The slide towards authoritarianism in Hungary is happening right now

Brussels Signal ^ | 7/24/26 | Rodrigo Ballester

[EnderWiggin1970]

hat is an “illiberal democracy”? Ever since Viktor Orbán coined the term, it has sparked endless debate. In reality, though, the answer is simple: It is the opposite of a liberal autocracy. And what is a liberal autocracy? Even simpler: It is what his successor, Péter Magyar, has been putting in place since taking power on May 13, 2026, under the complicit silence of Brussels and other European capitals that, until recently, were crying “totalitarian wolf” every other day.

Sorry to disappoint you, but Hungary’s autocratic drift is happening now, not before. In the span of two highly productive weeks, Péter Magyar, the darling of the self-proclaimed virtuous camp, managed to force out the country’s legitimate president after harassing him from the moment of his election victory, prevent half of the opposition from running in the 2030 parliamentary elections, remove four Constitutional Court judges from office, pull the plug on the news output of the public media and launch a judicial raid on the offices housing Fidesz’s servers in order to seize all of its databases, taking its website offline. An autocratic grand slam achieved in record time.

Let us take a closer look. The first victim of what might be called the Magyar whirlwind was president Tamás Sulyok, who had been elected by the Hungarian parliament in February 2024 and whose term was supposed to run until 2029. His powers were extremely limited, and he exercised them with restraint and neutrality. He oversaw an exemplary transition to the new government, without obstruction or delaying tactics of any kind. And yet Magyar had targeted him from the moment of his victory speech and did everything possible to force him to resign, setting a May 31 deadline for him to stand down...

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TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: agitprop; fidesz; hungary; illiberal; magyar; multiplenicks; orban; petermagyar; viktororban; viktororbn

[EnderWiggin1970]

The playbook of the managerial elites is to use control of the institutions (media, bureaucracy, academia) to indoctrinate populations into "acceptable" choices. Once they have their people in power (either by election or steady accumulation in the government bureaucracy), dissidents are fenced out through a combination formal bans on political parties, lawfare, censorship and arrest of dissidents, fake news, and efforts as described above to root out remaining dissidents in government. Then they tell you this is all part of being in a "democracy."

[PGR88]

The EU in Brussels is the enemy

[catnipman]

” under the complicit silence of Brussels and other European capitals that, until recently, were crying “totalitarian wolf” every other day.”

yep, EU is just fine with leftist dictators, it’s the putative autocrats slightly to the right of center that they hate and attack relentlessly ...

[Tench_Coxe]

There is a group handles that were ecstatic earlier this year that I suspect will be dead silent on this subject, eiether because they’re paid or support what is happening in Hungary.

[nwrep]

Magyar is no different than Chavez - a dictator.

[Rocco DiPippo]

"There is a group handles that were ecstatic earlier this year that I suspect will be dead silent on this subject, eiether because they’re paid or support what is happening in Hungary."

Correct. They're called "Zeepers" and they were ecstatic when Orban lost. "A victory for democracy!" they screeched. "Goodbye, Putin lackey!," they cried.

And the reason they did so is simple: Zeepers' only loyalties are to Yookville and to their obsessive hatred of Russia, which they think is still the Soviet Union. Check their taglines and "about" pages: Their loyalties are not to the US, not to Canada, not to France etc., but to Yookville. That, in conjunction with their reflexive hatred of "Soviet" Russia, makes them either blind to reality or in agreement with leftist totalitarianism and globalism as prescribed by the vile European Parliament, to which Magyar is deeply beholden.

Orban was standing in the way of the shoveling of more EU citizens' money into the hyper-corrupt clown country of Yookville, hence Zeepers' intense animosity towards him.

Zeepers are anti-democracy, pro-EU Parliament, globalism-loving, Yookville-worshiping propagandists. They hate everything and anyone who criticizes their beloved Yookville and its leather-clad, grifting, gay dancing, midget Darth Vader-looking clown "leader." And that includes any US politician, including VP Vance and President Trump, who does so.

[sauropod]

.

[tlozo]

LOL, the author, Rodrigo Ballester is a rabid Orban fan, who had no problem with Viktor Orbán who stayed in power for 16 years by systematically reshaping Hungary's political system, utilizing electoral gerrymandering, and consolidating media control.

Now, the new government has instituted term limits, and according to the author, the "authoritarianism in Hungary is happening right now". Ridiculous.