What Democrats Should And Shouldn't Learn From Hungary
They absolutely need to do a better job emulating successful resistance abroad; but they can't keep outsourcing their independent judgment altogether.
Viktor Orban conceded, Donald Trump never did.
These two basic facts, etched into history after Orban lost his election Sunday, quickly formed an interpretive lens through which to view democratic backsliding in Hungary and the United States. If you’re an American Trump apologist who won’t defend the January 6 insurrection, but you’ve also convinced yourself Trump isn’t some aspiring dictator—congratulations, you have a new contrast to contend with, and it isn’t favorable to Trump.
If you’re a liberal Trump critic who nevertheless dislikes the organized resistance to Trump, and thinks Trump critics overstate the danger to U.S. democracy, the story is similar. It took 16 years to dislodge Orban, and Trump’s authoritarian inclinations are more naked. Surely you’ve miscalculated, not the resist libs.
But at the risk of peering into an empty orb in search of meaning, I am interested in understanding why. What differences between these two bad men explain Orban’s willingness to accept defeat, while Trump goes on claiming he secretly won Minnesota and other states that have voted against him three times?
Maybe Orban only conceded because Magyar’s margin of victory was so large. Maybe he would’ve attempted a coup if the election had run closer. But ample reporting and testimony tell us Trump intended to claim victory on election night 2020 no matter what. He is different from Orban at least in this way, and it isn’t a meaningless difference?
I hope Democrats choose to learn from the Hungarian resistance—how it won, and what its new government will choose to do to restore democracy. Clearly the U.S. approach post-2020 did not work; just as clearly, Hungarians had more time to experiment with new strategies than we did.
But I also want them to be mindful of key differences. America remains a more open society than Hungary was as of a few days ago, but Trump didn’t concede and Orban did? What does that tell us? What if Hungarians had the luxury of waiting 16 years, and staking everything on elections, but we do not?
The fact that Trump didn’t concede could cut one of two ways.