Rising This Week: Liberal democracy
In Hungary, pro-Russian strongman Viktor Orbán's 16-year rule falls, delivering a palpable blow to Putinism and Trumpism.
When launching almost exactly a year ago, All Rise News put out a mission statement that began: “Global authoritarianism is on the march, and the president of the United States has cast our lot with the autocrats.”
The image of Vice President J.D. Vance stumping last week for Hungary’s pro-Kremlin strongman Viktor Orbán — with Donald Trump dialing via phone in for a personal endorsement — represented a stomach-churning illustration of that observation. Trump tried to sweeten the pot by vowing to boost the Hungarian economy if voters kept Orbán in office.
The people of Hungary ignored their endorsement.
On Sunday, Orbán lost the election in a landslide, representing a geopolitical earthquake rattling Putinism and Trumpism in its aftershocks. Opposition leader Peter Magyar and his party Tisza won control of more than two-thirds of the Parliament, amounting to a supermajority capable of delivering on Magyar’s promise of “system change” through constitutional amendments. The margin of defeat proved far too wide for Orbán to follow Trump’s lead and claim fraud. The second-order effects will be felt globally and within the MAGA movement. Vladimir Putin loses an ally whose spoiler votes helped block €90 billion in European Union aid to Ukraine. The so-called “illiberal democratic” model for Europe’s radical right in France, Germany and the Netherlands no longer feels so entrenched in Europe.
Inside the United States, MAGA’s intellectual leaders held up Orbán as an inspiration. The Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) has held four annual conferences in Budapest, celebrating and strategizing ways for the United States to emulate Orbán’s anti-democratic government. The gatherings marked a long-term investment into reorienting conservative intellectual thought into a global authoritarian agenda. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 modeled much of Trump’s agenda on Orbán, including dismantling the administrative state, centralizing executive power, and exerting control over the media and universities.
For Princeton University professor Kim Scheppele, the preeminent scholar of Hungary’s system of autocratic legalism, Orbán’s electoral rout represents a decisive victory for liberal democracy and a blow to the global far right.
However, she warned that Orbán embedded his political influence in private institutions that would outlast his hold on power.
“These institutions that have provided the training ground and the conferences and the sponsorship of CPAC, for example,” Scheppele said. “They have all been funded in such a way that they don’t depend on the state budget.”
Only two years ago, Magyar broke with Orbán’s Fidesz party, running as a center right candidate and achieving success as the charismatic voice of his party.
“Is he going to tack nationalist, or is he going to walk into Orbán’s system, sit in Orbán’s chair, and just drive the car from there?” she asked.
For Scheppele, none of the questions about Orbán’s remaining architecture of power, Hungary’s stacked constitutional court, or what Magyar will do about the supermajority power he has obtained should detract from the “immense victory.”
“The favorite children’s book in Hungary is ‘Winnie the Pooh,’ and everybody identifies with Eeyore,” Scheppele wryly noted, referring to the pessimistic and morose donkey.
After Orbán conceded defeat on Sunday, that mood appeared absent in Hungarian opposition media’s broadcast of Magyar’s victory speech. The enormous crowds watching along the Danube could be heard acknowledging the international impact of the victory in multilingual chants of “Power to the people” in English and “Sí se puede” in Spanish, as their leader delivered his remarks in Hungarian.
Back in the United States, Trump’s reaction to his failed attempt to prop up Orbán was muted. Trump did not react to Orbán’s defeat on Truth Social by press time, ranting instead about Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz — and announcing his plan to respond in kind with a U.S. Navy blockade. Domestically, Trump’s job approval ratings dropped to a new record low. Between reaction to the Epstein files and the Iran War, Trump’s former allies Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Greene have called to oust him under the 25th Amendment, as have more than 80 Democratic lawmakers.
Meanwhile, Orbán’s downfall exposes the weakness of the so-called “Trump effect” in Europe and the illusion of the illiberal right’s juggernaut.
Nearly one year into the launch of All Rise News, I’m proud of this newsletter’s global audience in more than 100 countries. This newsletter has always acknowledged that the illiberal forces attacking democracy, the rule of law, and people power are globalized and networked.
Jailed Turkish opposition leader Ekrem İmamoğlu stood among those heartened by Hungary’s election results.
“From a prison cell in Silivri, I send my warmest congratulations to the Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar and to every voter who stood in line to defend the rule of law,” İmamoğlu wrote on X. “Your victory belongs to all of us who believe that ballots are stronger than fear, and that justice, however delayed, is never defeated.”
“Istanbul stands with Budapest. The tide is turning,” he added.
İmamoğlu, the former mayor of Istanbul, faces more than 2,300 years in prison from the charges of a Kafkaesque, 3,900-page mass corruption indictment. Human rights defenders call the case political payback for his effective opposition to strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling AK Party.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also celebrated the election results, saying that the continent’s heart is “beating stronger in Hungary tonight."
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries described Orbán’s defeat as a preview for Trump’s coalition later this year: “Trump sycophants and MAGA extremists in Congress are up next in November. Winter is coming."
From its inception, All Rise News stood for a type of reporting that combats feelings of helplessness and fatalism in an age of democratic backsliding, by highlighting how people use the levers of power to fight back against authoritarian actions. That’s the ethos of the column “Rising This Week,” highlighting the important court hearings and opportunities for civic engagement.
Paid subscribers can find those weekly listings below.
