Penalize ALL the TikTok psychics » « Down, down, in the dark

Losers

I am encouraged by the defeat of Victor Orban in Hungary. I’m happy for the people of Hungary throwing off the yoke of fascism and having hope for the future, and for the people of Europe as a whole building a stronger alliance.

But I’m selfish. I’m also happy to see JD Vance flop hard; it was unbelievable to me that Republicans from America were campaigning for Orban. Vance was politicking for Orban just recently, as part of his personal campaign to appear ‘presidential,’ and many right-wingers have been on the Orban train for a long, long time. The Hungarian election was a harbinger of the American elections to come, and the message is clear: Vance is a loser. Republicans are losers. Trump is a loser. They should be nervous, because they’re all just waiting for the axe to fall.

Penalize ALL the TikTok psychics » « Down, down, in the dark

Comments

  1. chrislawson says

    Ah yes, Vance flying to Hungary and actively campaigning for Orbán while complaining about EU nations “interfering.” I know modern Republicans have very little capacity for self-awareness, but this was staggeringly hypocritical.

  3. stuffin says

    @1 and 2 – From the beginning, Trump has been making up his own reality and, unfortunately, many Americans believed in that reality. Now his closest sycophants have taken to use the same techniques. It does seem like many people around the world (including Americans) are slowly realizing Trump’s reality is only good for Trump and screw everybody else. It depresses me it has taken this long for so many intelligent people to figure Trump out and respond appropriately. I guess people are finally tired of being steamrolled by his BS.

    I often worry, waiting until the 2026 election (or worse the 2028 election) for the axe to fall will be too late.

  5. Dauphni says

    Don’t be too happy, Magyar won because he promised to fight the massive corruption that festered during the Orbán years. Policy wise he’s just as conservative, with the only meaningful difference being pro-european instead of pro-russian. While this is great news for Ukraine, expect the rights of immigrants and queer people to continue being trampled.

  6. wonderpants says

    “The Hungarian election was a harbinger of the American elections to come”

    Let’s hope your optimism isn’t misplaced.

  7. francesconic says

    @5 Dauphni French news had an interview with the leader of the Hungarian Socialists. They withdrew all their candidates to give Magyar a strait shot at victory. This was not a pro Magyar election this was an anti Oban election. If Hungarian politics resumes with normal political parties do not expect the the results of this election to be typical. The new long term policies of Hungary have not bern set by this election, old ones have been discarded.

  9. raven says

    It wasn’t just Trump and Vance supporting Orban.
    It was all the right wing extremist oligarchies of the USA.

    Donald Trump: Closely allied with Orbán, hailing him as a “fantastic man” who keeps his country safe, and pledging U.S. economic support for his re-election in 2026.

    JD Vance: Visited Budapest as Vice President in April 2026 to directly campaign for Orbán’s re-election, stating he was “fighting right here with you”.

    Tucker Carlson: Held up Hungary as a model in his, at the time, Fox News and later media, frequently profiling Orbán positively.

    Matt Schlapp & CPAC: The American Conservative Union brought the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to Budapest, regularly featuring Orbán as a keynote speaker.

    Marco Rubio: Visited Budapest to show support for the Orbán government.

    Elon Musk: Frequently backed Orban on his X platform.

    Peter Thiel:

    Other Conservatives: Rod Dreher (writer) and various conservative think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation, promoted Hungary’s governing style.

    The Hungarians did an amazing job in getting rid of Orban.

    We hear in the USA often that peaceful protests don’t work, usually by people who are deeply afraid that they do work.
    It took two years of hard work to defeat Orban and peaceful protests were one of the tactics that were used.

  10. strangerinastrangeland says

    Yesterday was a good day.

    Have there been any comments yet from Trump and his cronies about the outcome of the Hungarian elections? Just like to hear how they will spin that everything went as they planned and how great Trump, Vance etc. are. :-)

  11. hillaryrettig1 says

    @Dauphni thanks, that was the info I was hoping for. I’m glad Orban is out for all the reasons PZ said, but it’s far from an ideal outcome.

  15. outis says

    Yes party time in the EU!
    Fscistoid idiot who fascistized all over the place on the EU’s tab is out, hopefully forever. He even admitted to “tiredness” and as he is exactly the same age as me I would prescribe immediate retirement, preferably in a trappist monastery.
    Next step will be the dismantling of all the crap legislation that was passed in the last 16 years, which fucked up the state’s structure out of all recognition. Big job.
    Mind you, this is what these idiots do, they foul up everything they touch. In Italy the Melonissima tried something similar just last month by referendum BUT had her tush handed back to her, well grilled, so maybe there’s hope after all.

  16. says

    What is truly disgusting about all this magat ‘winning’ (sarcasimus maximus) is that even these fools’ blunders and loses won’t stop any of the looting, pillaging and murdering of the magat plutocrats.
    Also, Sending the vancehole and two real-estate frauds to negotiate an international disaster is EVIL.

  17. NitricAcid says

    My FB feed is filled with Trumpers crying that Hungary has fallen to the Islamists and communists.

  18. John Morales says

    “What is truly disgusting about all this magat ‘winning’ (sarcasimus maximus) is that even these fools’ blunders and loses won’t stop any of the looting, pillaging and murdering of the magat plutocrats.”

    From their perspective, the looting, pillaging and murdering of the magat plutocrats is the winning.

    “Also, Sending the vancehole and two real-estate frauds to negotiate an international disaster is EVIL.”

    Since they failed the negotiations, they failed to negotiate an international disaster.

    (That should be a good thing, no? If they had not failed, we’d have a negotiated international disaster)

  19. robro says

    strangerinastrangeland @ #10 — “Have there been any comments yet from Trump and his cronies about the outcome of the Hungarian elections?”

    Dumpster’s a poor looser. Per one report, he “ran away” from reporters who asked about it as he was returning to Washington Saturday night. Otherwise, a surprising silence from the asshole.

    However, Republican Senator Tom Tilis (NC) praised the defeat…a crack in the mighty façade of GOP unity.

  20. billseymour says

    I’m waiting for Trump to say that he’s disappointed in Orbán because real leaders don’t concede.  That wouldn’t tell us anything about Trump that we don’t already know; but it would be funny.

  21. chrislawson says

    Al Jazeera has a profile of Magyar and the background to his political victory.

    He is an ex-acolyte of Orbán who broke with the party after a series of corruption scandals and ran this campaign on a “moderate” centre-right platform. His victory seems to rest on a fusion of conservative messaging without the usual right-wing hateful firebrand rhetoric, combined with rising anti-Russian sentiment that made Orbán untenable.

    In short, it’s great that Orbán is out, but the next few years will be critical for Hungary’s future. I hope the leftist politicians who stepped back so as not to weaken Tisza’s vote will still have enough political capital to push for genuinely progressive change and not just less-extreme conservatism.

  22. StevoR says

    @17. NitricAcid : “My FB feed is filled with Trumpers crying that Hungary has fallen to the Islamists and communists.”

    FWIW :

    Major territorial changes made Hungary ethnically homogeneous after World War I. Nowadays, more than nine-tenths of the population is ethnically Hungarian and speaks Hungarian as the mother tongue.

    Plus

    According to 2011 census data, Christianity is the largest religion in Hungary, with around 5.2 million adherents (52.9%),[169] while the largest denomination in Hungary is the Catholic Church (38.9% — Latin Church 37.1%; Hungarian Greek Catholic Church 1.8%).[170] There is a significant Calvinist minority (11.6% of the population) and smaller Lutheran (2.2%), Orthodox (0.1%) and Jewish (0.1%) minorities. However, these census figures are representative of religious affiliation rather than attendance; around 12% of Hungarians attend religious services more than least once a week and around 50% more than once a year, while 30% of Hungarians do not believe in God at all.[171] The census showed a large drop of religious adherents who wish to answer, from 74.6% to 54.7% in ten years’ time, replacing them by people either who do not wish to answer or people who are not following a religion.

    Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Hungary#Religion

    The large percentage who didn’t anwer on religion make sit potentia;lly possible if highly unliukely that Muslims compsoe a sizeable segment altho’ it isn’t even listed on the table and other religions – not Christian or jewish make up just 1.8 % of thsoe who answered for their religion so seems unlikely Muslims played much role here.

  23. StevoR says

    Oh and, of course, most of your fb feed probly don’t know what “Communism”actually is if my experience of fb and the reichwing comentariat there is anything to go by!

    There’s about two thousand immigrants from Turkey and 1 and a half thousand from Syria living in Hungary – how many got to vote I dunno but doubt it made much difference. Same source as linked above – of course there could possibly be a large percent of Muslim Hungarian immigrants from the other non-Muslim countries listed but again I find that doubtful.

    Hypothetical Muslims not answering a census question asking about their religion has implications that kinda suggest its unlikely Islam was any factor in the election too and certainly not in any way favouring Muslims; let alone Islam-ism.

  24. John Morales says

    [StevoR, it’s like the talk about Sharia London and the Islamic takeover of Europe; all straight out shitposting.
    You are taking it seriously, but it’s pure performative propagandistic provocation]

  25. StevoR says

    @ ^ John Morales : Yes – but I reckon it’s still good to establish the actual facts and truth to hopefully help refute their bulldust.

    So my web search found :

    Source : https://brilliantmaps.com/world-muslim-population/

    Which says Muslims make up just 0.6 % of Hungary’s population

    Plus another source which is a bit hard on the eyes and seems likley less reliable to me although it dos go into the Muslim heritage and history of Hungary says at the bottom of the page :

    According to the 2002 official Hungarian census, there were 3,201 Muslims living in Hungary at the time, making up 0.03% of the population. Another source says that there are over 20,000 muslims in Hungary.

    Source : https://www.muslimpopulation.com/Europe/Hungary/Islam%20in%20Hungary.php

    The latter figure seems waaa-aay too high to me given the numbers cited in #22 but still.

    Whilst this site / page :

    https://www.brookings.edu/articles/anti-muslim-populism-in-hungary-from-the-margins-to-the-mainstream/

    Notes :

    Since the democratic transition in 1989-90, there has been a rising trend in intolerance. In 1992, 15 percent of Hungarians expressed xenophobic attitudes 19 but the number increased to 39 percent by 2014 and reached a peak of 67 percent in October 2018, while xenophiles disappeared completely.20 According to Political Capital’s Demand for right-Wing Extremism Index, which is based on the European Social Survey,21 xenophobia in the Hungarian public is higher than in most of the post-socialist block. These views are particularly strong when it comes to Muslims: according to the Pew Research Center, 72 percent of Hungarians had unfavorable views of Muslims in 2016 compared to the EU median of 43 percent,22 even though (or rather because) Hungary has practically no Muslim population.23 Hungarians were also more likely to consider refugees a burden or a major threat more than the average European. In a 2017 survey, 64 percent of respondents from Hungary agreed with the statement that “all further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped.”

    So yeah, the idea that Islamists defeated Orban politically by somehow out voting him massively and convincing the rest of mostly Christian, highly xenophobic esp Islamophobic Hungary is really absurd – and gets more so the more you look into it.

    Also provides a kinda disturbing window into how quikcly propaganda and media and propaganda can shift public opinion for the worse.

  26. StevoR says

    Via PBS Newshour :

    The big election over the weekend was in a small European country nearly half a world away from Washington, but the defeat of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has significant reverberations in the United States.

    That’s because President Donald Trump and many U.S. conservatives have long embraced Orbán, who has become an icon among the global right for his anti-immigrant stance. The American president’s agenda has striking parallels with the way the Hungarian leader used the levers of government to tilt the media, judiciary and electoral system to keep his party in power for 16 years.

    Trump supported Orbán’s reelection bid and even dispatched Vice President JD Vance to Budapest last week — in the midst of the Iran war — to stump for the incumbent.

    Orbán’s loss was a reminder of how the war has diminished Trump’s ability to help allied politicians overseas, as well as of the limited ability of leaders to use their power to tilt voting in their direction in an age of worldwide discontent over incumbents of all ideological stripes.

    “Oppositions can win despite a tilted playing field,” said Steven Levitsky, a politics professor at Harvard and coauthor of the book “How Democracies Die.” “Democracies are facing many challenges in many parts of the world, but so are autocracies.”

    Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/orbans-election-loss-has-ripple-effects-for-trump-and-u-s-conservatives

  27. John Morales says

    “Orbán’s loss was a reminder of how the war has diminished Trump’s ability to help allied politicians overseas”

    That is pure bullshit opinionating. What, no war, it would not have diminished it? He was a causal factor?

    That is pure pap. Not impossible, but certainly not serious.

    What happened to “but I reckon it’s still good to establish the actual facts and truth to hopefully help refute their bulldust.”?

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