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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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).
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.
“Liberalism” isn’t a good thing and Magyar is also a corrupt white supremacist.
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:
This to me sounds like he’s against companies importing workers and keeping them in slavery-like conditions? This I could get behind.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Frankly I’m just happy some progress was made, and that Hungary wasn’t so far gone that Orban became president for life.