Will the U.S. Follow Hungary Into Autocracy?
As has been evident for a while, the Republican Party’s
ideologues have adopted the methods of Orban’s Fidesz Party in Hungary in their
bid to turn the U.S. into an autocratic, capitalist ‘illiberal democracy.’ Orban has become a European leader in the EU
for other far-right movements like Germany’s AfD, France’s National Rally, the
Netherland’s Party for Freedom, Austria’s Freedom Party, the Brothers of Italy and
Poland’s Law & Justice. The Israeli
Likud has just joined. Putin’s United
Russia and Argentina’s Milei are also parts of this reactionary political front,
but not yet formal members.
Orban has gained a main lock on the media; the universities
and schools; the judicial system; the Parliament; the arts complex, grants from
the EU; the banking and financial system and more. This was done slowly over 15
years, breaking laws and expectations, with the EU allowing some of it. The EU has yet to hold up some grants for
instance.
Fidesz revised the Constitution 12 times. They instituted gerrymandering, packing
opponents into larger districts. They
got rid of run-offs in elections. They
blocked joint electoral lists. They
removed many judges as ‘too old’ and appointed new ones of their own. They increased the size of the Constitutional
Court. That Court was outlawed from
reviewing budget-related laws, so the Parliament retained that power. The
Curia, Hungary’s top court, was put in the hands of a Fidesz loyalist. They extended the terms of these judges, then
created a new court system for administrative issues, all controlled by
Fidesz.
They fired many civil servants and hired their own
loyalists. They took over TV and radio media
by having wealthy supporters buy outlets, or putting them under a ‘Media
Council’ for TV and radio as government media or as paid outlets thru Fidesz
advertising. The Council enables censorship.
In 2022 the opposition candidate got 5 minutes on one station once.
All that the opposition had was on-line.
They use business patronage to deny funds to any opposition,
as businesses were afraid to anger Fidesz.
They outlawed sending political materials through the mails. They allow some people living outside Hungary
as ‘honorary citizens’ (Transylvania) to vote by mail while making it almost
impossible for actual Hungarians living abroad to vote. They have blocked foreign NGOs. They closed certain universities, while
putting a government body in control of the rest. They dominate the arts institutions through
financial grants. They are starving Budapest of funds for hospitals and more, a pattern that Trump is trying to use.
They stole far-right anti-immigrant and anti-Roma ideology from Jobbik, the fascistic far-right party - and built ‘a wall,’ supplementing that with culture war rhetoric from the U.S. about gays, identity and birth rates. Orban has just banned Pride celebrations in Budapest.
Hungary
& the U.S.
What are the differences and similarities between Hungary
and the U.S.?
The Republicans have pushed white Christian nationalism and
their targets are immigrants, Latinos and African-Americans primarily. The difference is that there are already
millions of actual immigrants in the U.S, so the rhetoric might be the same in
Hungary but the situation on the ground is completely different. African Americans, Arabs, Africans, Asians
and Latinos make up a huge percentage of the U.S. population, unlike the Roma
and tiny groups of 'foreigners' in Hungary.
Hungary changed their Constitution, yet changing the
Constitution in the U.S. is almost impossible.
‘Interpretations’ can change, as the Supreme Court is now in ‘originalist’
hands, but that is not the same thing. Orban
practices obvious gerrymandering, as is done in the U.S., always securing a
majority in the Parliament. The Republicans
haven’t achieved a permanent majority yet.
The small Hungarian judicial system was overhauled by Orban, replacing
many judges. The Republicans would have
to somehow institute a nationwide purge of judges in a far larger system.
So the MAGA strategy is to ignore rulings – to ‘move fast and break things’ while hoping
the Supreme Court will back them up. The
ability to ‘enforce’ a judicial decision on Trump is almost impossible, as any
decision against him has to be enforced by someone. He will not be impeached, as he controls the
Congress right now. They do not care about legality as they know the courts are
too slow, too obtuse or too cowed. Orban
has used a ‘state of emergency’ 3 times already, and Hungary is still under one
due to the Ukraine war, as part of a ‘unitary executive’ outlook. If Trump declares some sort of invasion or
Insurrection ‘emergency’ it will be harder to justify and might provoke military
refusal or acts of armed resistance.
Hungary has around 9.6 million people, while the U.S. has
340.1 million. Note, a smaller
population is easier to dominate. Hungary
has a very small bourgeoisie, including many cronies of Orban’s who he has
enriched. Farmers and petit-bourgeois small
businessmen support Fidesz outside of Budapest, as would be predicted. The Hungarian bourgeoisie itself has a narrow,
national profile and interest. The U.S.
on the other hand has a very large and powerful bourgeoisie, which is not of
one mind, but is split between two main factions, with some sectors switching
sides, as the tech sector has just done, crossing to Trump. A large sector of the U.S. bourgeoisie does
business across the world, including the Trumpist oil sector, so they are not
purely nationalist, as their relation to the world is transactional. The petit-bourgeoisie
in the U.S. is split between the professional strata and the businessmen/farmer
strata, but the latter - Trump’s voting base - is nationally oriented. Hence
class structures are different in both size and complexity in each country. What the nationally-oriented capitalists and
small capitalists forget is that we are in a world economy. Tariffs will make that quite clear, which is
what large capitalists are especially worrying about.
The working-class in Hungary is the majority, but still
small, with only one big city in the country.
There are more small farmers and fewer rural workers. The class structure of the U.S. is complex
and huge. The city of 1.6 million,
Budapest, provides the biggest obstacle to Orban. The next biggest city in Hungary has 115k
citizens, Debrecen. The U.S. has 9
cities over a million and 27 cities with populations from under 1 million to a
half million, so there are many more sites of opposition. If you look at metro areas, there are 54
metros over a million in the U.S.
Hungary is dominated by rural areas and smaller cities and towns. The U.S. is not, except in its undemocratic
Constitution which gives power to small states and rural areas through the
Senate, the Electoral College, the Constitution and now the Supreme Court. The
U.S. military is far vaster than Hungary’s and its role could become key,
especially if all its soldiers are not on board with abrupt changes.
The press in the U.S. is variegated and multiple, though 6
large corporations control nearly all content.
If those 6 could be intimidated into conforming then that would be a
victory for Orbanism. That is happening
right now in small ways. U.S. oppositional journalism is migrating to the
internet, as in Hungary.
The opposition to Orban and Fidesz is scattered, temporary
and weak. There is an LMP (Green Party),
a center-left Democratic Coalition, a neo-liberal Socialist Party, a
center-right Tisza grouping, a fascistic Jobbik Party and others, but they get a
minority of votes due to the system. The
opposition coalition in 2022 included some of these smaller parties and lost the
election. The opposition has no guiding
idea of the future except getting rid of Orban, using anti-corruption as the
main political angle.
In the U.S. the Democratic Party is far larger and more
powerful, yet comes off as weak, moralistic and yearning for ‘bipartisanship.’
Democratic Congress people actually voted for Trump cabinet and Supreme Court
nominees, for instance. It has no
guiding idea of the future except getting rid of Trump. So both opposition parties, while of varying
sizes, have no future outlook and come off as parties of a dead
‘establishment.’ Neither is oriented
towards the material needs of the working class or the future as they see it. As some labor leaders and Marxists have
noted, it is clueless ‘opposition’ parties that enable authoritarians and
fascists. Tony Mazzocchi of OCAW said
about the founding of the Labor Party in the U.S., that if we don’t win workers
they will move towards a far-right populist movement. A plurality of the U.S. population doesn’t
even vote any more.
Classes
Socialist transitional strategies are taboo in both
countries, as Parties red-bait regularly.
So the only opposition to Orban/Trump
comes from liberal or neo-liberal ideology, both ideas of high-capitalism. Yet capital is passing into another phase,
that of late autocratic capitalism, using Libertarianism. The oppositions are
living in the past as a result, as a stressed capital does not really need even
bourgeois ‘democracy.’
Orban himself came out of the anti-Communist student
movement in the late 1980s and many of his closest allies are friends from that
time. I.E. his government is
personalist, much like the Trump loyalists, chosen for their fealty and
personal ties, not for competence or knowledge. Orban is smarter than Trump,
though Trump is surrounded by think-tankers and Project 2025. Both represent an abandonment of
internationalism of a neo-liberal sort in favor of bully nationalism, a
perspective impossible in a world economy in the long run. It is a prelude to
barbarism.
Historically Hungary was in the Austro-Hungarian Empire
until 1919: a short period in 1919 of a Red council republic; a long period up
to 1944 of Horthyite autocracy and collaboration with Germany; 1 year of Arrow
Cross fascism and round-ups of Jews; a deformed workers’ state period until
1989 and then the re-institution of capitalism and the first institution
of bourgeois democracy. Orban and Fidesz
have now been in power for 15 years of that period as an ‘illiberal democracy.’ So the history of the 2 countries is very
different, with Hungary having various forms of top-down rule for much longer.
In Hungary govt. money is doled out to capitalist cronies,
families that have many Hungarian children and the comfortable
middle-class. The EU gives more to Hungary
than they contribute to the EU, and then EU money is stolen. It is somewhat like Southern states in the
U.S. who feed at the federal government tax trough and northern productivity. There are unions for teachers, bus drivers
and so on in Hungary but blue-collar workers as a whole are not targets of
largesse. Small villages and towns do
not have much support either – doctors and teachers don’t want to work there,
much like the U.S. Because of emigration,
possible political enemies, a brain drain, labor and youth leave for other EU
countries. This is not the same as in
the U.S. There are far more guns in the
U.S., while only a few Hungarian hunters have arms. This could prove to be a key issue at some
point. Catholicism is stronger in
Hungary than the U.S. In the U.S. 30% of
the population is atheist, agnostic or ‘unchurched.’ Orban heavily relies on religion instead,
creating a virtual Catholic theocracy even though many Hungarians are not
actually observant.
Conclusion
Orbanism is unlike classical fascism and should be
understood that way. Trump has a fascist
fringe on the streets in the shape of the 3%ers, Oath Keepers, Patriot Front
and Proud Boys, along with mercenaries like Eric Prince’s outfits. They are
backup thugs to be used at certain times.
But using complete state and street terror and murder against the
working class is not yet in their Libertarian wheel-house. They are going to try what I call the
Anaconda – to strangle democratic rights, public services and labor unions in
an attempt to privatize everything for profit, putting capital completely in
charge without as much bloodshed. This is how capital learns from its prior
fascist mistakes. Looting the public
sector is actually a sign of capitalist weakness due to falling profit rates, which is why they are desperate to privatize public sources of
wealth or destroy parts of the government that impede their profitability.
The upshot is that Orbanism, from these facts, probably cannot
be fully implemented in the U.S. as it was in Hungary due to differences
in culture, national size, class structure, legal institutions, ethnicity and
economic power. Democratic Party panic over Orban is designed to demobilize and
depress opposition. “Move fast and break things” will come
back to haunt Trump and his cronies, as is happening now. Orban took years, while Trump is trying to do
it immediately. The key thing, of
course, is the resistance of, not the Congress or even the legal system but the
general population, and especially the working class. Class struggle will have to go beyond
legalism and result in new forms of transitional collectivity, like workplace and community committees, united fronts, anti-fascist fronts and new electoral labor parties. If the population rolls over on
the other hand, then authoritarianism will be instituted, even in the U.S. If Orbanism fails, the Right may choose a more direct method... fascism.
Prior blogspot reviews of this subject, use blog search
box, upper left, to investigate our 19 year archive, using these terms: “Hungary,”
“Orban,” “libertarian.”
Kultur Kommissar / March 2, 2025
