Hungary’s outgoing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was hailed by the U.S. right as a Trump-like authoritarian. Orbán, an anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-feminist macho man who self-described as “illiberal,” was the Heritage Foundation’s darling. As foundation president Kevin Roberts described Orbán’s ‘soft dictatorship,’ Hungary was “not just a model . . . but the model,” presumably for turning the U.S. into full-fledged fascism following Project 2025’s blueprint.
As Steve Bannon put it, Orbán was “Trump before Trump.” In power for 16 years, Orbán was called a “21st-century dictator,” a populist strongman, and an authoritarian capitalist. Deliberately pulling Hungary’s “illiberal state” model away from Western European dogmas Orbán considered too egalitarian and liberal, he drew inspiration instead from the oppressive dictatorships of Turkey, Russia and China.
Trump, Vance and the architects of Project 2025, in turn, drew inspiration from Orbán.
Similarities between Orbán and Trump are no accident
Orbán deliberately eroded free markets and the rule of law, goals Trump has adopted with uneven success. Orbán damaged the Hungarian economy through crony capitalism and corruption. He, like Trump, concentrated economic power by empowering and enriching loyalists while weakening the judiciary. Like Trump’s latest moves to ‘own’ equity stakes in corporations seeking regulatory approval, Orbán also created a high-corruption environment that concentrated power among loyalists, widening the gap between Hungary’s haves and have-nots.
Orbán also used the weight of a fascist state, including financial and regulatory measures, to silence critics and kill Hungary’s independent media. Trump flexes similar strongman tactics in the U.S. on a near-daily basis. From direct funding cuts, to FCC/ regulatory ‘investigations,’ to physical restrictions on journalist access, Trump has shown unprecedented aggression in seeking media control.
Critics also describe how Orbán routinely created “imaginary enemies” to distract voters, another Hitlerian maneuver perfected by Trump. From falsely depicting immigrants as violent criminals, to accusing DEI programs of ‘white bashing,’ Trump constantly stokes social division by creating then perpetuating imaginary enemies. Even during his infamous DoorDash delivery this week, Trump clumsily interjected “men playing women’s sports” into a staged conversation about taxes on tips. The forced non sequitur was awkward for its obviousness.
Let the repairs… begin!
Orbán’s delicious comeuppance—a real landslide, unlike Trump’s claimed landslide—will help restore Hungary’s ties to Europe, after years of Orbán efforts to sever them. It will also help Ukraine survive Putin’s illegal invasion.
Newly elected Prime Minister Peter Magyar has already said that Hungary will stop being Putin’s puppet, and will no longer block EU aid to Ukraine or sanctions on Russia. For his part, Zelenskyy hailed Magyar’s win as ‘the victory of light over darkness.’
The website Direkt26, a rare independent outlet still functioning in Hungary, documented how Orbán colluded with Putin over the years, with Orbán describing himself as a ‘mouse’ to Putin’s ‘lion.’ Just before the election, at a Budapest concert, thousands of concertgoers chanted “Russians, go home!”—a public acknowledgement of the problem and the same chant their grandparents used when Russia invaded Hungary in 1956.
Trump, Vance lose their poster boy
As positive as Orbán’s defeat is for Hungary, Ukraine, and the EU, the sweetest reverberations are yet to come— in the U.S.
In the last weeks of Orbán’s campaign, Trump, Vance, Putin, and other authoritarians formally endorsed him. Vance, who broke with longstanding US diplomatic precedent by campaigning for him in person, spoke at a rally in Budapest and declared, "We have got to get Viktor Orbán reelected!"
Double blind to irony, Vance urged Hungarians to act “with no outside forces pressuring you,” despite his own outside pressure on them. Vance seems to assume Orbán voters are as intellectually impaired as Trump’s supporters.
Best of all, Vance’s appearance helped the opposition. Magyar was able to use Vance’s 11th hour appearance as evidence of Orbán’s open embrace of foreign interference, contrary to Orbán’s constant harping against the foreign influence of Brussels, or the EU. Magyar, decidedly not blind to irony, used Vance to flip Orbán’s rhetoric against “Brussels bureaucrats” back onto him, using it to highlight Orbán’s own reliance on Trump/Vance/ Putin’s political backing.
Democracy: 1, MAGA: 0
The Conservative Political Action Conference (C-PAC), an amalgam of populist and far right activists undecided on women’s suffrage, converged on Budapest for four consecutive years to foster ties between America’s far right politicians and those in other countries. Perhaps, with Orbán gone, C-PAC will meet instead in Moscow. Good riddance.
Trump’s domestic agenda so obviously follows Orbán’s that someday, if Fox News ever decides to report the truth, voters in MAGA will eventually catch on. Orbán used consolidated cronyism and corruption to stay in power for 16 years. The parallels with Trump are obvious.
Come November, the parallels in their political fates will also emerge. As Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy put it, the most important lesson from Orbán’s landslide loss, despite Orbán controlling Hungary’s media and judiciary, is that “(E)ven a guy who rigs the system can be defeated when the people unite and turn out against him.”
Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.