When does it start for Hungary? 2008? 1989? 1919? 1945? 1956? 1526?

My only consolation is that if we have to have a European nation turn into a no-kidding Fascist dictatorship, Hungary is the one I'd want to have, as they have the worst military record of any European nation and haven't won a war in 400 years. Talented people in lots of ways, no doubt, but really crap at war.

It will be shit for Hungarians, especially minorities in Hungary, but at least we won't have to worry about Hungarian armoured divisions sweeping into Paris any time soon.

The EU needs to expel Hungary. Or at least begin raising the issue.

During the Bush years, I had read some stuff by Kim Lane Scheppele on what she termed "post-horror" constitutions and how they had incorporated clauses and "protections" that the US (and other) constitutions lacked based on recent history. I believe Hungary and Poland were both among here examples. So it is disheartening to see how truly ineffectual they are in the event. Admittedly not very surprising.but disheartening nonetheless. And of course our own early 2000s and recent experiences are instructive as well. All assume good faith governance, aka "Assumes Facts not in Evidence."

How far are attempts to replicate this model elsewhere in Europe proceeding? Poland? Serbia?

My understanding is that until recently Poland was dismantling liberal democracy even faster than Hungary was, but I'm no expert.

After checking, I learned that the Polish opposition gained a slim majority in the upper house of the legislature in 2019, so PiS can no longer fast-track legislation etc., and as far as I know, PiS has not gotten as far in removing the possibility of judicial oversight of the executive.

Forgiven my ignorance of this situation. How did Orban get into the position to declare rule by decree?

If he is popular, why is he popular? What elements of his platform could the opposition adopt, that would make them more electorally competitive? Why have they been unable to adapt?

By demonising immigrants, refugees and *wink* *wink* globalists. Because he demonises immigrants, refugees and *wink* *wink* globalists. Demonising immigrants, refugees and *wink* *wink* globalists. Because they're not monsters?

Also, slightly less facetiously, by getting rid of the independent judiciary and otherwise undermining democratic institutions.

My understanding is that Hungary's electoral distribution is somewhat uneven, which meant that 52% of the vote for Orban's Fidesz in 2010--partially fueled by an intense backlash to the center-left party in power during the Great Recession--gave them control of a supermajority of seats in the Hungarian parliament, which in turn enabled them to rewrite the constitution. (Which they promptly did, doing things like eliminating judicial oversight.)

And they've appointed loyalists to run the state media and choked out independent media. (Among other things, their 2010 reforms allow fines to be levied against media outlets held to be offensive to public morals.)

e.g., After a report that [Fidesz minister Antal] Rogán and his family took a luxury helicopter trip appeared in Népszabadság, Hungary's largest-circulation print daily, the paper was promptly permanently shut down.

They're very good at strategic use of deniably-political prosecutions.

9: But why does that work so well in Hungary? Everywhere in Europe has a party like that, AFAIK none of them have won national elections. eg. FN peaking at what 30% in presidential 2nd rounds.

There's an urban-rural split in voting patterns in all the Vysegrad countries (PL,CZ,SK,HU), with the countryside favoring nationalists. Partly this is because the center-left parties have been run by people who are unappealing, crooked, or both, and who didn't do as well as people expected when they had power. Both government institutions (that is, parties) and journalism are weak compared to here- in CZ, the nationalist PM gained power in part by buying up broadcast and print media; since the markets are small, the price wasn't that high.
There are many people there as here who prefer a media diet of comfortable simple lies to anything else, so readers and publishers cooperate on low information quality. I don't know the story behind Orban's opponents in particular-- I remember a leaked recording (of a left party chief being horrible) figuring in Orban's more recent election success.
While the machinery of parliamentary democracy is present, at least in CZ, the parties don't stand for that much- after an election, working out which people get which position gets a lot more attention than devising or popularizing sensible policy positions. Parties that are basically follower organizations of a single person are common.
The European Commision could I think restrict the flow of funds to Hungary in response-- some funds to CZ are threatened because of a European court's holding that the Czech Crime Minister fraudulently sidetracked previous funds. Tracing the decisions for that, which is ongoing, might be helpful to understand possible EU fiscal recourse.
For whatever it's worth, Slovakia's new president looks quite promising, progress and improvement are absolutely possible.

There's an urban-rural split in voting patterns in all the Vysegrad countries (PL,CZ,SK,HU), with the countryside favoring nationalists.

Also in all other countries I can think of, outside Latin America.

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1244690931946831876

Funny how characteristically each country reacts to the coronavirus. China tracks its citizens' every move. Hungary becomes a dictatorship. The US gives money to businesses. The Japanese conceal the problem. The British bravely but stupidly seek herd immunity.

Hey, you feel the quake?

Didn't feel it here, but we're like 400 miles away from the epicenter. You?

Yeah, waves on the sofa.

Is that two or three earthquakes?

We had a solid one here but the new one is quite a bit north. I didn't feel it at all. Maybe Cala did.

For a while, it looked like Hungary's party landscape would look like West Germany's, with a center-right party (Fidesz having eventually swallowed up the Hungarian Democratic Forum [MDF] that provided the first post-communist government), a center-left party (Socialists evolving out of the previously not-so-dictatorial communists) and a smallish classical-liberal party (SzDSz) holding the balance (and also holding the mayoralty in Budapest, where a quarter of the country's population lives). One surprise of early post-communist politics was that the Smallholders, who had been dominant between the wars and never truly forgotten in the communist period, basically went nowhere. And Orban really was the most effective and charismatic leader to come out of the opposition to the communists.

So what happened? In 2006, the Socialists and liberals won a narrow victory, re-electing a coalition that had won less narrowly in 2002. By the time the next elections rolled around in 2010, the Prime Minister had been caught on tape talking about how baldly they had lied to the population and the global financial crisis was everywhere. The Hungarians turfed out the ruling coalition in epic fashion, giving Fidesz and an ally a two-thirds majority, and allowing the vile far-right Jobbik into parliament with 5/6 as many seats as the previously ruling Socialists. The MDF was wiped out entirely and dissolved in April 2011.

As snarkout said above, Fidesz had a big enough majority to amend the constitution (no pesky states to delay ratification), which they did, and they have spent the last 10 years tilting the scales ever more in their favor.

3. They're sort of working on it, but it's painfully slow.

15.1 could equally apply to the UK and US, if you included small towns in "rural"