Viktor Orban bows out after 16 years. By John Hinderaker at Powerline.
Viktor Orbán was defeated in his bid for a sixth term as Prime Minister of Hungary, to the delight of liberals everywhere. As a populist and “right wing extremist,” Orban was detested by the Left. He did Hungary a great deal of good, if only by resisting the suicidal immigration policies that so many European countries have followed.
But what is the significance of his defeat? Not much, in this sense: after 16 years as Prime Minister — and that is on top of the term he served from 1998-2002 — it would be surprising if he had not worn out his welcome. That is an extraordinarily long time in office in any democracy.
Moreover, Orban didn’t lose to a liberal. Péter Magyar is a former member of Orban’s party, and his views on immigration are no more liberal than Orban’s. In some ways, he is more like an American conservative than Orban has been.
Orban eventually had to bow out gracefully because he was too socialist. He engaged in “state-directed investment strategy,” which inevitably allocates capital poorly and engenders corruption. This was the major factor in his undoing. Stephen Moore explains:
The defeat of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was NOT a repudiation of free-market economics.
The Heritage Foundation ranked Hungary’s economy as only the 79th freest in the world, 39th out of 44 countries in the Europe region.
Inflation in Hungary since late 2019 has been twice the U.S. level, and last year its real economic growth rate of a paltry 0.3% lagged behind all of its neighbors.
No joy for the left:
Voters became exasperated with the inevitable corruption of Orban’s 16 year state-directed investment strategy. (We hope the Natcons here in America are paying attention.) His successor, Peter Magyar, is a former member of Orban’s party who managed to unite the nation’s smaller center-right parties.
Frank Furedi at spiked focuses on the culture war:
More than any other individual, the now former Hungarian prime minister personified the national-sovereigntist, anti-globalist outlook that has made so much headway over the past decade. …
Other analysts have blamed Orbán’s loss on Hungary’s economic slowdown and the cost-of-living crisis now faced by millions of citizens. Yet accusations that Fidesz has been lining the pockets of a few, while others endure a decline in living standards, are also not sufficient to explain what happened this weekend. After all, talk of Fidesz’s supposed corruption is far from new. …
Fidesz has seemed at a loss as to how to engage with the younger generation. Indeed, by 2024, it appeared that it had more or less given up on young people, fatalistically accepting it had lost their support. It was content to view itself as a party of the older generations. …
The main driver of this generational disaffection was the powerful influence exerted on them by Western identity politics and, underpinning it, therapy culture, with its emphasis on victimhood and vulnerability. The influence of therapy culture and the increasing focus on individual psychology and identity have tended to detach young people from the traditional, conservative values of Fidesz. In effect, many young Hungarians hold attitudes closer to those of their Western peers than the older members of their own society.
When I drew attention to the corrosive influence of therapy culture and identity politics on Hungarian society, many in Fidesz assured me that I was exaggerating the problem. They imagined that these phenomena were confined to the West and somehow miraculously stopped at the border of Hungary. Yet a therapeutic, identitarian sensibility increasingly prevails throughout Hungary’s cultural and educational institutions. Invariably, those influenced by it are likely to be drawn to Western anti-traditionalist and anti-nationalist ideals. Supporters of the government appeared to be oblivious to the fact that they not only were facing a culture war – they were losing it, too. …
But:
Europe’s centrist elites may hope that the defeat of Orbán represents a defeat for the populist movement in Europe. But crucially, none of the values that Fidesz stands for, from national sovereignty and strong borders to the importance of tradition, has been explicitly challenged, let alone defeated by Tisza.
That is why I am confident that the populist surge will continue to transform the political landscape in Western societies.