Two Lessons from Hungary for 2026 and 2028

Péter Magyar’s resounding victory over Viktor Orbán in the Hungarian elections is a watershed moment for liberal democracy. Magyar’s party, Tisza, will have the two-thirds supermajority necessary to enact sweeping changes and unwind Orbán’s system of corruption and authoritarianism. Hungary will no longer be the impediment to the European Union on issues from democracy to security. To my mind, there are two key takeaways for Americans from Orbán’s ouster. 

The first regards how this was achieved. Orbán used constitutional reforms to tilt the electoral playing field heavily toward his Fidesz party. In the past, this rigging was so effective that, in 2014, Fidesz was able to obtain a 133-seat supermajority on just 44.11% of the popular vote. 

This time, the opposition refused to let factionalism threaten their mission. Rather than let a crowded field enable Orbán to retain power, parties stood down their candidate to maximize the vote behind Magyar and his Tisza party. This matters because Magyar, while a pro-EU and a pro-democracy small-l liberal, is a conservative. He is center-right, including on issues like immigration, and he is decidedly nationalist in his presentation—though this is within the boundaries of mainstream European politics and not the chauvinist version Orbán offered. 

Magyar campaigned in such a way as to avoid wedge issues among the anti-Orbán coalition. He frequently demurred on critical questions so as to balance his need to pull in everyone from former Orbán voters in the Hungarian countryside to progressive urbanites. For members of Hungary’s LGBTQ community, one of Orbán’s favorite targets of abuse, Magyar represented a preferable if somewhat ambiguous alternative. 

So it is notable that Hungary's center-left and progressives chose to forgo their own shot at power in the short term to empower Magyar. But it’s because they were completely clear-eyed about the stakes. Asked about this by France 24, Socialist Party MP Tomás Harangozó explained:

Inside our party, the decision was made that it’s not about our personal life. It’s not about our personal career. I’m a member of parliament since 2010. And it’s [Orbán] now over. It’s about change…These policies [Magyar’s] are number two. Number one, the question in this country was Orbán or not? Putin or not? Russia or Europe?…That’s what we heard from our own supporters. First, we have to take back this country, to the western European democratic countries’ way [sic]. 

It’s the sort of sentiment Americans need to take to heart. As speculation about the 2028 election heats up, we’re already being subjected to debates about who various constituencies will and won’t support against a future Trumpist or MAGA candidate. The biggest kerfuffle so far kicked up around Hasan Piker’s declaration that he wouldn’t support Gavin Newsom in a hypothetical matchup against JD Vance. This is the wrong position. It’s politically and morally simple-minded and short-sighted. But it isn’t so hard to imagine that some more conservative-minded folks might raise a similar opposition to a nominee like, say, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This would also be wrong. 

The goal must be to sweep the Republican Party out of power and to do so thoroughly that a new political project can begin to emerge in the aftermath. Failing to understand this is failing to meet the moment on a world historical scale. That’s because dislodging a competitive authoritarian regime takes significant effort, especially in a system as skewed as the United States is by the Electoral College and our chronic underrepresentation in the House. 

And this brings us to the second lesson: what to do with that power should we win. Magyar has already set to work dismantling Orbán’s machine of media manipulation, inference peddling, and kickbacks. And he has promised real consequences for this malfeasance. On election night, he declared, “never again a country without consequences!” The crowd responded with chants of “to prison!” 

Magyar has already turned off the money spigot for things like CPAC and the Matthias Corvinus Collegium. And he is sure to do more in the coming days. 

In America, we must also be prepared to do the hard work that was not done during the Biden administration to address the malignancy of Trumpism. We will need sweeping investigations into wrongdoing by public and private officials. More importantly, we will have to have the courage and unity of purpose to put criminal behavior on trial and, where there are convictions, send even prominent individuals to prison. If impartial post-Trump investigations and prosecutions conclude that Pete Hegseth, Elon Musk, Kristi Noem, or Donald Trump, Jr. should go to jail, then they must go to jail. 

Our system is wildly different from Hungary’s. The story of our last decade and a half is different, as well. But what Sunday did show us is that, so long as a toehold of democracy remains, a people can come together to throw off authoritarian rule. As the midterms and then 2028 approach, Americans will have to decide whether reviving our democracy is what matters most to us. And if we succeed, we’ll have to be ready to sweep this Republican Party into the dustbin. 

Featured image is Péter Magyar on the protest of 2024-04-06, by B. Molnár Béla