Hungary opposition figures urge Democrats to organize against autocratic takeover by Trump; The Guardian, July 16, 2025

Robert Tait , The Guardian; Hungary opposition figures urge Democrats to organize against autocratic takeover by Trump

[Kip Currier: It's clear Trump 2.0 is using the autocratic takeover playbook of Hungary's Viktor Orbán. As this article points out, autocrats work to cut off access to public broadcasting where people can get fact-based information. Just look to what the Trump and the GOP are doing to public media in the U.S. right now: 

"GOP-led Senate votes to cancel $9 billion in funding for foreign aid, NPR and PBS".]

[Excerpt]

"Hungary, a European Union and Nato member, is often cited as an example of a formerly liberal democracy devolving into a competitive autocracy. Orbán – who has trumpeted his belief in “illiberal democracy” – has cemented his power over the courts, the media and universities during 15 years in office and four consecutive election victories.

Addressing a webinar organized by the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based thinktank, Cseh warned US voters against believing their country was immune to such developments.

“I do believe that many Americans think this is something that also only happens to others, and I think that mindset has to be fought,” she said.

“Start preparing for the midterms like yesterday. Go to every protest, go to every march, stand right beside everybody who is being attacked, no matter if it is a group you belong to, or something that you do not share personally. You have to stand side by side [with] each other and help and support those who might feel isolated and alone.”

She urged Democrats and activists to form a widely inclusive “movement” and find “candidates for the midterms or any election that is coming your way who can get people excited – not necessarily the same old faces they have been seeing all the time that they don’t really trust that much, but visionary leaders … who are part of a community, who are being persecuted.”

Leaders such as Trump and Orbán could only be effectively opposed, she said, by ditching a “legalistic, technical, technocratic approach” in favor of “something for the electorate to be excited about”.

“Autocrats are not always good in governing. So cost of living, crisis of healthcare, education – if the focus is shifted to these areas, and not only technical descriptions of what’s going on in the courts, this is something that people can relate to more.”

The parallels with Hungary came as opinion polls show Orbán on course to lose next year’s general election to the opposition Tisza party, led by Péter Magyar, a former member of the prime minister’s party...

Panyi said Trump’s attempts to slash funding for public broadcasters such as PBS and Voice of America were also inspired by Orbán.

“[Orbán] went after public radio, public TV, and in a matter of a couple of months, it was already transformed into propaganda,” he said. “It’s scary to see similar things happening in the United States. Solidarity is especially important, so whenever there are similar things happening, there should be protests. Journalists should support their colleagues and tell readers that if it happens to one outlet, it can happen to others as well.”

The Trump administration pushed out a university president – its latest bid to close the American mind; The Guardian, July 7, 2025

Robert Reich, The Guardian ; The Trump administration pushed out a university president – its latest bid to close the American mind

"Let’s be clear: DEI, antisemitism and transgender athletes are not the real reasons for these attacks on higher education. They’re excuses to give the Trump regime power over America’s colleges and universities.

Why do Trump and his lackeys want this power?

They’re following Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s playbook for creating an “illiberal democracy” – an authoritarian state masquerading as a democracy. The playbook goes like this:

First, take over military and intelligence operations by purging career officers and substituting ones personally loyal to you. Check.

Next, intimidate legislators by warning that if they don’t bend to your wishes, you’ll run loyalists against them. (Make sure they also worry about what your violent supporters could do to them and their families.) Check.

Next, subdue the courts by ignoring or threatening to ignore court rulings you disagree with. Check in process.

Then focus on independent sources of information. Sue media that publish critical stories and block their access to news conferences and interviews. Check.

Then go after the universities."

What did Pope Francis think of JD Vance? His view was more than clear; The Guardian, April 23, 2025

Jan-Werner Müller , The Guardian; What did Pope Francis think of JD Vance? His view was more than clear

"We might never quite know what Pope Francis said to the US vice-president during their very brief meeting on Sunday. In the widely shared video clip, it was hardly audible. The morning after, Francis died, and Vance jetted to visit India, finding time to tweet that his heart went out to the millions of Christians who loved Francis (implying, I suppose, that not all Catholics loved him) and patronizing the dead pontiff by calling one of his homilies “really quite beautiful”).

Francis had been as outspoken as could be without naming names, when he criticized Vance in his February letter to US bishops; but he was not just registering his rebuke of Trump and Vance’s cruel treatment of refugees and migrants; he was reacting to a broader trend of instrumentalizing religion for nationalist and authoritarian populism...

Francis, in a letter to US bishops, instructed the flock that “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings!”

He added, driving home the rebuke without naming names, that “the true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ … that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.” Apparently, Cardinal Pietro Parolin was dispatched on Saturday to explain all this to Vance again.

Vance is not the only far-right populist who has smuggled nationalism into what he touts as the correct notion of Christianity. Viktor Orbán, a great model for Vance and other self-declared US “post-liberals” (meaning: anti-liberals), has been declaring for years that a proper understanding of “Christian Democracy” is not only “illiberal”, but nationalist."

America’s Future Is Hungary; The Atlantic, May 2025

Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic; America’s Future Is Hungary

MAGA conservatives love Viktor Orbán. But he’s left his country corrupt, stagnant, and impoverished.

"He rhapsodizes about family values, even though his government spends among the lowest amounts per capita on health care in the EU, controls access to IVF, and notoriously decided to pardon a man who covered up sexual abuse in children’s homes.

Orbán also talks a lot about “the people” while using his near-absolute power not to build Hungarian prosperity but to enrich a small group of wealthy businessmen, some of whom are members of his family. In Budapest, these oligarchs are sometimes called NER, or NER-people, or NERistan—nicknames that come from Nemzeti Együttműködés Rendszere or System of National Cooperation, the Orwellian name that Orbán gave to his political system—and they benefit directly from their proximity to the leader. Direkt36, one of the few remaining investigative-journalism teams in Hungary, recently made a documentary, The Dynasty, showing, for example, how competitions for state- and EU-funded contracts, starting in about 2010, were deliberately designed so that Elios Innovatív, an energy company co-owned by Orbán’s son-in-law István Tiborcz, would win them. The EU eventually looked into 35 contracts and found serious irregularities in many of them, as well as evidence of a conflict of interest. (In a 2018 statement, Elios said that it had followed legal regulations, which is no doubt true; the whole point of this system is that it is legal.)"

‘In a real sense, US democracy has died’: how Trump is emulating Hungary’s Orbán; The Guardian, February 7, 2025

David Smith in Washington, The Guardian; ‘In a real sense, US democracy has died’: how Trump is emulating Hungary’s Orbán

"pitiless crackdown on on illegal immigration. A hardline approach to law and order. A purge of “gender ideology” and “wokeness” from the nation’s schools. Erosions of academic freedom, judicial independence and the free press. An alliance with Christian nationalism. An assault on democratic institutions.

The “electoral autocracy” that is Viktor Orbán’s Hungary has been long revered by Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) movement. Now admiration is turning into emulation. In the early weeks of Trump’s second term as US president, analysts say, there are alarming signs that the Orbánisation of America has begun.

With the tech billionaire Elon Musk at his side, Trump has moved with astonishing velocity to fire critics, punish media, reward allies, gut the federal government, exploit presidential immunity and test the limits of his authority. Many of their actions have been unconstitutional and illegal. With Congress impotent, only the federal courts have slowed them down."