#viktororban

Ultimately, gerrymandering and strong-man domination weren’t enough to keep Orban in power as Hungary’s economy foundered and the public rebelled against overt corruption and grift. Conservative pols in this country should read the Hungarian tea leaves as a cautionary tale. But it’s the results of last week’s school board races that should really make them sweat.

Today was a solid victory for democracy and a clear defeat for the forces of authoritarianism — in Hungary, in Europe, and in America.

Orbán’s loss brings to an end the assumption of inevitability that has pervaded the MAGA movement, as well as the belief—also present in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric—that illiberal parties are somehow destined not just to win but to hold power forever, because they have the support of the “real” people. As it turns out, history doesn’t work like that. “Real” people grow tired of their rulers. Old ideas become stale. Younger people question orthodoxy. Illiberalism leads to corruption. And if Orbán can lose, then his Russian and American admirers can lose too.

There has understandably sprouted a whole journalistic cottage mini-industry to explain the inexplicable: Why has this administration shredded all precedent by going whole-hog campaign mode for the fading autocrat of a country whose GDP ranks somewhere between Greece and Uzbekistan? While I appreciate and learn from these efforts (and have contributed my share), there is, I think, a far more pressing issue for those Americans who may or may not give a rat's ass about Magyarország: Regardless of motivation, U.S. politicians are telling on themselves, and advertising their own potentially appalling behavior, by shilling for a proven anti-liberal failure.

Although Orbán’s political party has skewed governance in Hungary to make it hard for him to lose at the polls, as well as censoring the media, Hungarians turned out today in record numbers—77% of registered voters—and gave Orbán’s opposition party more than two thirds of the seats in the parliament, a supermajority that will let the opposition undo some of the changes Orbán’s party made to cement their power. Orbán’s defeat means that the parliament will name opposition leader Péter Magyar, a former Orbán loyalist, as prime minister.