Adam Zivo: Orbán’s fall is a win for conservatism

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Through these reforms, Hungary became an “electoral autocracy,” or “hybrid regime” — meaning that multi-party elections were held, but in an environment that was not truly free, fair and competitive. His model was not unique: there are many similar regimes around the world, such as in Russia, Belarus, Serbia and India.

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Corruption proliferated and Orbán’s friends and family became miraculously wealthy, often through state contracts. His own father famously erected a luxurious palace in the Hungarian countryside, with two swimming pools and a massive underground garage.

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Meanwhile, the Hungary’s economy underperformed and fell behind many of its neighbours. Despite Orbán’s natalist rhetoric and policies, the country’s fertility rate dropped to 1.5 in 2025, and the number of Hungarians emigrating abroad exploded. As European Union scrutiny increased, Orbán looked eastward and embraced Russia as his closest ally and indispensable patron.

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Throughout all of this dysfunction, Orbán remained a darling of many on the right, especially those in the MAGA movement.

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Blinded by ideology and partisanship, Orbán’s foreign fans took his rhetoric at face value and ignored the rot within Hungary. Some even decided that illiberalism was not so bad. Their delusions were facilitated by a constellation of Orbán-funded conservative-nationalist think-tanks, which, by the mid-2020s, had morphed into a cottage industry for influence-hungry intellectuals and unscrupulous charlatans.

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This crowd’s moral bankruptcy — which was never particularly subtle — became even more apparent as Hungary’s political opposition coalesced around Peter Magyar, whose Tisza party won a supermajority in last weekend’s election.

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Magyar is not a progressive. He is a centre-right nationalist who once served in Orbán’s government, but defected out of disgust with its rampant corruption.

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Like Orbán, he favours harsher immigration policies, family values and protecting Hungary’s national culture. He differs, though, in that he wants to end elite cronyism, rebuild democratic norms, restore judicial and media independence, promote market economics, partner with NATO and the EU, and free Hungary from Moscow’s domineering influence.

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On paper, he is the perfect conservative candidate. He is Orbán, but without the corruption, statism and anti-western loyalties — the central European equivalent of Gandalf the White, come to replace a fallen Saruman. He shows that nationalist conservatism can be proudly democratic and pro-western, and that it can be animated by optimism and pride, not paranoia and spite.

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Yet many nationalist conservative influencers — particularly in the MAGA camp — claim that Magyar’s victory is a disaster. Listening to them, one would imagine there was a Marxist revolution in Budapest, and that, because Orbán failed to win despite rigging the system, Hungarian autocracy was never an issue. These so-called conservatives should be ignored. They’re just grifters with no principles beyond “owning the libs” and hating the EU.

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National Post

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