From USA to Hungary in One Election

Miklos Haraszti - View of USA From HungaryHungary, my country, has in the past half-decade morphed from an exemplary post-Cold War democracy into a populist autocracy. Here are a few eerie parallels that have made it easy for Hungarians to put Donald Trump on their political map: Prime Minister Viktor Orban has depicted migrants as rapists, job-stealers, terrorists and “poison” for the nation, and built a vast fence along Hungary’s southern border. The popularity of his nativist agitation has allowed him to easily debunk as unpatriotic or partisan any resistance to his self-styled “illiberal democracy,” which he said he modeled after “successful states” such as Russia and Turkey.

No wonder Orban feted Trump’s victory as ending the era of “liberal non-democracy,” “the dictatorship of political correctness” and “democracy export.” The two consummated their political kinship in a recent phone conversation; Orban is invited to Washington, where, they agreed, both had been treated as “black sheep.”

When friends encouraged me to share my views on the US election, they may have looked for heartening insights from a member of the European generation that managed a successful transition from Communist autocracy to liberal constitutionalism. Alas, right now I find it hard to squeeze hope from our past experiences, because halting elected post-truthers in countries split by partisan fighting is much more difficult than achieving freedom where it is desired by virtually everyone…

The world is looking at the United States now in a way that we never thought would be possible: fretting that the “deals” of its new president will make the world’s first democracy more similar to that of the others. I wish we onlookers could help the Americans in making the most out of their hard-to-change Constitution. We still are thankful for what they gave to the world, and we will be a bit envious if they can stop the fast-spreading plague of national populism.

–Miklos Haraszti
I Watched a Populist Leader Rise in My Country. That’s Why I’m Genuinely Worried for America.

One thought on “From USA to Hungary in One Election

  1. It’s growing all over the rich(er) countries. The income inequality (and difference in economic security) between financial-services jobs and blue-collar jobs has backfired; it hasn’t trickled down. Even fairly well-off blue-collar workers are insecure about their futures. One false move and you’re in big trouble. That’s not the case for financial workers. And we’ve created the boom in financial jobs by requiring those corporations and their investors to pay less taxes — hence, less funding for a safety net. The “knowledge economy” isn’t viable.

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