Amid Trump’s blasphemous attacks on the Pope, and his depiction of himself as Jesus Christ (which spurred massive uproar from hardcore MAGA cultists), another major story unfolded during the weekend that many Americans might have missed.
MAGA’s favorite autocrat, Viktor Orbán, lost the Hungarian presidential election on Sunday. With Orbán officially conceding, the opposition party has now won a supermajority in the nation’s parliament, allowing the country’s constitution to be rewritten, and Orbán’s corruption to be rooted out. The Hungarian people had enough of the corruption, and of the democratic backsliding. Through never-ending protests in the nation’s streets, democracy won in Hungary.
During his 16-year term, Orbán consolidated power, attacked democratic institutions, restricted and reshaped the nation’s media apparatus, rearranged the constitution including election rules, removed independent checks on his power, and enriched his friendly and family while his own citizens fell into poverty. Sound familiar?
On this episode of Big F*ing Deal, we discuss how Orbán took Hungary from a democracy to a hybrid regime, modeling the exact template for what Trump, Vance, and Stephen Miller have attempted to do (and succeeded in some regards) within the United States.
Domestically, Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson have led the Republican shift to a nationalist populist party, inspired by what Orbán had done within Hungary and Europe’s far-right (see Brexit). Nothing demonstrates what the modern day Republican party has morphed into more clearly than Trump’s endorsement of Orbán, JD Vance’s disastrous stump speech for the autocrat in Budapest, and CPAC’s entry into Hungarian politics. America’s leaders have been studying, and using, the authoritarian playbook.
Jo and Tara also discuss Trump’s insane attacks on the Pope, his blasphemous picture depicting himself as Jesus Christ, causing massive uproar within MAGA, and Eric Swalwell’s resignation from Congress.
All this and more, right here on The Siren Network.
