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Viktor Orban’s Populism Is Just The Democracy The Establishment Doesn’t Like

Viktor Orban’s just won a thumping third election victory in Hungary. This is being derided as simply populism. Populism being just successful democracy but of the kind that the right on and bien pensants don’t approve of. Say that, for example, there shouldn’t be too many foreigners and the voters agree with you then that’s populism. Say that, for example, we should soak the rich and the voters like that then that’s statesmanship winning an election, not populism. Say that, for example, food should be cheap so we’ll set the price of it nice and cheap and the voters like that then that’s not the populism which bankrupts Venezuela but the Bolivarian Revolution.

Populism is, thus, something in the eye of the beholder. Democracy being promising the voters what they think they want, a populist being one who promises what the beholder thinks they shouldn’t want:

The hardline populist prime minister of Hungary celebrated a landslide third consecutive term last night, sounding alarm bells in Brussels.

Preliminary results suggested that Viktor Orban was on course to regain the two-thirds parliamentary “supermajority” he won in 2010 and 2014 after he campaigned against the European Union’s ambition to settle migrants and increase the pace of integration of member states.

He’s promised what the voters appear to want, he’s won an election as a result. But, you see, he’s a populist, because the people shouldn’t want that, should they?

It’s a safe bet that few in Brussels are celebrating Viktor Orbán’s resounding win. Elected for a fourth term, Hungary’s anti-immigrant nationalist leader poses a profound challenge for the European Union.

Since returning as prime minister in 2010, Orbán and his Fidesz party have chipped away at Hungary’s democratic checks and balances, curbed judicial independence and clamped down on the independent media. Hungary’s democratic backsliding has been accompanied by a drumbeat of xenophobic rhetoric, directed against refugees, Brussels and George Soros.

The EU, used to grappling with Brexit, is now confronting a country at the heart of the continent making an exit from the club’s liberal values, but continuing to pick up the cheques.

An interesting commentary upon the European Union itself, don’t you think? The voters should only get what they want if it’s on the approved list, that list not being subject to democratic change at all. We could describe this in one manner, which is that the EU is a protection against the populist ideologues. We could describe it in another, which is that the EU is against democracy upon anything important. My own view is very much closer to that second and the thing is, those who founded it thought so too.

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Whyshouldihavetoregister
Whyshouldihavetoregister
5 years ago

How nice to see “pick up the cheques” (take the money) as a misunderstanding of “pick up the check” (pay the bill.)

Quentin Vole
Quentin Vole
5 years ago

Not to be confused with “pick up the Czech”.

Shibusa ??
Shibusa ??
5 years ago

So the EU is now in essence bribing nations to ignore their electorate. Sounds about right

Steve
Steve
5 years ago

The EU thinks Hungary should be chock-full of people who aren’t Hungarian, and who are often actively, violently hostile to Europeans and Christians.

Isn’t there something terribly wrong with that? Why does the EU hate Hungarians?

humourme
humourme
5 years ago

Fidesz is deeply corrupt and has also implanted its people into positions of authority and changed the electoral systems. This is all true.

On the other hand, you could say that New Labour under Blair did the same things. Certainly that was what the left of centre PD did in Italy. Yet no cries of populism then…

moqifen
moqifen
5 years ago

Wish we had a PM that had the guts to stand up for her people rather than the choice between Sharia May who practices being incompetent and has the backbone of a jellyfish or Jeremy Hamas Corbyn who hates the english even more than May

Quentin Vole
Quentin Vole
5 years ago

‘Populism’ gives rise to one of those lovely irregular verbs:
I have a democratic mandate.
You are a populist.
He is a rabble-rouser.

Matt Ryan
Matt Ryan
5 years ago

Budapest was a great city to walk around when I used to go regularly around 10 years ago. Felt safe such that single women would walk around even quite late at night.

No wonder they don’t want the practitioners of the RoP to turn up with their different view on women.

Shibusa ????????
Shibusa ????????
5 years ago

So the EU is now in essence bribing nations to ignore their electorate. Sounds about right

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