Dept. of World Affairs
Apr. 13th, 2026 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaffy_rGlimmers of Hope
The overwhelming defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary feels like a ray of light in the darkness of current political reality. For Hungarians, it's an earthquake that signals the potential return of representative democracy. It's a shift for the rest of Europe, too. And over here, it's a most satisfying rebuke for our own less intelligent and more unstable version of Orbán. (It's also the latest kick in the goolies for Couchfuck McGee*; where he goes, defeat follows. Readers, I am enjoying this particular morsel of schadenfreude pie)
There's no denying that the winners in Hungary are center-right, which could eventually be problematic, at least from my point of view. And people should remember that Orbán rose to power as a pro-democracy, anti-Russian firebrand, only to turn into what he ended up being - a corrupt authoritarian in league with a would-be resurgent Russian Empire. Democracies take hard work, and they should never be based on unthinking approval of heroes, or those who would like to be heroes.
In a bit of a reminder of that here, as well as less a glimmer of hope than a reminder that there are still vast differences between the two major American political parities, we've watched a Democratic congressman, Eric Swalwell, brought low by accusations of sexual coercion and outright assault, and his own party's own insistence that he exit the California gubernatorial race and then his House seat, while GOP House members remained silent about even worse sexual accusations of one of their own, Texas House Rep. Tony Gonzales. It's a reminder to me that whatever the Democratic Party's mountain of faults, it still stands heads and shoulders above the other party.
On the whole, I'll take glimmers of hope whenever and wherever I can find them.
* Yes, it's crude; yes it's using a ridiculous Internet meme to defame the sitting U.S. vice-president. I regret nothing.
The overwhelming defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary feels like a ray of light in the darkness of current political reality. For Hungarians, it's an earthquake that signals the potential return of representative democracy. It's a shift for the rest of Europe, too. And over here, it's a most satisfying rebuke for our own less intelligent and more unstable version of Orbán. (It's also the latest kick in the goolies for Couchfuck McGee*; where he goes, defeat follows. Readers, I am enjoying this particular morsel of schadenfreude pie)
There's no denying that the winners in Hungary are center-right, which could eventually be problematic, at least from my point of view. And people should remember that Orbán rose to power as a pro-democracy, anti-Russian firebrand, only to turn into what he ended up being - a corrupt authoritarian in league with a would-be resurgent Russian Empire. Democracies take hard work, and they should never be based on unthinking approval of heroes, or those who would like to be heroes.
In a bit of a reminder of that here, as well as less a glimmer of hope than a reminder that there are still vast differences between the two major American political parities, we've watched a Democratic congressman, Eric Swalwell, brought low by accusations of sexual coercion and outright assault, and his own party's own insistence that he exit the California gubernatorial race and then his House seat, while GOP House members remained silent about even worse sexual accusations of one of their own, Texas House Rep. Tony Gonzales. It's a reminder to me that whatever the Democratic Party's mountain of faults, it still stands heads and shoulders above the other party.
On the whole, I'll take glimmers of hope whenever and wherever I can find them.
* Yes, it's crude; yes it's using a ridiculous Internet meme to defame the sitting U.S. vice-president. I regret nothing.
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