Hungary’s Orbán and the Future of MAGA

by Leonidas V. Georgiou

Today’s national election in Hungary is closely watched around the world.  The fate of Viktor Orbán, the country’s autocratic president for the past sixteen years, will foretell how MAGA and other populist/nationalist movements around the world will fare in their own countries’ upcoming elections.

Donald Trump and JD Vance adore Orbán and his model of authoritarian governance.  They immersed themselves in Orbán’s campaign and have turned Hungary’s election into a referendum on their own performance in the U.S.  They apparently believe that “As Hungary goes, so will America!”

Viktor Orbán has spoken at CPAC events and has advised MAGA leaders how to transform America into what he himself has called an “illiberal new state that rests upon national foundations.”[1]  Orbán’s model of governance calls for undermining constitutional restrictions to the president’s powers and ignoring laws that safeguard civil liberties like freedom of speech.  He calls for interference with the independence of the judiciary and disregard for the rule of law.  Under Orbán, Hungary consistently ranks as the most corrupt member of the European Union.[2]

Populist nationalism swept the world after the 2008 financial crisis exposed contradictions and systemic failures in Western democratic states.  Globalization and governance by wealthy elites were widely blamed for the permanent loss of industrial jobs to China, the loss of traditional family values, the suppression of national identity and ethnic pride, the infiltration of displaced migrants, and the deterioration of standards of living.

Under normal circumstances, these issues would be treated as policy disputes to be addressed by the democratic institutions we have in place.  Political issues are freely debated in the press, and decisions are made in our elected legislatures and executive branches.  Disputes are handled by courts of law whose legitimacy is undisputed.  Western democratic institutions are well-developed and, in normal times, have enjoyed a well-deserved recognition and acceptance.

But these were not normal times.  After the 2008 fiscal crisis, circumstances were not normal.  Whether due to disinformation (fake news) or truly alarming legitimate facts, many came to believe that powerful elites had hijacked democratic institutions to the exclusion of regular people.  The legitimacy of elections, the legislatures, the courts, and the law of the land was undermined.  The electorates’ frustrations demanded immediate action, and the only ones offering quick solutions were the nationalist populists who positioned themselves as political outsiders untarnished by past controversial decisions.

In 2010, Orbán led his Fidecz movement to power in Hungary by demonizing multinational corporations, foreign-owned banks, the IMF, the European Union, and “criminal migrants” who altered the ethnic purity of his country.  He blamed globalization for all social ills and declared that the country’s sovereignty is under attack from the European Union itself, which Hungary had eagerly joined and accepted quite a few rights and privileges.  There was ample of evidence to support his alarming message.  However, the solution he offered was to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

The surge of populist nationalism was not limited to Hungary alone.  Versions of it appeared around the world, some from the left and others from the right.  Many of them followed Orbán’s campaign model to victory: they offered simple narratives that identified scapegoats and offered simple solutions, all at the expense of democratic institutions that safeguarded civil liberties but which arguably did not prevent the social, economic and political ills that had developed.

In Greece, the country’s severe sovereign debt crisis, coupled with fallout from globalization, illegal immigration, and the suppression of ethnic pride, led to the rise of populists on the left (e.g., the Marxist Syriza government) as well as on the right (e.g., Golden Dawn).

In the U.S., Barack Obama rode a populist wave that broke many norms and brought the candidate of “Hope” to the White House.  But Obama’s populism from the left pales when compared to that of his successor, Donald Trump, who implemented Orbán’s model to electoral victory.  Like Orbán, Trump bluntly appealed to voters’ fears and prejudices, and openly undermined the rule of law and democratic institutions that stood in his way.

Populist nationalism is fundamentally different from patriotism, conservative social values, the values of our Founding Fathers, and the founding principles of the Republican Party that Trump usurped and emasculated.  Trump’s notion that the land of Jefferson and Lincoln should follow Orbán’s authoritarian views and transform itself into an “illiberal state” is preposterous!

MAGA and the Trump-Vance duo are watching how Orbán will fare in today’s elections.  Will their canary in the coal mine survive, or will the rule of law make a comeback to haunt them?

[1] Human Rights Watch, “Dispatches: The End of Liberal Democracy in Hungary?” July 29, 2014.

[2]  See, e.g., Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, 2025.