No, no, we can’t stop fascism in the US by voting them out of office. We must overthrow democracy altogether, kill the billionaires, hand over the deeds to the tenants, ban hate speech and hate thought, eliminate capitalism and replace the profit motive with 5-year plans built by knowledgeable citizen-committees, and re-educate the folks who think any of that is a bad idea.
Then and only then can we peacefully hand power back to a new one-party democracy like so many countries have successfully done in the past after their own People’s Revolutions.
Remember when people voted in 2020? Wow that sure showed them. Or even 2008?
Almost like if your opposition party doesn’t actually present an alternative vision (i.e socialism) and therefore do not and cannot address the root of major issues (wealth consolidation, inequality, housing, pricing etc all eventually lead to the institution of private property), then surprise! The right rallies, the general populace looks for something, and shockingly the reaction has empowered a far right “populist” and pushed the country further to the right. Who could have seen this coming? (literally every socialist).
Your voting didn’t do much of anything and the US continues to slide further to the right as it has since like the new deal.
No, no, we can’t stop fascism in the US by voting them out of office
You literally can’t. Did you forget that biden was elected after trump? Where did that lead you, back to fascism.
We were close to stopping Trump 2. We’ll see how well we can cripple his power in the mid-terms.
Didn’t and can’t are not the same thing. Literally.
Cool, then you’ll get 4 more years of 99% Hitler instead of 100% Hitler, and next republican 101% Hitler will be elected in the following elections. Fascism is structural and rooted deeply in the institutions at this point, you literally cannot vote it out.
Idk man once the US stops fucking with other countries economies they tend to start doing well.
As for one party states, try and defy the two headed snake we call democracy here. The a totalitarian state dressed up as a sham republic. Think of all the things everyone agrees on but the federal government vehemently opposes or vice versa
“The United States is also a one-party state, but with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.”
Sounds like incredibly based to me
Aye, comrade. It is the only way! *tankie salute*
If two party democracy doesn’t give the desired outcome, the next thing to try is one party democracy.
Wild headline and no I’m not reading the Atlantic.
Who won the election and what are his politics?
Victor Ghoulash and his Paprikash Party beat out Orban’s Fedora Party. Ghoulash wants to instate caps on rent, oil, and produce prices and align Hungary strategically with Turkmenistan.
I was making a point about asking for internet commenters to educate you because you don’t trust journalists.
The Atlantic does not do journalism lol it’s a neo liberal rag. Case in point, pretending that swapping a far right politician for another is somehow proof that “illiberalism is not inevitable”
Péter Magyar won the election in a blowout making Orbán’s party practically irrelevant. He is an ex-Fidesz member that broke off and is heading a broad grassroots party.
He himself is old-school conservative coded, but his party is very broad and includes everyone from racial justice activists to members of the military to quite literally random people. Most of his party is brand new to politics and made up of working class people, most new representatives were like the town doctor or engineers before.
The party’s policies are a working social net including investments into education and healthcare, an independent prosecutors office and EPPO membership, a special office to prosecute corrupt politicians, adopting the Euro and contributing to a stronger EU and stronger voices to the Eastern EU in Brussels, support for racial, sexual and other minorities and so on.
So in the meantime he clarified that while he invited everyone and their cats to the anniversary of the revolution against the Soviets, he kinda made a mistake, and he won’t block sanctions against Israel and will rejoin the ICC and prosecute Netanyahu.
It was more of a gaffe than an actual policy position.
I appreciate the follow up but sure seems like you’re falling for it in real time.
If the Atlantic is praising him, you already know what is his politics.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-atlantic/ “Left-center bias”
So what are you, some kind of far-right?
So, a polite fascist
A
conservative“centrist”.
Guess you’ll have to read it to know.
No, I don’t lol. I know where the Atlantic stands.
Too woke for you I guess. Rupert Murdock probably owns something more your speed.
You know Wikipedia is free, right? You can look up Magyar and see that he’s a fascist, right?
Takes one to know one I guess
The words in the article are what we’re talking about. Not whatever your fake anger is about.
Based on the article’s headline I can’t imagine much of substance was said.
I feel the same way about your comment
Believe it or not, they had the opponent’s name.
He was Orbanz guy until a few years ago when he saw which way the wind was blowing.
It seems illiberalism is indeed inevitable then
This has been headline news all over the world for the last 24 hours. Go read your news source of choice and quit yer bitchin
I have. He was a member of orbans party. Not really even a liberal lol.
Them why did you ask that question
I take it back, he is indeed a liberal
Lol me pointing out that the Atlantic is a neoliberal rag. It was rhetorical.
“Liberalism” isn’t a good thing and Magyar is also a corrupt white supremacist.
Yeah you’re not wrong, but my takeaway is that it’s at least going in the correct direction (haven’t heard any white supremacist stuff but wouldn’t surprise me in that part of the world). When your house is on fire, you care less about who’s the guy with a hose.
Now we just gotta see if things improve through their EU vote and restoration of human rights in Hungary. Then their people need to work towards empowering more left parties. I’m at least somewhat hopeful, especially if it helps Ukraine.
Frankly I’m just happy some progress was made, and that Hungary wasn’t so far gone that Orban became president for life.
His party’s top leadership includes people who worked tirelessly for uplifting Romani people, they achieved raising the rate of high school enrolment in some of the poorest areas of Hungary from 10% to 100%.
This was still during Orbán’s rule.
IDK what you base the white supremacist claims on, especially as much of his electorate is not white.
I’ve seen interviews conducted by news sources I trust where Romani people were quoted saying “when he speaks, we’re all Hungarians”.
Also, illiberalism is not the opposite of liberalism, please look stuff up.
Have you also seen his “the immigrants are stealing from zoos” to eat our animals quote or his promise for extreme immigration control?
Yeah, on the one hand that was an idiotic thing to say but what he said was that immigrants were housed in inhumane ways and he wants to stop that.
Regarding extreme immigration control, what would be a better way? He wants immigrants to be swiftly processed and either granted entry or refused in a strict but humane way. This, and greater contribution to Fronted.
The plan is to avoid people in camps. What better solution do you have? This is not the US, there are very few undocumented people going around and most of them seem to be Russian spies TBH
What is the “leftist” solution to immigration in the EU?
Liberalism in the context of Eastern European conservative politicians means not being a hateful bigot. It’s COMPLETELY divorced from the concept of economic liberalism. A “liberast” is anyone who isn’t a xenophobe.
The narrative being sold is that liberals want to force everyone to be exactly what the Fox News stereotype of a liberal was in 2016. Blue haired LGBT. Orban et al fight against minorities and LGBT and say they’re fighting against liberals trying to destroy your country.
This is what illiberalism means in this context. Bigotry.
But Magyar is also a bigot.
He’s already said that he’d uphold the people’s right to assembly (context being the Pride being banned by Orban).
What his actual stance on LGBT people is, remains to be seen. But Orban was outwardly hateful against them. Same with immigrants. Magyar however wants the EU money and the EU doesn’t like repressive governments.
Magyar is hopefully a stepping stone to something better. He’s honestly not great. But I don’t get why everyone seems to think this isn’t worth celebrating. Orban was essentially a dictator, but he lost. Despite having all the legacy media and most social media behind him, despite having gerrymandered the hell out of the electoral maps, he and his party were reduced to irrelevance in a single election. Replaced by an Orban-Lite, maybe, but at least he’s out and Magyar’s campaign promise has been to unfuck the electoral system of Hungary. Whether he’ll do it or not remains to be seen, but he can’t be Orban 2.0 if he wants the EU funds back that Orban lost.
Are you just going to completely ignore his racism and I honestly have little knowledge of his lgbt stance but he isn’t quiet about his racism.
I’m not even 100% sure if he’s racist at this point. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. Look, I’m just hopeful that life will improve for Hungarians and that Magyar goes through with his promises of electoral reform to undo some of Orban’s changes.
Anyway, he’s widely been quoted as saying that the Filipino employees at Samsung’s factory have been eating cats and dogs and ducks or whatever. And as such he’s been shown to be racist.
BUT his actual quote:
“All the employees at the Samsung plant in Göd live in a workers’ hostel in Budapest. They have been brought here from the Philippines without food or money. When hundreds of Filipino workers were brought here and allocated to these Budapest hostels without money or provisions, then the next day, a lot of ducks had disappeared from the Budapest Zoo. So have the goldfish.”
This to me sounds like he’s against companies importing workers and keeping them in slavery-like conditions? This I could get behind.
He then continues,
“Because these people were starving, and that’s what they did. Don’t get me wrong, this is not about anti-foreigner prejudice; there is nothing wrong with these labourers. The problem is that it is not the citizens of our country who get to be prioritised when a company generously funded with our money, our taxes, does not employ Hungarians.”
This part does show that he’d clearly prefer for the plant to hire more Hungarians, but not that he necessarily hates the foreigners. If the Filipinos are low-skill laborers whose jobs could easily be done by Hungarians, I can quite understand his opinion - Samsung is cutting costs by importing workers. If these are highly specialized jobs and they couldn’t find qualified Hungarians, then I’d be more inclined to disagree with him. But something tells me that a lot of Filipinos being kept in horrible conditions aren’t super specialized engineers and this is just a gigacorporation trying to save a few bucks. After the Hungarian government gave them a bunch of money.
Also, he did say Lazar had crossed all lines when Lazar said the Roma should clean toilets on trains. But since they’re political opponents, that doesn’t necessarily mean much. There’s articles saying he’s promised to help Roma communities, but I couldn’t find anything concrete right now.
Done talking to someone taking any attempt and using arguments to attempt to excuse nativist racism.
What was the racist part?
This is about social liberalism not economic. The opposite of which is conservatism and repression. I don’t think you’re arguing for the cause you think you’re arguing for here.
I am against all form of liberalism.
Right on! Burn the LGBT folks and minorities!
I have a white cloak for you.
strawman
I have explained this in several comments by now:
Liberalism in Eastern Europe stands for not being a bigot.
By saying you’re against all form of liberalism in the context of an Eastern European election, it means you’re essentially pro-MAGA.
Oh then maybe thats why you misunderstood me, nvm.
This is about social liberalism not economic.
No, it’s about liberal democracy vs illiberal democracy. Liberal democracy gives you the option to vote for different parties in fair elections, separation of power, rule of law and so on. Both conservatism and social liberalism can work within a liberal democracy.
It’s “social liberalism” to be a extremely racist who demonizes immigrants constantly sorry i didn’t know that.
I never said Orban was a liberal?
This is a small step in the right direction. Nobody is saying Magyar is flawless, but Orban was legitimately making LGBT people illegal.
Sure EVERYONE is, all while you don’t suggest a single person better. Liberalism is so bad why?
I’ll bet money you have no better suggestion and can only say that EVERYONE is not good enough…
Is this honestly your first exposure to a leftist condemning liberalism?
What do leftists have against minorities anyway that they hate liberalism (non-bigotry) so much?
“Liberal” in the context of eastern european conservative politicians is not economic liberal, nor anything to do with democracy. Liberal means “doesn’t want to kill gays and blacks”. That’s it.
The original meaning of the word “liberal” is long dead here at least. A lot of these people who claim to fight against liberalism are in fact liberals in the classic sense (free market economy and all that).
Pretty sure liberalism is still a reformist ideology even in eastern Europe, no?
So in my country, there’s literally a “reform party”, which are classical liberals in the economic sense. Their own members will, indeed, call themselves liberals and mean the economic ideology. But they were also one of the two main parties behind the Estonian “kooseluseadus” (literally translated: “co-living law” or “living together law”), which doesn’t legalize gay marriage as such, but rather creates a new institution that’s basically the same as marriage, with all the same rights and duties, and is gender neutral. That was highly controversial in 2014 and eventually led to rise of EKRE, basically our own MAGA.
Any time they’re referred to as liberals now, it is NOT about their economic policies at all. The conservatives have completely changed the meaning of the term, and now it’s liberalism vs traditionalism, and it’s all about the “traditional family values” and such, you know, usual conservative bullshit, clashing against “liberal values”.
But this is not unique to Estonia. We imported this from the US. Or rather, our conservatives did. Similar stuff in other Eastern European countries. The American right has, for a long time now, framed liberalism as what I’ve described many times in this thread: Not being a bigot. Economically, the Republicans ARE liberals, just like most of the Democrats are. And if you’re far enough left, both of those parties ARE the same to you, and they ARE both liberals. But closer to the center, as well as very far to the right, the term is used completely differently, and has been for so long now that you just can’t use it anymore.
Personally I propose either saying neoliberalism when talking about economic liberalism (even if not completely precise language), or straight up calling it capitalism. Or hell, let’s invent a new term, call it marketism. Because the meaning of the word “liberal” has shifted so much, it’s no longer correct.
And yes, my comment was being facetious. I DO know what all the people here mean when they say they hate liberalism. But that’s quite literally not the liberalism the article is talking about, and it’s not what liberalism means to most people nowadays.
Oh, also, a funny tidbit on how badly words get misused:
So the reform party, basically center-right, being classic liberals, want lower taxation and more privatization of important industries, including healthcare and education. Fuck those guys obviously - they’re only really tolerated as a “lesser evil” compared to the outright nazi-adjacent folks since the left is unpopular for a myriad of reasons. Usually they’ll form coalition with the slightly more left-wing party, the social democrats.
Our far right, literally hateful bigots, will call that party not just liberals, but also commies. After all, commie is still a dirty word, we’re a post-soviet nation. Why is this funny? Because the far right party does NOT support lowering taxes and privatizing healthcare, meaning economically they’re actually left of the people they hatefully call communists for… Mostly the gay “marriage”.
I do hope they won’t succeed in the rebranding of the words “communist” and “socialist”. I know that American conservatives are doing the same, but it’s not really catching on as much as it did with the word “liberal”.
And yes, I’m a liberal. Just not economically. I’m more of a “social democracy for now, but let’s gradually go further left” kinda guy. Let private industry innovate, find new markets for whatever they can dream of, but make sure everything important is available to every single person, and that every important industry is publicly owned, not privately. And rein in the private companies sooner rather than later.
Why the reluctance to call a fascist a fascist?
Altlantic has, diacussed here by the author
Because the whole world is fascist and the leaders of fascism don’t like to be called it, so no mainstream media or news will call it such.
Also it can be confusing for some people. For instance, in WWII the fascist USA helped Russia defeat the fascist Nazi doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Most operate like Fascism = Bad instead of Fascism = Corporatism.
Does he mean fascism?
Magyar? No.
liberalism must be defeated, international proletariat must rise up against this sick ideology.
Or, lets just do a post-scarcity economy.
Why do you want some old ass ideology like communism when we can just do fuckin Star Trek?
Nah
Yes, death to LGBT folks and other minorities. Here, have a white cloak.
Contemporary communists are feminists and pro-LGBTQ. Source: I’m one of them.
Which means in modern political parlance you’re not just a communist, but also a liberal. Especially in Eastern Europe.
No, you don’t get to choose the words I describe myself with. Socially progressive is not synonymous with liberal, it’s kinda the opposite actually.
Okay, but that’s what the word means now. Socially progressive and liberal are almost synonyms for years now, and the amount of people this has spread to is increasing.
Outside of your own narrow circle, you say you’re against liberalism, and people will think you’re going to be joining the KKK or something. So you can go on and say that you’re anti-liberal, but to an increasingly big amount of people that means you’re a bigot.
Something something dictionaries should be descriptive, not prescriptive.
I’ll link another comment I just made, which highlights this. There’s articles quoting three bigoted Eastern-European politicians (including the one this article is about) talking about how liberals and their gay agenda are ruining the world.
The usage of the word liberal has thus shifted. As the likes of Putin, Orban, Trump, etc, use the word liberal to describe someone they perceive as “woke”, “SJW”, whatever, basically just non-bigoted people, the people being described as such have largely adopted that label as their own. Largely, the word “liberal” where I live now means you’re accepting of other people, and your economic stance usually may be anywhere from center to left - as liberalism now carries the connotation of being a progressive, empathetic person, usually most people who call themselves liberals are pro taxation, social safety nets, etc.
This is why, and I’ve said this in a few other comments now, I propose that the original word “liberalism” for the most part should be replaced with “neoliberalism”, “capitalism”, or “marketism” to reduce confusion. Not a single one of those could in any way be confused for progressivism at least.
I can’t see shit oudda this thing!
death to LGBT
One of the best LGBT rights in the world is in cuba (a communist country) and that happened democratically without any electoralism bullshit so keep your bs to yourself, I guess.
Cuba is on the other side of the world. Liberalism in Eastern Europe generally means tolerance for others. Not being a bigot.
and liberalism in other parts of world means western imperialism, capitalist enforcement, pro rich anti evironmentalism.
Sure, if you collapse capitalism, neoliberalism, and western foreign policy into just ‘liberalism’
The word “liberalism” in Europe is generally used to refer to economic liberalism, not social progressivism.
Haven’t heard it used for economic liberalism in over a decade, but I’m also not from western Europe.
Yeah exactly. Liberals here are right wing capitalists. And often conservative.
They are kinda the same as the liberals in the US but that’s because US doesn’t really know any real left wing. So it’s right wing democrats or extreme-right republicans.
That makes liberalism seem somehow progressive but it isn’t really.
Is Liberalism good?
Which liberalism?
Liberalism in the classic sense I’ll leave to you to decide.
Liberalism in this instance almost certainly has little to do with the market economy and is instead the catch-all term conservatives use for being socially progressive.
Orban himself claimed he was building an “illliberal regime” and that was almost entirely about the “gay agenda” and the liberal “attack on Christian values”. Putin also more or less said liberalism means letting in black people who destroy your country. So this is likely what the article is referring to.
No.
Read: State and Revolution by Vladmir Ilyich Lenin
Thanks for the recommendation; I’ve opened the audiobook in my YT window, so I’ll eventually give it a listen (~4-5 hours is quite a chunk of time, and I don’t want to run it as background noise - give it an actually fair shake, you know).
is freedom bad?
Depends on the freedom.
- American freedom to use and abuse anyone under you in the capitalist hierarchy. Bad.
- Freedom to get cared for at any hospital of your own choosing without having to sell your kidney? Not bad.
- Freedom to masturbate to incest porn? Not bad. (Looking at you UK)
- Freedom to kill people as long as you’re operating a multiple ton heavy vehicle with practically 0 consequenses. Bad.
Sounds like you should run for office under those talking points. Good luck.
You seem to have a problem with my comment?
In this instance we’re talking about the freedom to be a sexual or racial minority. Orban was notoriously against that, much like Putin and Trump. The narrative usually is that liberal policies (allowing LGBT and minorities to exist peacefully) result in LGBT and minorities taking over every aspect of life, so the average person will be forced to be gay or trans and their daughters will have to take black husbands or whatever.
In Eastern European politics, liberal doesn’t mean economic liberal generally, at least not for the last decade or so. It literally means not being a hateful bigot.
Which is why I’m finding it funny that there’s a tankie (not you, Tolc) going on in this thread about how all forms of liberalism are bad.
The narrative usually is that liberal policies (allowing LGBT and minorities to exist peacefully) result in LGBT and minorities taking over every aspect of life, so the average person will be forced to be gay or trans and their daughters will have to take black husbands or whatever.
Which never actually happened like ever. We just want to be who we are. There’s no movement to make everyone gay, that’s insane to even think that.
Same as the republicans getting their knickers in a knot over trans athletes. Which are few and far between and aren’t actually that successful because HRT makes you a lot weaker if you are MtF. It’s just an imaginary issue.
Same as the toilet thing they get all worked up about. The men molesting women are cis men.
In this instance we’re talking about the freedom to be a sexual or racial minority. Orban was notoriously against that, much like Putin
You could say this about almost any Eastern Europe government. Also, this Hungarian party doesn’t precisely advertise itself as super LGBTQ friendly, they advertise themselves as apolitical centrists, which tends to maintain status quo. I’d gladly be proven wrong, though!
There’s certainly good things about it
It’s a matter of who controls the media and who has which budgets for support.
This argument falls flat on its face when you apply it to what just happened in Hungary
Because Orban controlled TV and newspapers? How about Twitter, Facebook and TikTok?
He also controlled that as he could outspend the opposition 500 times as much on ads there. TikTok was fully Orbán-sided, Twitter was too despite not really being relevant in Hungary, Facebook was also on his side.
Reddit was the one platform that wasn’t.
Magyar’s counter was doing rallies and basically taking a year to go to every single settlement in Hungary.
All three of them are controlled by US tech oligarchs that are closely aligned with the US regime which was heavily interfering in favour of Orban as well. As far as I know you were flooded in all three with Fidesz propaganda and disinformation. Never mind that Russian propaganda is strong in all three of those as well and it was doing the same.
TikTok in Hungary isn’t under US control.
The EU explicitly said that kicking Orbán out was a precondition for EU money into Hungary. Is this not interference in elections? Not saying it’s a bad thing necessarily, Orban was a piece of shit, but you’re not aware of the facts if you don’t believe there have been massive economic interests against Orban.
Oh boy does that headline have nothing to do with the article. The article does a good job of explaining all the hard work Magyar did, but it is a bit silly to suggest that it is a temple for what could be done in Russia. For example, it does not lay out how a candidate can avoid all the tripping hazard windowsills that litter the Russian halls of power.
indeed, Belarus and Russia either do what Ukraine did at Madain,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan
or they endure and to be fair Belarusians did have a go.
Maidan was a color revolution sponsored by the US, though, the Nuland leaked audios essentially confirm this. Haven’t you asked yourself why it seems that mass protests only ever change governments in countries neighboring Russia, but this never happens in mass protests in the US (occupy wall street movement), Spain (15-M movement), France (gilets jeunes)…?
Amateur political scientists making arguments that a certain kind of political is inevitable is something of a pastime. Apathy begets apathy.
Tim Snyder’s “The Road to Unfreedom” actually talk a lot about how apathy first destroyed Russia, and is currently destroying the US.
like dominos
If I were to Americanize it: This is essentially if Ted Cruz, or better yet Chris Christie, beat Donald Trump in the general election. Undeniably a good thing as it’d mean no more Trump and it’s kinda humilating for him.
But it means… yeah. One of them at the helm.
Someone on Bluesky said it was like if the Dems had lost to Trump 4 times and then ran Mit Romney and won by a historic landslide
That’s a better comparison, actually. Mitt very publicly doesn’t like Trump, but voted with him like 80% of the time.
then ran Mit Romney
Dems wouldn’t go that far left.
Undeniably a good thing
Actually it’s quite easy to deny that Ted Cruz or Chris Christie would be a good thing.
This is like some real Dem thinking.
That’s why there was a whole rest of the sentence.
Fortunately liberalism isn’t inevitable either.
Fuck the Epstein Atlantic.
Liberalism is inherently allied to fascism. Both ideologies worship profit and property ownership so have a vested interest in opposing socialism and class struggle.
It’s beyond me that any modern democracy would even allow someone be PM/President for 16 years in the first place, and then allow them to run again. For all that’s fucked with America rn, that one they’ve done right (for now).
How is denying the right of the people to reelect whoever they want to office more democratic than fulfilling their right? Claiming democracy restricting such liberty is somehow more democratic is impressive mental gymnastics. Even with modern democracy the guiding philosophy is to restrict government to promote & protect individual liberty, not undermine liberty of the people.
I guess people have just given up on Russians or what? I rarely hear anyone complain that they’re not doing anything about their madman. They should probably decide to do something before someone decides for them and then they’re not Russians anymore.
Well, only for the presidency. The zombies in congress are entirely unaffected.
It’s beyond me that any modern democracy would even allow someone be PM/President for 16 years
I actually see it backwards. The proof that bourgeois western democracy is utter shit is that every 4, at most 8 years, the party in government gets hate-voted out of there. If people were actually content with the parties elected, I’d expect to see long periods of dominance by one or two similar parties, followed by some tumbling until the correct one is found again, etc. Having constantly changing parties and candidates kinda proves that everyone fucking hates anything that touches the government, not very democratic IMO.
He’s not actually very liberal from what I’m reading. He’s pro EU and not a Putin puppet but other than that his policies aren’t all that different from Orban’s. He was even in Fidesz until a few years ago.
I wonder if there will be much improvement for the LGBTQ community there.
But at least the Ukrainian payments stalemate is broken.
hes CENTER right at most i believe.
It’s probably part of why he succeeded though. Right enough to pull those voters, but not too right (pro eu etc.) so he could pull the centrists and left-leaners as well. Since as far as I understand there aren’t really leftist parties going strong in Hungary right now
“Whatever’s normal.”
