Orban’s initial plan was likely to keep the election close and then refuse to accept the result. But if he loses in a landslide that becomes impossible. So he’s entertaining more drastic options.
Hungary is at the "Ukraine is covertly interfering in our domestic politics to hurt Orbán" level of authoritarian paranoia and/or cynicism. lnk.thebulwark.com/4b40oHq
Sorry that’s Balázs Gulyás in English.
Mood in Hungary "is palpably different" than a year ago, with people "more comfortable criticizing Orbán in public.…Public figures speak about the 'Orbán regime' instead of the 'Orbán government.'…
"In response, the rhetoric from the regime…has become more threatening, violent, and openly fascist."
The author of this article, @davidbaer.bsky.social, is as keen-eyed an observer of Hungary as you will find among Americans—and a helluva writer.
(I like the line about how Tucker Carlson and JD Vance types treat Hungary as a "Christian conservative Disneyland.")
The phrase “Christian conservative Disneyland”was coined Gulyás Balázs
Is Orbánism heading to regime collapse? I share a few of my thoughts here. www.thebulwark.com/p/hungary-co...
The four greatest country music artists
PM Orbán is tightening control ahead of the 2026 election: intimidating critics, banning Pride, allowing the use of facial recognition.
These moves aren't unique. We've seen them in Russia, Turkey, Serbia - now they enter the EU.
My piece for @gmfus.bsky.social ⤵️
www.gmfus.org/news/authori...
The Secretary of the Navy doesn’t know when Pearl Harbor happened
ICYMI: According to a newly released court document, NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware was used in a 2019 hacking campaign to target a total of 1,223 WhatsApp users across 51 countries, including in multiple EU countries. 🕵️🤳
@investigacecz.bsky.social @vsquare.bsky.social
vsquare.org/pegasus-...
“For freedom is always on the defensive, and therefore in danger. Where the populace no longer feels freedom to be in peril, freedom is already lost.”
“A faith which, as such, allows itself to be caught up in the pragmatics of power, is already lost as faith. It grows as truth only within the area of liberty without force.” Karl Jaspers.
“The rule of law produces a climate of fearlessness, unconstraint, liberty and peace of mind. Where force rules there is fear, silence and concealment, coercion and unrest. In the constitutional State trust prevails, in the State based on force there is universal mistrust.” -Karl Jaspers
Trump telling people on social media to “Be Strong, Courageous and GREATNESS will be the result” is like the comic strip version of Nietzsche’s Übermensch
TAPPER: You're imposing a 10% on the Heard and MccDonald islands. They have zero human inhabitants. Why are you putting tariffs on islands entirely populated by penguins?
ROLLINS: Whatever. Listen, the people leading this are serious, intentional, patriotic, the smartest I've ever worked with.
Important to remember what Trump is doing in foreign policy to our alliances is as stupid and self destructive as what he’s doing with tariffs. Massive American self harm in every direction.
WSJ has been doing a better job covering the Trump presidency than Wapo, I'm sorry to say.
‼️🇺🇸 Trump allies Ric Grenell and Matt Mowers join the advisory board of Viktor Orbán’s pet company 4iG—a Hungarian IT/telecom/defense giant with major state support and a history of corruption claims. They're expanding fast in the Balkans.
👇Read our earlier @direkt36.bsky.social investigation.👇
💥🇭🇺 Police have given up guarding Budapest’s Liberty Bridge as anti-government protesters shut down traffic on four major bridges, rallying against Viktor Orbán’s new law curbing freedom of assembly and banning the Pride march.
They vow to escalate with a 24-hour shutdown next week.
"I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people."
Leaving your country to take a comfortable job in Canada because of Trump's authoritarianism is a form of anticipatory obedience. 2/2
In 1939 the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer left the United States, where he was studying, to return to Germany. He explained his decision in a letter to Reinhold Niebuhr, "I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany.... 1/2
This, from Timothy Snyder, is definitive, on Greenland open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...
I suppose if Walz had been running around on stage with a chainsaw that would have been justified joy.
Swedish journalist Joakim Medin arrested on arrival in Istanbul. His whereabouts are unknown.
Right-wing YouTuber Tim Pool has made it to the White House pool — someone from his “Timcast” channel will be part of today’s pool duty covering the president.
Last year, DOJ revealed Pool was receiving millions of dollars from the Russian gov. Pool says he didn’t know where it was coming from.
Swedish journalist Joakim Medin arrested on arrival in Istanbul. His whereabouts are unknown.
America is now a place that sends masked secret police to abduct people off the street and uses prisoners to create government propaganda.
And this all happened in 8 weeks. www.thebulwark.com/p/this-is-th...
