Are Orbán’s Hungary and Trump’s America one and the same?
Barack Obama’s former deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, has pointed out some similarities between the America President Trump has created and Prime Minister Orbán’s Hungary.
Rhodes is questioning the future of the United States, were Trump to be reelected, in an article he wrote for The Atlantic. He believes a second term would transform the society and culture of the United States to be even more like Hungary, which the author finds worrisome.
Viktor Orbán has been the Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010, and along with Fidesz, has transformed Hungary’s former democracy into more of an autocracy in the past 10 years, according to Rhodes. Orbán defended his political plans to build “an illiberal state, a non-liberal state,” after his reelection by saying that best-prepared countries for the future may not even be democracies. Orbán believes that the Hungarian identity and his politics need to be the same, rooted in nationalism, and his party and he shall have the autocratic hand to guide the nation.
Similarities between Trump’s America and Orbán’s Hungary
PM Orbán worked hard to reshape the Hungarian democracy and its institutions by redrawing the parliamentary districts to better benefit his party, Fidesz. Much like how the Republican Party and its officeholders have taken advantage of redistricting in order to protect themselves.
Orbán also gave ethnic Hungarians living abroad the right to vote. The Hungarian government built a propaganda machine, by placing right-wing judges in courts and enriched the elite of business, who then funded Orbán in return, independent media were bought out. Meanwhile, in the US, the elite and the rich were able to obtain even bigger fortunes thanks to Republican policies, and the Republican Party secured their donations of billions of dollars to the party as well.
Fox News is one the American government’s tools in furthering their propaganda, as the network includes not only television but websites and radio, as well as social media accounts, which seemed to have played an important role in the 2016 election.
PM Orbán has weaved a narrative which focuses more on the shortcomings of liberal democracy and makes his nationalist vision of Christianity, sovereignty, his anti-immigration views, and his distaste in politically correct liberals look more appealing.
President Trump’s campaign and presidency has been similarly built on criticising former President Obama’s ways, the Democratic Party, and any liberal activist that dares point out Trump’s discriminative policies, as well as villainising immigrants and POC. And like in Hungary, allies and those loyal to Trump get pardoned, enriched and promoted, while he continually points the finger at someone else.
Sándor Lederer, a Hungarian anti-corruption activist, pointed out, that both Orbán and Trump’s administrations use the tactic of creating bigger scandals, as a way to distract people’s attention from the actual issues a hand.
Rhodes’ prediction for the future
If Trump is reelected for a second term, Rhodes believes that the United States will head into a more autocratic direction than before. Assuming the Republican majority remains in the Senate, Trump will obtain even more power, as courts and other institutions will be further turned to his own image, to serve him and those loyal to him, without any repercussions or legal consequences.
George Floyd’s murder sparked global outrage last month, with protestations in all 50 states, as well several other countries, including Hungary. Trump’s policies and ideals are deeply rooted in discrimination, such as racism, sexism or homophobia, and Rhodes fears, another term under his presidency would further his agenda and prejudice against minorities.
Rhodes also points out the importance of voting, but also that fact that concerns for democracy do not really mobilise people of voting age. Many also think that their vote would not make a difference anyway, so they do not even bother going to the polls. There needs to be something that hits too close to home to actually get people to practice their right to vote. Many Americans are hopeful that current events will have people voting in November, and changing the system.
Source: theatlantic.com
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7 Comments
Ben Rhodes is spewing Obama’s tunes in trying to destroy President Trump along with destroy the foundation os USA and it’s history !! Obama worst president EVER and a HUGE RACIST !!!
Saying that Trump has a hold on the media is a total joke. The communists in the media hate Trump. For the record, Trump is the best thing to happen to America, in a very long time. Thank God Hungary has a strong leader like Orban.
The Race riots in USA have been organised by the Left using Soros money ( as always) because recent opinion polls showed trump had increased his support amongst black people from 8% in 2016 to 27% in 2020.
It is a well known fact that if More than 15% of black people do not vote Democrat, the Democrats cannot get their candidate as President. It’s nothing to do with racism, all to do with the November election.
I sincerely hope the Left in Hungary do not use the same strategy of civil unrest before the next Hungarian general election.
Rhodes have always been a political hack and serving Obama’s anti American agenda is what he does best. Projecting their misdeeds onto others (in this case the republican party) is what leftist political hacks do for a living. Facts are irrelevant when it comes to smearing and they forget that Trump is only the offspring of the disastrous policies inflicted by Obama on the USA in particular and the entire world by extension.
All of the above comments are of course correct, but over the last 5 years since the migrancy issue has brought light to the truth behind these evils brought on by hippies that are funded by Schwartz the evil emperor and market crasher. It’s good to see more, that jump to identify what these see, rather than argue in the past as if it was just a conspiracy. The people, the many, now know…
In a wider spectrum, this is quite an irrelevant issue. The world changes at a speed which neither politicians nor scholars can deal with. It does not matter what we, one by one, may think, if we like it or not, what matters is that the U.S. and Europe are not what Trump and Orban imagine in their backward vision. Soon half of the U.S. will speak Spanish and Chinese, top students in U.S. universities are Asian, white America is destined to become a minority. Soon Africa will take over in Europe, with its youth, energies, demographics, hopefully building a better Europe than the one of the past hundreds of years, and China will rule the world. Religion will play a steadily less important role in people’s lives, all religions. Of course, things will not significantly change to the point that such changes will be noticed within months of years, but future belongs to Asia, Africa, and, to a far smaller extent, South America.
In front of this, in the global world of 21s century, Trump’s and Orban’s vision of a narrow minded society with walls, closed borders and supposedly pure ethnicities, which never existed anyway, appear pathetically backward. These “leaders” live in the century XXI with the mindset of the XIX. Look at Orban, whose globe is the one of 1914. They want to go to space but their idea of society is the one of the wasp pioneers, the one of fat feudalists and of horse-drawn carriages. Little men who think they are bigger than their shoes.
@Mario
LMFAO! Hahahaha!!! Soon half the population will speak another language?? Ha, i take it their speaking clear English now? Yes the top students in the US Universities are Caucasians… Africa has a long way to go before it can take over anything. I don’t see them organized anywhere to rule anyone. They’ve been the victims of slave masters and colonists like the ‘Italians, Spanish, French, Portuguese, English” and now they are all by choice of the last few hundred years ‘Multi-mixed some multi-cultural”, the latter being the groups that entered a country with a sought after skill, not just rounded up and beaten. There are 2 clear Globalist groups here that are at war, and for the sake of multi-culturalism, i don’t favor the multi-mixed(melting pot) as what is going on the US versus multi-culturalism in Canada and Sweden of the past. You can see what happens when you introduce too many of a ‘currently’ non-compatible people into a society, either because they want to live isolated, or because of years of beatings. The problems causing people to leave their homelands should be solved by fixing the problems there, not importing it for population suicide. I agree with Orban V, Trump(on these issues), Boris J, Nigel Farage, and the many others that know and reject the last century’s “Communist Dictators”, alive and well in the US Democrats and some Repubs, Canadian Liberals, EU, EUCJ, most of the Western Europe leadership. They are the typical case of the POT calling the KETTLE, ‘BLACK”. I might want to add that a lot of your predictions and perspective can arise from the use of too much Marjuana, and bad suppliers. You might want to look into that, i think in your case this is a serious issue you need to fix and fast.