On this edition of Your Call's Authoritarian Playbook series, we're discussing how Hungary, once a thriving democracy, became what experts call an “electoral autocracy.”
Since 2010, Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party have consolidated power, dismantled checks and balances, and taken control of universities, civil society, and the media. Pro-Orban groups now control 80 percent of the country’s media, according to Reporters Without Borders. On Friday, Donald Trump met with Orban, a close ally, at the White House.
What can we learn from Hungarians about resisting authoritarianism and what's to come?
Guests:
Dr. Gábor Scheiring, Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics at Georgetown University Qatar, former Green Party member of the Hungarian Parliament, and author of The Retreat of Liberal Democracy Authoritarian Capitalism and the Accumulative State in Hungary
András Pethő, Hungarian journalist and co-founder and director of Direkt36, an investigative reporting center in Hungary
Resources:
Politico Gábor Scheiring: I Watched Orbán Destroy Hungary’s Democracy. Here’s My Advice for the Trump Era
The Conversation by Gábor Scheiring: I watched Hungary’s democracy dissolve into authoritarianism as a member of parliament − and I see troubling parallels in Trumpism and its appeal to workers
The Atlantic by András Pethő: Trump’s Attempts to Muzzle the Press Look Familiar
Columbia Journalism Review: A Warning from a Hungarian Journalist: ‘Brace Yourself for the Worst’
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: Journalist Andras Petho on fighting Hungary’s powerful ‘propaganda machine’
MSNBC: What Trump learned from Hungary
NBC: Trump boosts Hungary's far-right Orbán with Russian energy sanctions carveout
