by Ferenc Laczó
Given all the grave concerns regarding the future of democratic norms and institutions in the US, Hungary’s transformation under Viktor Orbán’s rule offers the kind of warning that observers would ignore at their own peril. Considering the key ingredients on Orbán’s recipe of de-democratization can also help us develop a sense of proportions and nuance about what is likely to unfold under Donald Trump’s upcoming second term.
What if the United States was transformed into Hungary?
Even a short while ago, the question would have sounded like the beginning of a silly joke. Today, there are genuine concerns that the joke might be on us.
The grave weakening of democratic norms and erosion of essential institutions during Donald Trump’s upcoming second term certainly looks plausible. As many in the US and across the globe fear, it might even be likely.
Populism may be too broad a term to help us analyze the ongoing, tectonic political shifts with precision. Fascism is unhelpful for the opposite reason, I find: the label is too historically specific and simply too polemical when applied to societies without mass parties and the experience of mass political violence.
In this moment of global concern, the case of Hungary under Viktor Orbán’s long-standing and often arbitrary rule offers a most relevant example of how that weakening and erosion could come to pass.
After all, Orbán has built something of a global brand over the past decade and a half by de-consolidating democracy and replacing it by his centralized and corrupt rule. His regime’s methodical transformation of what was once considered a ‘consolidated democracy’ thus offers the type of recipe – and the kind of warning – that those dedicated to the future of democracy in the US would ignore at their own peril.
The starting points for the two leaders look remarkably similar.
Orbán had been Prime Minister of Hungary between 1998 and 2002, briefly contested his 2002 election loss, and managed to return to power in 2010 with a much stronger mandate – just like Trump will coming January. By those points, right-wing radicalization had emerged as a powerful trend in both countries. However, the shocks that returned Orbán and Trump to power were primarily due to the heavy electoral underperformance of left-liberal incumbents who were widely perceived as insensitive toward the plight of ordinary citizens and incapable of renewal.
In terms of their backgrounds, proclivities and career paths, there are admittedly notable differences between these two leading right-wing politicians. Far from privileged in his youth, Orbán was an exceptionally talented student who held real intellectual promise. He launched his lifelong career as a politician in the late 1980s when he was in his mid-twenties. At 61 today, he is the longest-serving PM in Hungarian history. Trump – who inherited and squandered his wealth – comes from the interconnected worlds of shady business, celebrity culture, television, and social media – a world of entertainment and fraud, of superficial appearances and blatant lies. His late political career seemed like a crazy fluke until it didn’t.
Such differences – and major discrepancies between their countries – notwithstanding, their political agendas and practices coincide to a remarkable degree. Orbán and Trump are both opportunistic politicians whose winning formula combines social conservatism with ethnonational radicalism. Both clearly believe in their own intuitions more than in institutional arrangements. They demand strict personal loyalty and are quick to become vengeful.
Orbán and Trump both like to present themselves as protectors of their respective nations but are widely seen as divisive, even polarizing, politicians who thrive on conflict and prefer to play a crudely offensive game against constantly redefined, often imaginary ‘enemies.’ They are both remarkably attuned to popular sentiments – and eager to exploit people’s worst instincts for political gain. However, their politics are not populistic in the traditional sense of the word: they seem wholly disinterested and are in fact opposed to creating a more equal society.
Most importantly, Viktor Orbán and Donald Trump are both unusually talented, unscrupulous disruptors intent on reshaping the political system that handed them unexpected mandates.
Until now, Orbán has evidently been the much more strategic of the two – a key reason he has gained vocal admirers among those who favor a ‘conservative revolution’ against the liberal democratic order. Orbán has indeed succeeded in concentrating power in Hungary at the expense of the institutional structures and key underpinnings of liberal democracy – something his admirers hope Trump might accomplish in the coming years as well.
Fidesz, Orbán’s party, enjoyed a supermajority after 2010 that enabled it to remake Hungary by packing the Constitutional Court and weakening its overall mandate; by single-handedly rewriting electoral rules; and by introducing a new constitution without as much as consulting citizens or opposition parties. In the US, rewriting the Constitution is highly improbable due to its venerated status, despite demonstrable need for updates in several areas. Additionally, wide-reaching and justifiable electoral reforms could easily prove counterproductive for the Republican Party, making it unlikely they will be proposed anytime soon.
Trump’s second term will almost certainly prove controversial and may raise serious rule-of-law issues, including the possible abuse of the justice system for retribution. The incoming 47th president already enjoys significant support from Supreme Court judges, especially when it comes to archconservative agenda items.
Still, the transformation of the American political system during the upcoming cycle will likely fall significantly short of Orbán’s super-majoritarian overhaul back in the early 2010s.
Before returning to power with a constitutional supermajority, Viktor Orbán and his allies invested heavily in developing a partisan media. Their rallying cry may have been the fight against post-communist hegemony, but they looked to the US right-wing media ecosystem as a potential model. After Fidesz entrenched itself in power in the 2010s, much of Hungarian media became vulnerable to censorship or outright takeover. The financial preponderance of regime-affiliated actors, a revised legal framework and newly appointed media authority, the strategic application of political pressure and various media outlets’ dependency on state subsidies combined to exploit that vulnerability to great effect.
There is little need to fear an exact replay of this in the US. Although the country may see severe media attacks (some have in fact already been launched), influential media are likely to remain resilient to Trump’s ‘anarchy from above.’ Whether such resilience will be able to halt the rightward shift of the media landscape and broader political culture is unfortunately less clear – especially if the type of cowardliness spreads that made The Washington Post unwilling to issue an endorsement.
More recently, the Orbán regime introduced a new ‘model’ in Hungary that enables direct political oversight of universities. There are clear signs that elite universities in the US may also face concerted attacks, with impactful scholarship increasingly exposed to politically charged accusations.
A key difference lies in the direction of the expected change. In Hungary, the powerholders’ strategy involved de-etatization. State universities, previously dominant in Hungarian higher education, have been converted into private foundations with several political appointees in governing roles. In the US, where there is a robust tradition of academic freedom and private universities predominate, increasing state control seems the only walkable path for conservative revolutionaries.
Attacks on top universities from the right can inflict significant damage, as recent examples clearly show.
The good news is that the ambitions of ‘secondary elites’ are likely to be frustrated.
After all, the status of intellectual and cultural elites primarily depends on colleagues and broader audiences, not politically motivated investments. Political ideologues – think of Steve Bannon around eight years ago or Balázs Orbán in Hungary today – may rise to temporary prominence, but their reputations typically suffer as a consequence.
The clearest difference between the two countries is in their economies. Hungary’s economy is peripheral within Europe, heavily dependent on foreign investment, and reliant on imported resources. While courting non-Western partners like Russia and China, the Orbán regime has preserved the remarkably open and highly transnationalized economy it inherited in 2010. Although Hungary has seen economic growth and a consumer boom of sorts, it remains one of the least developed EU member states – and is in fact closer to the very bottom of such rankings than a decade and a half ago. Orbán’s rule has made a larger difference in helping to create a layer of truly wealthy Hungarians, many of whom owe their wealth to often problematic state contracts, not market success.
This does not align with the US economy’s basic characteristics at all, of course, nor with Trump’s declared agenda. The US has a robust, dynamic, if highly unequal, market economy whose global primacy rests on strong foundations – even if those foundations look much less unassailable today than they did in previous decades. It is an economy that Trump intends to turn significantly more protectionist, which is likely to hurt American consumers.
What unites Orbán and Trump in this area is that, notwithstanding their populist rhetorical appeals, they both pursue economic policies that increase social inequality.
It is ironic then that political economy may well turn out to be a major source of conflict between them in the years to come: the Orbán regime’s proudly propagated program of ‘geoeconomic neutrality’ is likely to be a major stumbling block.
The incoming Trump administration may prove much more forgiving than its predecessor when it comes to Orbán’s long-standing cooperation with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. It should be expected to be much less cavalier when it comes to Orbán’s deepening ties with China – an expectation reinforced by the kind of candidates who have just been named for the top foreign policy jobs, such as Marco Rubio or Mike Waltz.
If Orbán’s recipe of gradually and methodically dismantling liberal democracy is taken as a sort of negative ‘gold standard’ in the early 21st century, there is ample reason for concern in the contemporary US. We are likely to see a potentially grave deterioration in the rule of law under Trump’s incoming administration, however, one that falls short of constitutional or major electoral changes from above. We can expect damaging attacks on the media and higher education in the US but no new system of central control in these domains – which the Orbán regime has accomplished, paradoxically enough, via further privatization. Such deterioration of democratic norms will be combined with a more, potentially much more protectionist economic policy in the US, as opposed to the Hungarian regime’s continued preference for a multivectoral, unprincipled globalization – an area of potential conflict between the two strongmen.
Considering the key ingredients on Viktor Orbán’s recipe might thus help us develop a sense of proportions and nuance about what is likely to unfold under Trump’s second term as US President.
It seems to me American society is likely to become a lot less fair in the coming years, but American citizens are probably going to be spared some of the most stifling aspects of Orbán’s strongman rule – and remain much freer than their Hungarians counterparts.
My informed bet is that Orbán will continue to be viewed as the more strategic and methodical of these two, otherwise remarkably similar leaders – and be the one whose rule proves more durable. That may offer some badly needed reassurance for Americans in an exceptionally dire moment, except that Trump’s erratic behavior poses major dangers of its own.
