Orban and his special powers - the lack of journalistic integrity

This is going to be a difficult post for me because I do not wish to defend Orban and his government. I believe they are the very worst of the cleptocratic elite Hungary's political establisment bred over the last thirty years. Their rule is cementing a new, robber baron class in place, making the country even more nepotistic as it was before. A place where I am less and less keen to live in.

Anyhow. During the COVID-19 pandemic they voted some emergency powers for themselves, which were supposed to temporary, but they did not give an automatic expiry date. This sent everyone into panic; the screaming about dictatorships have predictably started. This situation is actually quite similar to the original dictators in the Roman sense -emergency powers granted for a person during times of emergencies, which were returned to the state once the emergency passed - so they might have had a point in this regard, but not in the sense we understand dictators today. (Do not get me wrong: Hungary really is not a well-functioning democracy. Neither is the US, but this is a different conversation.)

And now that the restrictions imposed on the country have been gradually eased, these emergency poweres were willingly surrendered, causing a serious confusion and a need to interpret this from the "Orban Is A Dictator" narrative. By large no mention is made in the usual suspects: Guardian, The Independent, WaPo, and the rest. But some do try to spin it in a new way to keep up their narrative.

Apparently it is a ploy to win by losing, and not actually doing what they said they would.

Now, Orban and his cronies are definitely corrupt assholes with autocratic tendencies. However it is quite clear even to them that grabbing power using the pandemic as an excuse would be a mistake -as it can be seen from their efforts to curtail the spread of the virus. As soon as they voted more powers for themselves, the usual accusations started - clearly it would be a step over the line to make these powers permanent. However, they do not need for such a ham-fisted attempt to grab power. They already have their cake and they can also eat it, too. They are firmly entrenched in power, and they can claim to have a democracy at the same time - the best of both words. Any dictatorial power grab would make them less than desirable company for the people they depend upon: multinationals and Western politicians. No matter how they suck up to Putin they do understand that it is not actually where their future lies. But it seems to be too nuanced for journalists out for some sensational headline I guess.

The reason Fidesz won in 2018 -again

There was a lot about why Fidesz won with an overwhelming majority again in both the international and the Hungarian media.

One narrative is the age-old trope about the primitive, easy-to-manipulate people living in the countryside, who just cannot deal with democracy; if only they listened to the smart people in the Capital. (This very popular opinion is quite wide-spread among certain demographics, and of course, it is very prominent in the media. This is obviously a sure way to win people over from those small villages and towns you'd need to win elections.)

Another narrative abroad and at home is that they won because they were pushing a ceaseless xenophobic campaign, playing on the worst fears of the electorate (and thus ~subtly~ implying how horribly racist everyone is in Hungary). I've wrote about this a lot; the campaign was idiotic and disgusting, but this was not something that could not have been pre-empted with some common sense by the Hungarian "elite", which jumped onto the pro-migrant bandwagon with elane in 2015, or the barrage of international condemnation which was frankly stupid and served only as an opportunity for virtue signalling. This was handed to Orban on a cushion; he did not even have to work for this; after all, he was the only one who got this whole mess right in Europe. Which, as a side-note, is freaking scary to think about.

The third narrative is about the free press. Apparently freedom of the media is no longer a thing; Fidesz was able to monopolize every single channel, hence successfully brain-washed the stupid, uneducated masses who had no other source of information but Victor wishpering in their ears day and night about the evils of Soros and the migrants who will rape them and their daughters. (Again: the government propaganda was stomatch-churning, no question about that.)

But the numbers say otherwise. The media is very far from the pro-government propaganda-machine people make it out to be; in fact, Orban is only wishing for the corporate media that was helping Bush getting the US into an illegal war or two, torture, and mass surveillance. Even if this picture was true, there's a problem: people even in villages have access to the internet. In fact, the access is higher than in most of the rest of the world. Sure, you can argue that most of it is probably facebook cats and porn, but you can't really make the case that access to any othe source of information is only financial news and political analysis.

And there's the whole "POPULISM IS ON THE RISE! THE NAZIS ARE COMING". (A "small" issue with these articles: Fidesz is right wing. NOT far right. If Fidesz is far right so are the Republican Party and the Tories.)

The actual reason why Fidesz won is much simpler and prosaic.

The opposition is shit. As this, and several other similar cases clearly demonstrate, they have no desire to cooperate, to have a coherent program, they are absoltely incompetent, and they refuse to do the hard, grassroots work. After it lost the elections in 2002, Fidesz did just that. Despite of having an overly hostile media, it went out, and talked to people, organized groups in the countryside, making people feel like they are valued (but still not offering any solution to their problems). And it worked. It's as simple as that.

So now we have a winning strategy to win an election, and there is the opportunistic career politician. Guess which one will get a 2/3 majority in the next election.