Yet this modest Central European country has somehow become the American right’s template for reshaping the United States.
In 2022, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, declared that “modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft, but the model.” The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has held annual gatherings in Budapest. Tucker Carlson has made pilgrimages there. Donald Trump has praised Viktor Orbán as “a great leader.”
Its admirers treat Hungary as robust. The evidence says otherwise.
The Hungarian model faces its most serious challenge since Orbán returned to power in 2010. He had been Prime Minister once before, lost, and spent eight years in the wilderness.
So, what is the Hungarian model? Over the past fifteen years, Orbán has taken control of every institution that matters. For instance, around three-quarters of the media market is now in the hands of outlets friendly to his Fidesz party.
A new constitution adopted in 2011 entrenched over fifty “cardinal laws” that require a two-thirds parliamentary majority to change, locking in Fidesz preferences for a generation.
The courts have been stacked, independent institutions neutered and the lines between party, state and oligarchic networks have been blurred. Orbán embraced the term “illiberal democracy” to describe his creation.
Then there is Russia. Orbán has courted Vladimir Putin for over a decade, signing a nuclear deal with the Russian state company Rosatom and maintaining dependence on Russian gas. He has used Hungary’s EU veto to delay sanctions and obstruct aid to Ukraine.
In September 2024, his political director and namesake Balázs Orbán (no relation) suggested Hungary would not have resisted a Russian invasion the way Ukraine did. He said this just weeks before the anniversary of the 1956 invasion, when Hungarians died resisting Soviet tanks. Trump shows similar deference to Putin. Traditional conservatives cannot understand it.
But Hungary’s alignment with Moscow has a domestic price tag. The confrontation with Brussels over rule-of-law concerns has frozen around eighteen billion euros in EU funds, and Hungary has already forfeited over a billion by missing deadlines to comply with European law. Ordinary Hungarians are paying for their Prime Minister’s foreign policy.
This is where Péter Magyar enters the picture. Magyar is a 44-year-old lawyer who until recently was a fixture of the Fidesz establishment. He was married to the Justice Minister, sat on the boards of state companies and served as a diplomat during Hungary’s EU presidency. He was a creature of the system.
His break came in February 2024, triggered by a scandal that cut through political noise. President Katalin Novák had quietly pardoned a man who helped cover up child abuse at a state orphanage. When the pardon came to light, the outcry forced her resignation.
On the day she stepped down, Magyar took to Facebook to announce his break with the regime. In the interviews that followed, he laid bare Fidesz corruption. He knew where the bodies were buried.
Within a year, his TISZA party was leading the polls. Recent surveys put TISZA close to 50 percent among decided voters, with Fidesz trailing below 40. No opposition force has held such a lead since Orbán returned to power.
Magyar’s platform would dismantle the Hungarian model: It would unblock EU funds by meeting rule-of-law conditions and join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate how EU money was spent under Fidesz. It would reform healthcare and education. On Russia, he has been deliberately vague, acknowledging that the Rosatom deal cannot be unwound.
But he sticks to bread-and-butter issues. He campaigns on crumbling hospitals and the cost of living, not on democratic values. What makes him dangerous to Orbán is that he is fighting Fidesz with Fidesz methods.
After Orbán lost power in 2002, he spent eight years building a grassroots network called the Civic Circles. Magyar has done the same. He claims over 1,200 local “Tisza Island” groups.
Orbán positioned himself as the defender of ordinary Hungarians against a corrupt elite. Magyar makes the same argument, except now the corrupt elite is Orbán’s circle. Where Orbán once bypassed hostile media through direct communication, Magyar uses social media to get around state-controlled outlets.
But do not count Orbán out. Polls showed the opposition competitive before the 2022 election. Then Fidesz won by nearly twenty points. The playing field remains tilted with gerrymandered districts and electoral rules that favour the largest party.
Even if Magyar wins, the Prosecutor General and media regulator serve nine-year terms. The head of the State Audit Office serves twelve. Orbán has used fifteen years to hard-wire loyalists into the state. A new Prime Minister would inherit a machine designed to obstruct him.
Yet something has changed. It is not that Hungarians have discovered a sudden love for liberal democracy.
Orbán won in 2022 even as the opposition warned about checks and balances. He is vulnerable now because voters care about prices.
Prices since 2020 have risen by more than half. Inflation peaked at nearly 26 percent in early 2023, the EU’s highest. Teachers earn less in real terms than five years ago.
The hospitals that Magyar tours on social media, with their leaking roofs and outdated equipment, are not abstractions. They are where Fidesz voters take their children.
Orbán’s model has hit a wall. When your economic strategy depends on rewarding friends with contracts, blocking foreign competition and picking fights with the institutions that fund your infrastructure, sooner or later the bills come due. In Hungary, they have.
The bargain Orbán offered from 2012 to 2019 was simple: accept my system and I will make you prosperous. That bargain has collapsed. The people who suffer most are his own voters.
American conservatives importing the Hungarian model should pay attention. Tariffs, institutional attacks, loyalty over competence: it is the same pattern. If Hungary’s economics cannot deliver, why would America’s?
The election is on 12 April, just over two months away. Orbán may yet prevail. The system is rigged in his favour, and he has defied predictions before. But for the first time in fifteen years, the outcome is in doubt.
The lesson for Orbán’s American admirers is simple: you can rig elections, capture courts and control the media. But you cannot rig the price of bread.
Dr Oliver Hartwich is the Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative think tank. This article was first published HERE.
Its admirers treat Hungary as robust. The evidence says otherwise.
The Hungarian model faces its most serious challenge since Orbán returned to power in 2010. He had been Prime Minister once before, lost, and spent eight years in the wilderness.
So, what is the Hungarian model? Over the past fifteen years, Orbán has taken control of every institution that matters. For instance, around three-quarters of the media market is now in the hands of outlets friendly to his Fidesz party.
A new constitution adopted in 2011 entrenched over fifty “cardinal laws” that require a two-thirds parliamentary majority to change, locking in Fidesz preferences for a generation.
The courts have been stacked, independent institutions neutered and the lines between party, state and oligarchic networks have been blurred. Orbán embraced the term “illiberal democracy” to describe his creation.
Then there is Russia. Orbán has courted Vladimir Putin for over a decade, signing a nuclear deal with the Russian state company Rosatom and maintaining dependence on Russian gas. He has used Hungary’s EU veto to delay sanctions and obstruct aid to Ukraine.
In September 2024, his political director and namesake Balázs Orbán (no relation) suggested Hungary would not have resisted a Russian invasion the way Ukraine did. He said this just weeks before the anniversary of the 1956 invasion, when Hungarians died resisting Soviet tanks. Trump shows similar deference to Putin. Traditional conservatives cannot understand it.
But Hungary’s alignment with Moscow has a domestic price tag. The confrontation with Brussels over rule-of-law concerns has frozen around eighteen billion euros in EU funds, and Hungary has already forfeited over a billion by missing deadlines to comply with European law. Ordinary Hungarians are paying for their Prime Minister’s foreign policy.
This is where Péter Magyar enters the picture. Magyar is a 44-year-old lawyer who until recently was a fixture of the Fidesz establishment. He was married to the Justice Minister, sat on the boards of state companies and served as a diplomat during Hungary’s EU presidency. He was a creature of the system.
His break came in February 2024, triggered by a scandal that cut through political noise. President Katalin Novák had quietly pardoned a man who helped cover up child abuse at a state orphanage. When the pardon came to light, the outcry forced her resignation.
On the day she stepped down, Magyar took to Facebook to announce his break with the regime. In the interviews that followed, he laid bare Fidesz corruption. He knew where the bodies were buried.
Within a year, his TISZA party was leading the polls. Recent surveys put TISZA close to 50 percent among decided voters, with Fidesz trailing below 40. No opposition force has held such a lead since Orbán returned to power.
Magyar’s platform would dismantle the Hungarian model: It would unblock EU funds by meeting rule-of-law conditions and join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate how EU money was spent under Fidesz. It would reform healthcare and education. On Russia, he has been deliberately vague, acknowledging that the Rosatom deal cannot be unwound.
But he sticks to bread-and-butter issues. He campaigns on crumbling hospitals and the cost of living, not on democratic values. What makes him dangerous to Orbán is that he is fighting Fidesz with Fidesz methods.
After Orbán lost power in 2002, he spent eight years building a grassroots network called the Civic Circles. Magyar has done the same. He claims over 1,200 local “Tisza Island” groups.
Orbán positioned himself as the defender of ordinary Hungarians against a corrupt elite. Magyar makes the same argument, except now the corrupt elite is Orbán’s circle. Where Orbán once bypassed hostile media through direct communication, Magyar uses social media to get around state-controlled outlets.
But do not count Orbán out. Polls showed the opposition competitive before the 2022 election. Then Fidesz won by nearly twenty points. The playing field remains tilted with gerrymandered districts and electoral rules that favour the largest party.
Even if Magyar wins, the Prosecutor General and media regulator serve nine-year terms. The head of the State Audit Office serves twelve. Orbán has used fifteen years to hard-wire loyalists into the state. A new Prime Minister would inherit a machine designed to obstruct him.
Yet something has changed. It is not that Hungarians have discovered a sudden love for liberal democracy.
Orbán won in 2022 even as the opposition warned about checks and balances. He is vulnerable now because voters care about prices.
Prices since 2020 have risen by more than half. Inflation peaked at nearly 26 percent in early 2023, the EU’s highest. Teachers earn less in real terms than five years ago.
The hospitals that Magyar tours on social media, with their leaking roofs and outdated equipment, are not abstractions. They are where Fidesz voters take their children.
Orbán’s model has hit a wall. When your economic strategy depends on rewarding friends with contracts, blocking foreign competition and picking fights with the institutions that fund your infrastructure, sooner or later the bills come due. In Hungary, they have.
The bargain Orbán offered from 2012 to 2019 was simple: accept my system and I will make you prosperous. That bargain has collapsed. The people who suffer most are his own voters.
American conservatives importing the Hungarian model should pay attention. Tariffs, institutional attacks, loyalty over competence: it is the same pattern. If Hungary’s economics cannot deliver, why would America’s?
The election is on 12 April, just over two months away. Orbán may yet prevail. The system is rigged in his favour, and he has defied predictions before. But for the first time in fifteen years, the outcome is in doubt.
The lesson for Orbán’s American admirers is simple: you can rig elections, capture courts and control the media. But you cannot rig the price of bread.
Dr Oliver Hartwich is the Executive Director of The New Zealand Initiative think tank. This article was first published HERE.
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