The Hungarian Left: How to lose an election
Well-well-well... It happened. We had an election in Hungary, and the results aren't surprising anyone.
For anyone who isn't in the know, Hungarian politics ever since 2018, can be best summed up as a struggle for fight between three major parties/blocs:
Fidesz, the dominant party, led by none other than Viktor Orbán. They were the ruling party between 1998 and 2002, and then again from 2010 to the present. They originally started as liberals full of anti-clericalism, but lately (as in, for the last ten years), they have been fashioning themselves as Christian Conservatives and Nationalists, but they don't really have an ideology: they are nepotistic kleptocrats whose only goal is to remain in power, and for that end, they shapeshift like a chameleon. Also, they hacked the election system to somehow ensure, that they get 66% of the parliament seats despite getting only around 48% of the vote. Despite all these negatives, they are still the lesser evil compared to....
The Left-Wing Liberal Opposition: A hodgepodge of increasingly irrelevant "left-wing liberal" parties. I know, I know, any bona fide Socialist or Libertarian is going to laugh here, saying "LOL, left-wing liberal? Sounds like an oxymoron to me!", but in Hungary, the words "left-wing" and "right-wing" take on completely different meanings than in the West. In Hungary, your economical views could be teethering on Communism, but if you support Hungary and Hungarians, you're right-wing - similarly, you could be the most ultra-Capitalist shill for the free market in the whole world, but if you favour foreigners and ethnic minorities at the expense of Hungarians (or if you are pro-LGBT), you are considered "left-wing" in Hungary. As a matter of fact, the self-proclaimed "Socialists" are the biggest ultra-Capitalists in Hungary, favouring integration into the global Western economy, while the so-called "right-wingers" want a more balanced, albeit state-controlled economy. TL;DR: Our "leftists" are actually Neo-Liberals.
The typical "ballib" (left-wing liberal) voter in Hungary is always over 30 (this ideology is nearly unheard of among younger people), lives in a big city like Budapest, has an irrational hatred towards their own country, is butthurt about Orbán's very existence, loves ethnic minorities, fetishizes homosexuality, is anti-natalist and hates the very idea of having children (unless it's ethnic minorities having 10 children, which they support), is ultra-Capitalist and absolutely hates social services/welfare (unless it's welfare for ethnic minorities, which they support), etc. They make up roughly one third of the population. Why do they still insist on living in Hungary if they hate it so much, is beyond me...
The real underdogs: Mi Hazánk Mozgalom (Our Homeland Movement), they actually are, what Fidesz merely pretends to be. While Fidesz merely pretends to be Nationalists and patriotic to cover up their corruption and power-schemes, Mi Hazánk are actually Nationalistic and Patriotic, advocate for an anti-corruption campaign, and actually want to rejuvenate the national economy instead of just filling their pockets. Naturally, they also want Hungary to quit the EU, and probably quit NATO as well. They want to put Hungary First.
As can be seen on the picture, Fidesz got 53.73% of the vote, the "left-wing liberals" got 34.56%, Mi Hazánk got 6.09%, which is actually above the threshold required to get into the parliament.
As I previously said, Fidesz was in power between 1998 and 2002, then has been in power once again since 2010, winning all elections since 2010 with a landslide. All of these elections were contested by the opposition, who cried foul and accused Fidesz of committing election fraud. In 2018, I actually saw plenty of suspicious things that makes me believe, that yes, there was voter fraud in 2018. What about 2022? Despite all the negative things I said about Fidesz, I believe they won fair and square this time. Why? Keep reading the article, and I will tell you why.
Step 1: A history of failure
My friend Geri already summed up the reason why "Socialists" (Neo-Liberals) are so unpopular in Hungary. Under their relatively brief - from 2002 to 2010 - iron-fisted rule, they increased the tax burden to support the elderly and the ethnic minorities, embezzled the seniors' retirement funds, unleashed the gypsies to terrorize the Hungarians, clamped down on freedom of expression (mostly going after alleged "far-right" organizations), privatized the living **** out of everything that still remained in the government's hands after the disastrous privatization in the 1990s, etc.
The core electorate, the core voting block of the "leftists" in Hungary includes the elderly (their votes bought with promises of higher pensions), the ethnic minorities (namely the gypsies), sexual minorities and the urban progressive, whom I already described in detail previously. Simply put, they do not appeal to anyone outside these groups, and after their previous failures, it is understandable, that no one will ever vote for them again: that is, no one other than the minorities and hyper-Western urbanites.
As a matter of fact, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say, that most voters in Hungary aren't really voting for Fidesz per se, but voting against the left. Of course, the end result is identical: landslide victory for Fidesz.
Step 2: Disconnect from the people
Ever felt like you were physically somewhere, but your mind was somewhere else? I bet the aforementioned "leftists" feel that way all the time. Their physical bodies may be residing in Hungary, but their minds live in Germany, France, Britain and the United States. Hell, even calling them foreign agents wouldn't be an exaggeration at this point.
I'm not making this up - these people no longer even have their own independent thoughts and policies. The Hungarian leftist's "platform" - if you can even call it that - is to just literally copy-paste everything their Western cousins do, without any regard if it'll have any appeal in Hungary or not, without any effort to make any of it palatable to the ordinary Hungarian voter.
How do you win the vote of someone you are utterly disconnected from? You don't. Simple as that. That's why they only got one-third of the vote: that one-third are the most cult-like / devoted of the urban progressives, some ethnic minorities, and maybe some senior citizens who want more pension: basically, their core voter demographic, nothing else outside of it.
There is plenty of room for actual, real left-wing politics in Hungary, for discussions about welfare, the relationship between employees and employers, etc. Hungarians are very much open to actual left-wing economics. But what they're not open to, is all the Western woke/SJW nonsense, all the anti-white racism, feminism, LGBTQPwhatever+ supremacy, etc. Yet this is what the modern "left" is focusing on, while economically being ultra-capitalist / neo-liberal.
And no, I'm not exaggerating when I say that their "platform" is to just Control-C Control-V whatever the Western SJWs/progressives are doing - when the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, the left-libs immediately jumped on the pro-Ukraine bandwagon....
... completely disregarding the bad blood between Hungary and Ukraine, as expected. Needless to say, it didn't win them any favour from the public (in fact, this is precisely how they lost my vote - before the war, I was considering voting for them, because some of their candidates supported Universal Basic Income and I was strongly disillusioned with the establishment). I believe this is what truly cost them the election, why Fidesz won fair and square.
Step 3: The Chickenhawks
Do you know what a "chickenhawk" is? A draft-dodger, who never served in the military, yet insists on advocating for war as a politician.
While the Western progressives were content with sanctioning Russia, virtue signaling online and sending thoughts and prayers to Ukraine, the Hungarian "leftists" (Neo-Liberals) went further than just supporting Ukraine. They openly started agitating for war, for Hungary to send weapons of war into Ukraine, to send soldiers to fight for Zelensky (with whom our leftist presidental candidate was in direct touch), to fight for Ukraine (the very same Ukraine that is discriminating against their brethren). Again, this didn't win them any votes.
As a matter of fact, just few days before elections, Péter Márki-Zay - the presidental candidate of the "leftist" opposition - started to advocate for conscription!
Is this guy completely nuts, or what?
And this goes back to the original point I made about the "left" being completely out of touch with what the Hungarians want and care about, and why they'll always fail to mobilize more than one third of the population (really, their core demographic) to vote for them.
Us Hungarians, we know what Ukraine is like. We know about their mistreatment of the Transcarpathian Hungarians. We know about the atrocities the Ukrainian government has commited against their Russian-speaking citizens. This is not our war.
Yet he kept parroting his hawkish positions. Worst timing again.
A race against the clock
I already listed the core voting demographics of the Hungarian "left": senior citizens (bribed with higher pension), ethnic minorities (namely gypsies, bribed with more welfare for them), sexual minorities and the ultra-progressive urbanite bourgeoisie.
Just what's the problem with these groups? Well, the fact that building your electoral strategy on them is a dead end, and a literal race against the clock:
Senior citizens are... well, senior citizens. Old people. Pensioners. They - especially the subvariant that lived under Communism (1948-1989) and has nostalgia for it - are literally a dying breed, living their twilight years. In fact, me and my friend constantly used to make jokes about how MSZP's electorate is rapidly dying off.
I also observed a shift in the voting preference of senior citizens, with many of them shifting towards Fidesz.
"Sexual minorities" is more or less a euphemism for homosexuals, who don't reproduce. Go figure.
The ultra-progressive urbanites do reproduce, but at a much lower rate than conservative villagers.
Even the "ethnic minorities" - which is a euphemism for gypsies, who breed like rabbits - have started to favour Fidesz ever since the European migrant crisis of 2015. They obviously don't want any foreign competition in being welfare-recepients. I predict the "left" eventually abandoning the gypsies in favour of African and Middle Eastern migrants, which they more or less already did halfway.
We can see, that the Hungarian "Left" is faced with a literal race against the clock, and even with all the pensioners, gypsies, homosexuals and Budapesters voting for them, being backed by Zelensky and the CIA, they still fail to to win the elections!
But with their voting base dying, what will the Hungarian Liberals do? How do they ever hope to win power? Only time will tell.
I was raised with respecting others, living and letting live. This doesn't mean I'm a fan of the Western 'nonsense' the woke, globalist and lefties ideas. It's just too much and with too much, I mean overdoing and no room for those who don't agree.
I don't believe the people have a voice. In the Western world all elections are corrupt for 8 years, and no longer.
I read an EU lady (Sofie?) is mad and Soros will be and many more who paid to make Orban lose the elections (same as Trump lost).
Soon your country will be one of those rare rich countries left and one with norms and values unless you keep joining the EU and let Brussel rule.
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