7h ago

‘In a real sense, US democracy has died’: how Trump is emulating Hungary’s Orbán

Trump has moved to gut the federal government, fire critics and reward allies – a path similar to ‘would-be dictators’ like Orbán, experts say

Trump has moved to gut the federal government, fire critics and reward allies – a path similar to ‘would-be dictators’ like Orbán, experts say

3h ago

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9h ago

‘In a real sense, US democracy has died’: how Trump is emulating Hungary’s Orbán

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6 comments

Guess we should have paid more attention when the RNC held a conference in Hungary and invited Orbàn to speak. Oops.
- Context

So I was having a conversation with a close friend of mine at sunset last night. She grew up in eastern Europe. She grew up under communism, still spends time there. These days she does early childhood education.
She made a point I had not heard before which I thought was salient, and I don't hear echoed enough. Trump has the behavioral patterns of a toddler. His focus, his motivation is to have the attention placed on him. And what he wants? What he wants is to be recognized as a strong man. To have the world as afraid of him as they are of Putin.
So when we're trying to think of the implementation of these plans and to what end, this is maybe a way to think about it.
- Now convince other countries to tell him "go fuck yourself" and laugh when he plays strongman.

I remember watching documentaries about Hungary on YouTube back around 2010-2012. We were all worried then that it would happen here. Hungary and (Russia) and how they treated political rivals. That's when I started voting consistently. Not that it mattered. I used to point to Hungary as an example of what could happen here. The Daily show even talked about them when Trump first came to power in 2016. It was always there but we were always looking elsewhere.
Hungary is much smaller than the US though, even if it is mostly empty, like Russia.

6 comments