Very few, however, see the inevitable outcomes of this playbook: a deteriorating economy and the crumbling of the basic services that sustain the public’s faith in government. So, when does the tide turn?
Historian Anne Applebaum is among the few who clearly draw this link, noting that MAGA and other Trumpian imitators are in love with Orbán’s illiberal “playbook” largely because it coopts the machinery of democracy rather than directly assaulting it. But what they fail to notice are the long-term consequences of corruption, poverty, diminished living standards — and, crucially, a soured public.
Today, the extent of dissatisfaction with Orbán in Hungary, which has been building beneath the authoritarian surface for years, is finally out in public view. It was evidenced during the Budapest Pride Parade, which turned into a mass anti-Orbán rally after the prime minister’s efforts to quash it, and can now be seen in the current groundswell of support for opposition candidate Péter Magyar and his Tisza party.
During Orbán’s first decade in power, Hungary’s endemic corruption and the prime minister’s maneuvers to coopt democracy were largely masked — or tolerated — as an EU-led infusion of resources and concomitant economic growth reinforced the notion that “Orbán delivers.”
Now, however, the collapse of the country’s health care system and growing dissatisfaction with the education system, along with high housing costs, rising prices and diminished living standards are all being pinned on the Orbán-led Fidesz party.
Recent polling by the independent Hungarian research firm Policy Solutions found that large majorities associate Orbán’s tenure with the growing gap between the rich and poor (63 percent), as well as the deterioration of health care (67 percent), education (63 percent) and the overall state of the economy (57 percent). A majority of voters also hold Orbán responsible for an increase in corruption (60 percent) and Hungary’s diminishing international stature (58 percent). Moreover, Magyar is polling ahead of Orbán in advance of next year’s national election, and his Tisza party is viewed as more competent in handling basic government functions.