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.

Racism and identity politics

This video is an interesting take on the whole diversity issue.
Essentially Peterson argues that even though there are measurable, objective differences between different groups, the differences are realtively small. They are not significant next to the differences between individuals.
Therefore any argument for diversity based race or gender is basically a racist one, because it essentially states that the major differences between a white person and, let's say, and Asian person are determined by their race, and not by their persons. So an Asian person is more alike to all other Asians, a black person to all other blacks, and a man is to all the men in the world. This reduces a person essentially to his or her "group" being race, gender, sexual orientation, age or anything else.
This is obviously racist, and I do agree with his conclusion on this particular point -somewhat. Indeed the whole problem and paradox of identity politics is that it is fundamentally racist.

But then he further argues that the real basis of diversity is the individual. I am not certain I can accept this, however.

Those small differences he mentioned added up do amount to visible/detectable differences between individuals. Peterson makes the mistake of taking these differences on their own, and not looking at their cummulative effect. Taken as a whole, these differences do amount to an overall variation between groups, even though certain members of the groups may indeed be more similar to another person from a different group than to members of their own group.

So no. I do think it is still important to have as many types of people in groups as possible, although it is probably true that it does not necessarily mean that you have to focus on the "emphasised" grouping, like gender or race. While it may seem like a no-brainer that including a black guy in a group of lawyers may add an extra point of view, I would argue that if that token black guy is coming from the same Harvard environment as the rest of his pastry white co-workers, he will not  bring as much diversity of point of view into this group as a white kid for Idaho who attended to community college (or, god forbid, someone from an European country) would. If you include a black guy who is coming from a ghetto, you are getting there, however. But this is the point that Jordan is pressing: just by picking a random feature, and making it into the sole basis of "diversity", you are essentially a racist (if this feature is race), or, indeed sexist (if it is gender).

Putting your feet in your mouth -twice

So a small-time politician (he is the mayor of the Third District of Budapest) of the Democratic Coalition (DK) in Hungary had a very interesting insight: he thought Hitler totally deserved to be chosen "Man of the Year" by Time magazine in 1938, as under his leadership the German economy was soaring.
Well, yes. And there was the Crystal Night, the Night of the Long Knives, concentration camps and murder of "invalids". But yeah, the economy was good.

Not surprisingly the right side of the media and establishment jumped onto this with relish, while the left side tried to defend his misstep as a mistake, and used the age old "but you too" as well, saying that the "other side" would not have mentioned this gaffle had their own guys committed it. Which is absolutely true. But it is also undeniably true that if this was a right wing politician, the New York Times and the Guardian would have already justified a NATO strike on Hungary for this.

OK, so far we have a stupid comment, which demonstrates how Mr Imre László has absolutely no clue about history, and how the different sides of the political divide interpret this event. Amusing but not a big deal, really. If you thought this could not be elevated onto an ever greater level of absurdity and amusement - well, you were clearly wrong.

Mr Imre was offering an apology for his unfortunate historical parallel but, as he explained, he was taking part in a debate about naming a public square after Josef Mengele when he made it. You know, Mengele. The Angel of Death, the Nazi doctor who did horrific experiments on the inmates of the Auschwitz death camp, and all that. But before you start writing to the New York Times about that NATO strike, read on.

What actually took place was a debate about naming a public square after none other than Nelson Mandela. (The Right here are very much on the opinion that Mandela was a racist terrorist first and foremost, so he does not deserve any recognition - again: politics before history.)

… 

Let this sink in for a second.

Mengele, Mandela what's the difference? You say tomato I say tomato.

And people wonder how Fidesz is still in power. With allies like this, who needs enemies?

A narrowed defition of diversity exported to Europe

So apparently Europe has a diversity problem.
(Apologies for the CNN link; I hate these websites which start ad videos without asking. Deplorable.)

So anyhow, apparently we do.

What do you think it might be? The issue with the roma minority? The status of Hungarians in Romania? (Linked because it is NYT - some things have improved since then, some had not.) Is it the any other problems ethnic minorities face in European countries?

But of course not.

It can only be black people. No other minorities are of importance. In fact, there are no other minorities. This stupid, binary view (black/white) is imported from the US, along with its consequences, as we can see in the riots in the UK about the murder of a man in the US (let's not get into it). And yes, nobody claims black people are not disadvantaged in some countries. But the notion of singling out a population just because it is black, regadless how how few of them are actually living there, while leaving all the other minorities (who might be "only" brown, or god forbid, white - we can't have white minorities, after all) completely out, despite of the fact that by large they have been living in Europe since, well, millennia, and they do face problems of their own is simply preposterous.

In this view, a monolithic white Europe is oppressing blacks because this is what diversity means -and not the multitude of smaller and bigger ethnic groups that make up Europe itself. So when the American police murders a black person, let's smack a bobby in the face, shall we?

Sometimes it feels like the inmates are running the asylum. 

It is simple to explain, though. It is popular, it plays on the white guilt on certain people, and it aligns with the agency of certain people who are in a position to drive the public discourse, and can shout down anyone as a racist or alt-right if they object. In short it makes for a convenient way to deflect discussions about real issues, which would really open a big, freaking can of worm in the perfect European project. After all we can't have people going about tearing up this idea of idillic united Europe by pointing out that certain members may act towards their minorities in a way that is going against the fabled European Values we all heard so much about. So we turn a blind eye to real issues to focus on something that is makes for a good headline and makes the majority (e.g. all white people) into a scapegoat. And this way the proponents of the European Project (which is actually a really good one), and the out-of-control progressives (who worship identity politics) are actually digging the grave for both. The former I do deeply regret; the latter not so much.

The circles of identity politics - or whatever are we going to fight against next?

A relatively old case, but an interesting one which demonstrates how identity politics works. It is a simple one: a woman stabbed her boyfriend, and essentially got away with it with a slap on the wrist.

It is, I have to say, probably enraging a few people -after all, the judgement goes against any sense of justice, because the defendant is a woman. (See: women are wonderful effect -no wonder they get reduced sentences for comparable crimes, right?)

So I was holding my breath when I saw the Guardian headline complaining about injustice with the following headline from two years ago: The Lavinia Woodland case exposes equality before the law as a myth… could it be? The Woke of the Woke, the Flagship of Identity Politics actually stood up against a gross injustice, even if it is about a woman, you know, a person who is suppressed by the systemic forces of a Patriarchy? Maybe now we can have a level-headed discussion about sentencing policies that are so ridiculous it is hard to know where to start to describe them? That maybe the Guardian may point out that women are favoured which leads to miscarriages of justice (not in a legal sense, but in a moral one).

Well, fuck no. Of course not.

The Guardian found a different narrative.

Now it is not heroic, abused women in the yokes of the Patriarchy; after all, a woman is now a beneficiary of this Evil System.
Now it is the minority women against the evil white supremacy which puts them into prison.

There is a kernel of truth in this argument. It is undeniable that money and status played a role in this case. In fact, one can argue, it is the only factor that played any role in the judgement. A poor woman (white or non-white) would not have gotten away so easy. And yes, there is racism in the justice system.

However, deliberately staying blind to the larger injustice - the different sentencing standards for different genders- just because it does not fit into our narrative -well, this is the repugnant part of identity politics. A man would have gotten an even harsher sentence poor or not. And your narrative about the poor, abused women -well, very few criminals are criminals because they chose that life based on a school competency test. Your compassion is only reserved for one part of the population, and you do not see any reason why you should extend it to other human beings who are not in your in-group. If it is about men, your in-group is women, if it is about a white woman, your in-group is minority women. Since everything is relative, you can move the goal posts as much as you like -as long as you keep the victim/oppressor narrative. You are warping reality even when what you say is factually true. Because what you do not say matters, too. You can make fake news without uttering a falsehood, as it is demonstrated so well in this case.

Women are the best leaders

So now the internet is buzzing with the news: women make the best leaders! The few countries which are led by women are really great at COVID-19 response! It is official! There can be no other explanation, right?

Except…
By this measure, this
guy

is an even greater leader… after all, Eastern and Central European countries responded very resolutely to the pandemic, and these steps largely worked.

So now, when we say that a few countries prove that women leaders are the best, do we also say that Orban is a woman? Or do we say suppressing democracy also works? How about countries, which are led by women and responded poorly to COVID-19?

It is quite astonishing, really, that an idea takes root somewhere, some news outlets pick it up, then it becomes real, since so many news outlets are reporting about it, it must be true. The idea becomes reality.

Apart from the stupidity of identity politics, which looks at everything through gender or race (I wonder why during the 2015 refugee crisis they did not say women leaders were crap, based on how Merkel handled the situation, or when Germany essentially took down the economies of Greece and Spain, that women leaders are horribly aggressive. It is also a stroke of luck for these people that May is not in power in the UK, because, well… the UK response has been less than stellar, and May was not exactly the efficient leader women are supposed to be.

And there are other factors to consider, too, unsurprisingly. First of all, you really want to make sweeping generalizations based on a few statistical outliers? How many countries are there, and how many heads of state are women? Even if you are willing to do that (opening up the way to other, more dangerous generalizations based on outliers -how many deaths did muslim terrorists cause in the last decade, for example?), are you sure you are not ignoring everything else that may cause the difference?
Perhaps it is not the female leaders per se we should be discussing; after all they are not absolute monarchs who make decisions on their own. (I think. At least I thought in a democracy they don't.) Perhaps countries where women can and do get into power tend to be technologically, socially on the more advanced side (I am starting to hate the word "progressive"), with relatively low population density - in short, in countries where we could expect an efficient response to the pandemic, we have a higher chance to see women leaders. (Except if the country is in Central or Eastern Europe, because then it seems like efficient response can be expected from male members of society as well.)

And then there are the inconvenient facts nobody mentions about Germany… But that's another issue altogether.

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.