Life in a dying democracy – an American journalist about Hungary
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Vox’s Zack Beauchamp came on a trip to Hungary to study the political situation, and he shared his experiences in a podcast (mp3) titled ‘Democracy dies in daylight’ with his readers and listeners – reported index.hu.
Hungary is slipping back to autocracy
The title reflects Washington Post’s well-known slogan, ‘democracy dies in darkness’. Beauchamp clears in his podcast that Hungary is only seemingly a democracy. There are elections, there is an opposition, but the country does not function as a democracy any longer. According to him, the country quietly backslides into autocracy since
PM Viktor Orbán slowly dismantles all the important components and institutions of democracy.
Hungary is similar to a ship made of wood on which all the floorboards are slowly replaced one after the other. After a while, however; we get a new ship, and nobody can say at which point we replaced the old with a new one.
The journalist talks about PM Orbán’s strategy, too. For example, he mentions that Orbán created his political support with the help of the problem of migration. He adds that with his “allies” he built up a media empire while he shut down other media outlets. Furthermore, he has packed the courts with pliant judges and gerrymandered electoral districts to give his party a permanent advantage on the national elections. In conclusion, he highlights that the prosperous Hungarian democracy, in the past eight years,
moved towards a kind of pseudo-authoritarianism.
as long as the economy is moved mainly by foreign companies (the ones after the fall into communist hands)
the economy won´t move very fast
Orban is not helping to create the real -Hungarian- identity, in the one hand “nationalism” in the other hand, “staying in the care of others” it is hard to understand the case of not having a common currency in the EU
a balanced Globalization cannot survive that way
after warr II, Hungarian made products as cheese that landed in Russia
the leftovers remained
now the leftovers became the strongest economy made in Hungary
when considering Hungarian volk a strong working Nation