April 13, 2026
On Sunday, it happened: Viktor Orban was defeated. In an election with the highest voter turnout in Hungarys democratic history, Peter Magyar’s Tisza Party won a two-thirds supermajority, enough to alter the constitution that Orban had rewritten to shore up his power.
Some admirers of Orban have argued that the fact that he lost proves he was never an autocrat to begin with. What it really demonstrates, however, is that opposition to Fidesz was so strong it was able to overwhelm all the structures Orban put in place to protect his rule: wildly distorted voting districts, a captured media, state-sponsored propaganda, local patronage networks, and widespread threats and intimidation.
He’s the first of the filth to fall.
This is encouraging, in that things in Hungary got bad enough to oust the dictator. Sadly, I think it will take the coming financial collapse to change enough minds to oust Trump, and that ouster can only happen if Trump is unable to cement his grip on power, which he is working hard to do.
The US would already have been in recession if it wasn’t pumping hundreds of billions into the hugely unprofitable AI bubble.
This recent blockade at Hormuz is another move to pump the US economy, since the US produces a lot of oil, and is also selling at the very high market rate.
That regular people are paying for it is just annoying details.
That regular people are paying for it is just annoying details.
That little annoying detail is likely to cost them the midterms.
Because, apparently, despite everything their base has put up with already, high gas prices are the one thing they will not tolerate. They’re either very confident in their ability to cheat in the midterms, or they’ve made a very grave mistake.
This might be naive but it seems like cheating can only tip things so far in their favour. Perhaps in North Korea you can have Kim elected with 99% support, but aparently you cant just make up the numbers in the US.
I expect things will get desperate in the coming months.
I suspect Trump will try heavy handed public policy, like interfering with interest rates, or handouts for business. Then maybe even a false flag incident in September or so, intending to declare a national emergency.
!remindme in 6 months
I don’t understand all this hype over a far-right leader who, until just yesterday, supported all of Orbán’s policies.
hopefully they already have a plan on how to reverse the rules and constitutional changes implemented by orban. In order to change Hungarian constitution back to democratic rules. If they only start to discuss this now, it will be difficult to implement and impede the autocratic powers from gaining power ever again.
They’ve secured a supermajority, if my read of the results is right. So, the latitude for serious changes is pretty wide.
Im so gunshy now soemthing like this does not mean enough until it goes for a year or so. I wonder if anyone else is effected by propoganda like I am. Like it turns me off. I sometimes wonder if they sow the seeds of defeat by projecting their message.
Why is my bullshit meter going off? All I’m hearing is about how Orban is bad, which I agree with. But I hear nothing of the other guy, and it’s making me think to the Yevgeny Prigozhin death, who IMHO, was an even worse option than Putin.
But I hear nothing of the other guy
If you read the article, you would hear some things about the other guy. Half the article was about him.
To recap:
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center-right instead of authoritarian-right
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European/NATO/EU-aligned instead of Russian-aligned
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Still anti-immigrant
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Probably not pro-LGBT+, but seems to be a lot less anti-LGBT+ than Orban – Doesn’t show up for Pride events, but also doesn’t demonize LGBT+ people in every speech like Orban did.
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No ties to Israel or Russia.
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Promises to prosecute members of the Orban regime who enriched themselves at taxpayer expense.
A mixed bag, certainly. Could be better … but could also be worse. The important thing is that he’ll – hopefully – restore fair democracy in the country, undoing Orban’s corruption of the election process and giving others a fair chance at winning in the next election. So, hopefully, the next election could bring in somebody even better.
You’re right on all fronts about me, but in my defense, I’ve given up on the War Crimes Times. So I take it that’s it’s a bad, which is better than worse? And Orban supporters think that he lost because Orban wasn’t bad/authoritarian enough?
He’s not perfect, but perfect is the enemy of good. Sometimes a small w is all you’re going to get.
Which is what my initial question was. Is he actually “good” or is just “Not Orban”?
Not being Orban with different ideas on key points is certainly a big part of it. He does have political experience, says he wants to tackle corruption, is more pro-EU and perhaps Ukraine as well
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Everything I read about him, to me, reads as a controlled opposition / “alternative” and things will mostly be business as usual for him, with the caveat that his party is staunchly anti-government corruption, although I have seen anti-corruption gut perfectly good government offices and programs (looking at you DOGE and MUSKYBOI)
I don’t share the elation of everyone else, but I am also not Hungarian, my hopes and thoughts are with them.
I would agree, except that the controlled opposition is designed to:
- lose unless electorally impossible
- differ from their opponent only in minimal ways
- never draw attention to the criminality
I think that in this example, he doesn’t pass enough tests to be controlled opposition, but that does not mean that they can’t gain control of him after the fact through threats, intimidation, and bribery. There seems to have been plenty of that going around.
Yeah, that’s kinda my fear. That whomever comes after him, will not just be worse than him, but also worse than Orban. And it’s simply because the new guy won’t change a damn thing. But again, not a Hungarian, just speaking as someone in USA, that there was no change during Obama, and I expect the person after Trump will be a milquetoast/corporate Democrat, and it will lead to someone worse than Trump.
