF LAW
*A PARTY THAT REJECTS CHECKS AND BALANCES AND USES “EMERGENCY MEASURES” TO EXERT EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY
*A PARTY THAT CONDEMNS THE MEDIA AND TAKES OVER THE TRADITIONAL FACT BASED, FREE PRESS
*A PARTY THAT UNDERMINES FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS
*A PARTY THAT FANS THE FLAMES OF VIOLENCE AND GOVERNS BY FEAR
What is the result? An electoral autocracy that uses the unitary executive power theory to control a nation.
What Orban did in Hungary to fire up his base with right wing populism and demonizing immigrants and focusing on so-called government “corruption”, Trump is doing in the United States. What Orban did to the judiciary with appointments and upending the entire judicial system, Trump is attempting by co-opting the Justice Department and appointing and electing loyalists. What Orban did in Hungary by creating a Media Authority and taking over independent media, Trump is intent on doing by embracing favored outlets and undermining and intimidating media that isn’t favorable to him. What Orban did by condemning elections that did not go his way and then changing the rules, Trump is fast becoming a master of manipulation. And, finally, what Orban has done to exert ultimate executive authority, Trump and Musk and their MAGA minions believe is coming quicker than you could ever imagine.
“There is a great leader in Europe—Viktor Orban…he is the prime minister of Hungary. He is a very great leader, a very strong man.” Donald Trump, January 2024.
“I think Orban made smart decisions that we could learn from in the U.S.” J.D. Vance, June 2024
“We have entered the programme-writing system of President Donald Trump’s team, and we have deep involvement there.” Viktor Orban, July 2024
As each day passes, Trump joins the “Dictator’s Club.” He snubs our democratic allies and embraces Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban and turns over the people’s house to the richest man in the world and lead oligarch, Elon Musk. Trump and Musk attack the courts where over 50 lawsuits are pending against their illegal and unconstitutional actions to gut the safety net, fire federal workers and shut down agencies and programs that help Americans every day.
The writing is on the wall. It is up to us to see it and understand it and do something about it. Now, it is up to us to flood the zone. All hands on deck – fund and support the legal challenges, elect leaders who will battle the march toward authoritarianism at the local level and in Congress, protest the actions and stand up for health care, education, the environment, and lobby our elected officials to stay strong. Flood the zone with phone calls and visits and attendance at town meetings. Rise up and don’t give up.
It is time to save our courts, save our free press, save our government that has saved us and the world for over two centuries. We are not a dictatorship. We are not Hungary or 1930s Germany. We are a beacon for democracy and freedom. Let’s keep it that way.
For a thorough and enlightening history of Orban’s takeover of Hungary and the Trump link see:
https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-orbanisation-of-america-hungarys-lessons-for-donald-trump/
Also:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67832416
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