Vance in Budapest: Viktor Orbán’s last throw of the MAGA dice

JD Vance will visit Hungary on Tuesday in an 11th-hour attempt to boost key MAGA ally Prime Minister Viktor Orbán before an all-important election on Sunday, but the U.S. vice president’s trip appears unlikely to swing an increasingly bitter race.

Orbán says he is “looking forward” to Vance’s trip, and with a Budapest press conference and a flag-waving rally at a 24,000-seat football stadium on Tuesday will be attempting to seize what momentum he can from it.

For the Hungarian prime minister it’s a singular opportunity to portray himself as the Trump administration’s pre-eminent European ally.

For the White House, the visit is a sign of appreciation that Orbán stuck with Trump through the tougher times — especially his four years out of power and his 2024 election campaign — when other world leaders shunned him.

Dislike for Trump among Hungarians is generally not as high as in Western Europe — but endorsements from the U.S. administration are far from a seal of victory.

While Orbán is a major thorn in the side of the European Union — he is currently blocking the EU’s €90 billion loan for Ukraine — backing him overtly isn’t meant to send a message to the rest of Europe, the White House official said.

“We need allies around the world that share our values over here and that have leaders who will want to work with us and have good relationships with us,” the official said. “That’s a key point we want to get across: that working with the U.S. and being close with the U.S. is a good thing.”

Isolationists in this forum who justify abandoning America's commitment to Ukraine because President Zelinski appeared in Pennsylvania in an appearance that seemed to support Biden's election, might take note of the direct and unmasked interference by this administration in Hungary's election.

Like the AFD in Germany, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary has swallowed the MAGA program whole. Unfortunately, the aping of MAGA goes beyond strict immigration control, which is the primary source of voter attraction to the AFD and to Orban's party, a measure desperately needed in Europe as well as in America, but it includes embracing Putin's criminal aggression in Ukraine.

The ascension of AFD in Germany to control is dangerous, not because they are fascist, but because they will sacrifice all to the policies of Vladimir Putin, his oil and minerals, and to their ambitions for a market in China.

The article notes:

Dislike for Trump among Hungarians is generally not as high as in Western Europe — where the U.S. leader has an almost 80 percent unpopularity rating…

This is a degree of animosity that I can anecdotally confirm among my neighbors in Germany. It was aroused not just by Iran but it includes Greenland, the abandonment of Ukraine, threats against NATO and a series of gratuitous insults.

Hungary is a parliamentary republic that has been described as an " electoral autocracy" or "hybrid regime" by the EU and various watchdog groups. Since 2010, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party have consolidated power, leading to a significant democratic backsliding marked by weakened checks and balances, consolidated media control, and restricted civil liberties.

Constitutional Changes: A 2010 supermajority allowed Fidesz to re-write the constitution, packing the constitutional court with loyalists and eroding judicial independence.

Media and Information Control: Independent media has been pushed out, with state media often acting as a tool for government messaging.

An EU that has imported the Trojans into its gort, I cannot understand why they would be do anti-Trump! lol

Europe almost destroyed itself 3 times in the 1900’s with its genius, now re-trying in the 2000’s. Socialism wasn’t enough these last 50 years, they’re trying self-invasion.

Eventually, they will succeed.

I doubt Vance’s trip will help Orban. A few Hungarian voters might be swayed toward Orban, but just as many would likely believe Vance’s trip is interference, and then there are those who believe Trump is responsible for the latest spike in global oil and gas prices, a growing problem in Hungary with supplies from Russia being hit. Many other local issues factor in strongly too*, and Orban’s primary opposition, at least in it’s platform and recent votes in Parliament, is as anti-immigrant as Orban. Some on FR claim this last is a facade by the opposition, but, Hungarian voters, at least as polled, do not seem to agree. Orban even receives a lot of criticism for bringing in workers from Southeast Asia.

*When you look at it, a great deal of Hungarian politics seems to revolve around who will give out the most bennies, with Orban as bad about that as anyone else, even accusing his opposition of intending to implement “austerity” (less bennies) though it’s hard to find much proof of that. Conservatism in much of Europe bears no resemblance to conservatism in the US when it comes to economics.

Wtf, over? With regard to Putin’s war of conquest in Ukraine, I usually ignore those on the internet who comment on what they see as a Trump/Putin bromance.

I skim over their posts speculating about what is behind it, from Epstein related blackmail, to simple greed due to Trump’s supposed desires to build resorts in Crimea and Russia, to what they see as Trump’s hatred of Zelenskyy specifically and Ukrainians in general as reasons to not help Ukraine against Putin’s invasion.

This trip by Vance to give support to Orban is going to turn up those voices to 11.

Accusing Orban of being in fealty to Putin is just part of the smear campaign against him. Orban's "support" of Putin runs no deeper than buying discounted Russian oil and gas - in other words, acting in Hungary's national interest rather than Ukraine's.

It reminds me of the hysterical attacks against Narendra Modi for "aiding Putin", when the extent of his assistance is buying discounted Russian oil, again, in India's rational self-interest, not Ukraine's.

It seems like those obsessed with Ukraine mistake indifference to Ukraine or putting their own national interest ahead of Ukraine's as being a puppet to Putin.

Moreover, restricting Third World immigration is an existential threat to Europe. Putin can't even conquer a 20% sliver of Ukraine, a third-rate country whose per capita GDP was about on par with Guatemala's even before the war began. He's not a plausible threat to any NATO country, article 5 would completely wipe out Putin's military.

Actually, this "isolationist's" view towards the Ukraine war isn't just motivated by a dislike to Zelensky, obnoxious though he is. It's motivated by the fact that who controls Crimea is of complete indifference to me and I really don't give a damn about Ukraine.

Now, you may ask why I then care about Orban and Hungary, or about the plight of the Afrikaners in South Africa. Apart from the fact that I have higher regard for Hungary and Apartheid South Africa than I do for Ukraine as nations and cultures, it's the fact that Hungary's fight against invading Third World hoards is the same as our fight and should be the Wester world's fight. Arab and African immigration is destroying Europe as Mestizo immigration is destroying America. Similarly, South Africa's Afrikaners are dealing with racially motivated violence against them by the black majority, just as American whites have to deal with racially motivated violence against them by our black minority. These are our fights, whose colored flag flies in Crimea isn't.

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