Hungary’s Viktor Orbán was the first populist of the 21st century. The problems his country faced, he said, were immigration – both legal and illegal – and the entrenched class of bureaucrats, judges and NGOs. By the end of 2015, he had built a fence on the southern border, and an attempt to replace the country’s establishment with new people was underway. His project had, for the most part, succeeded on its own terms.
And so, what to do then? Once the initial crisis had subsided, Orbán and his theorists started to think about the moral character of society and the quest for meaning in the modern world. What they came up with was disappointing, and as certain figures on the American right – J.D. Vance, for example, or bodies like the Heritage Foundation – now wish to borrow from Orbánism, it is worth recounting why his wider project of illiberal democracy failed as an alternative to woke.
The problem with today’s society is not that people are too free, as Orbán believes
For one, the problem with today’s society is not that people are too free, as Orbán believes. Orbánists took it for granted that the condition of modernity is one of “atomization,” in which individuals are left adrift with nothing to believe in and no obligations to one another as a result of liberalism. This line of thinking was followed by people such as Zoltan Kovacs, the Hungarian government’s international spokesman, as well as the conservative intellectuals and journalists the government supported – most prominently the rather futile figure of Rod Dreher.
As a diagnosis this is very wide of the mark. The woke era has greatly tightened our obligations to one another. In the United States, you will be fired from many private sector and nearly all public sector jobs for disagreeing with society’s ruling ideas. Populism is really about liberating people from these obligations. The policies that MAGA opposes – illegal immigration, lax treatment of criminals – all hinge upon belief in universal moral obligations and our common humanity. Orbán’s decision to close Hungary’s southern border in 2015 was an example of the true populist streak he’s since lost. It signaled that the Hungarians were not obliged to take in the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers then on the move, that common humanity was not enough of a reason to endanger the country’s citizens in this way.
This false atomization diagnosis led to fiasco during Covid-19, which some so-called populists initially crowed about as a rebuke to liberal society. Lockdown would revive a sense of community and mutual obligation, we were told; the frivolous and hedonistic moderns would have to stay indoors and busy themselves with gardening and sourdough starters. It was not a surprise, then, that Orbánist Hungary would put in place some of the strictest lockdown measures in Europe, with the resulting cronyism and economic damage. Pre-election polling revealed a dramatic swing away from Orbán’s Fidesz party among small business owners – those most menaced by lockdown measures.
The idea of atomization will lead to yet more problems, if fully taken on by post-Trump MAGA. It is taken as fact among theorists of populism, most notably Jonathan Haidt, that social media use leaves people atomized and nihilistic and so ought to be limited. Yet social media is the populists’ main point of contact with the masses. It is the only place where ruling ideas can be effectively challenged – without it, populism would quickly sink.
The idea has also led to an increasingly hectoring tone towards young men: they are “porn-addicted” and need to “step up.” This is how the key voting group of the 2024 election – probably the most put-upon demographic in America – is increasingly addressed. Donald Trump’s message was one of liberation, but the movement against supposed “atomization” would now throw all this into reverse.
The Orbán saga should also remind America’s populists of the perils of religious politics. The Orbánists are less pious than their American counterparts, but God is still a constant theme. For a populist movement, this is especially unwise.
Populism, being anti-establishment, is usually led by the slightly dubious adventurers who lurk on the fringes of politics. Over time, more conventional personnel come in – see, for example, the rise of reforming bureaucrats like Scott Bessent – but the movement will always have a slightly seedy strain. The public will tolerate those unconventional characters and their antics if they think that needed reforms to the state are being carried out. They will rapidly lose patience if those same figures start mouthing religious phrases. This combination of public piety and private squalor was particularly damaging for the Orbánists, and has provided a constant line of attack from the now-victorious opposition. An Orbánized MAGA movement that makes a lurching go at Christian moralism will likely end the same way.
The insertion of religion into politics also blunts the new or radical edge which populism needs. Religion does not threaten to disturb the establishment in any meaningful way and its does not reform anything about society, a few half-hearted attempts at prayer in schools aside. It leaves woke as the font of all excitement, power and preferment for an ambitious person on the make.
The nucleus of the Orbánist cause was a group of hard-edged people who learned their politics during the closing years of Hungary’s Communist regime. They had the good sense not to take these ideas all too seriously – the godliness and the pro-natal policies were largely improvised on the fly. But their American imitators are the genuine article. Should they succeed in commandeering MAGA, then the result will be an unappealing one – Trump’s bellicosity with Rick Santorum’s policies. Judging by Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s reactions to Orbán’s defeat, this is exactly the sort of opponent they want and expect to face in 2028.
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