Donald Trump has thrown his public support behind plenty of foreign allies ahead of their various elections, but the American president’s support for Hungary’s Viktor Orbán was qualitatively different from anything he’s done before. This was an instance in which the Republican saw a kindred spirit in need of a rescue, which Trump appeared desperate to provide.

To that end, Trump not only deployed his vice president to Hungary to campaign for Orbán, he also publicly pledged, just two days before Election Day, to “use the full Economic Might of the United States to strengthen Hungary’s Economy, as we have done for our Great Allies in the past, if Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Hungarian People ever need it.”

The message was not subtle. It also didn’t work. The Associated Press reported:

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán conceded defeat on Sunday after what he called a ‘painful’ election result, ending 16 years in power for a powerful figure in the far-right movement allied with U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Partial official results show opposition leader Peter Magyar’s party dominating the vote, in a bombshell election result with repercussions around Europe and beyond.

Orbán, who has long positioned himself as Europe’s most regressive and undemocratic leader, was trailing badly in public opinion polls in the run-up to balloting, but given the degree to which he and his party had manipulated the country’s electoral system, there were still some doubts as to whether the results would reflect the people’s will.

The vote tallies were so lopsided, however, that the center-right opposition party, Tisza, dominated anyway.

The obvious beneficiaries of the election will, of course, be the citizens of Hungary, who should expect to see their country move away from far-right authoritarianism, distance itself from Russia and embrace long-overdue economic reforms, all while strengthening the country’s ties to the European Union.

What’s more, as political scientist Jacob Levy explained, “It’s not just that Orbán losing inspires hope in other competitive-autocratic countries ruled by right-wing nationalist authoritarians. It’s that his loss materially changes things in those other countries, because he’s been operating as a headquarters and funding source for the international ideological movement.”

It’s a key detail. Under Orbán, Hungary had become an incubator for transforming democratic systems into authoritarian models. His sweeping defeat is a brutal setback for the broader movement. This includes his many admirers in the Republican Party and throughout much of the American right — including Trump, who enthusiastically embraced Orbán and welcomed him repeatedly to the White House and Mar-a-Lago.

The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg noted in a column, published the day before the election, “Orbán has long held out the system he created in Hungary, which he calls ‘illiberal democracy,’ as a workable Christian nationalist alternative to Western liberalism, and its example has proved enormously influential. In 2022, Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, said, ‘Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft, but the model.’ More than any other politician, Orbán showed conservatives worldwide how to use government power to wage the culture wars. He crushed a prominent liberal university, banned ‘homosexual propaganda’ in schools — a forerunner of Florida’s infamous ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law — and engineered the takeover of major media outlets by his allies. Steve Bannon once described Orbán as ‘Trump before Trump.’”

By Trump’s own admission, when he publicly touted “a strongman” system and endorsed the idea that democratic traditions needed to be overhauled, he made no effort to hide his belief that Orbán offered a model worthy of emulation.

It was a model, however, that ultimately failed, rejected by its victims.

No wonder the president didn’t want to talk about it on Sunday night.

The post Orbán’s defeat in Hungary is also a major loss for Trump and the right in the U.S. appeared first on MS NOW.

Author: Source Author

From MS Now.