It has been an abysmal week for US president Donald Trump and his vice-president JD Vance. For Vance in particular, things could not have been worse. Ordered by the idiot king to fly to Budapest in a forlorn last-minute mercy dash to save the government of Viktor Orbán, he abased himself by a combination of lies and bombast. He lied that he was not seeking to influence the outcome of the election – an odious pretence that survived about half a minute into his speech at an Orbán rally.
His speech included a live, long-distance intervention by Trump. Trump thought he could make extravagant economic promises to Hungarians which would swing the vote to re-elect Orbán. He tried the same tactic recently in Argentina to greater effect, securing re-election of Javier Milei – now ensnared in a $5 million bribery scandal linked to the launch of a cryptocurrency scheme.
Trump’s regime has been focusing its efforts on damaging and subverting the European Union. One of its chief allies in this endeavour was the government of Orbán. Binyamin Netanyahu, for whom there is an International Criminal Court trial in prospect, has been welcome in Orbán’s Budapest. Orbán’s government has been found leaking EU ministers’ confidential discussions concerning Ukraine to Vladimir Putin.
A publicly-stated American strategy of intervening in European elections in favour of anti-EU, hard-right “patriotic” politicians came badly unstuck in Budapest. A record electoral turnout delivered a supermajority for Peter Magyar’s Tisza party.
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Across Europe, hard-right politicians have been given a dose of reality. Trump’s grotesque approach to global and European politics and his seemingly inexplicable loyalty to Vladimir Putin have proved toxic in the minds of most sensible Europeans. Magyar’s spectacular victory was assisted rather than impeded by disgraceful interference in Hungary’s democratic process by Vance and Trump.
Nobody should swallow the superficial line that Magyar is minded to become a political patsy for the EU Commission or the European Union’s wider political establishment. On the contrary, Magyar’s Tisza is a centre-right party which will always put Hungary’s interests before those of Brussels whenever the two conflict. Magyar was, after all, a leading member of Orbán’s Fidesz party.
To take one example, Magyar – rightly, in my opinion – strongly opposes implementation of the EU Migration Pact. He won’t sacrifice Hungarian economic prosperity by overly hasty severance of his country’s energy interconnectors with Russia. He is not by any means a Euro federalist. He does believe, however, that Hungary’s interests lie within the EU.
He urges the UK to rejoin the EU as a counterbalance to the union’s federalist leaning establishment. There is every reason to believe the UK would be far stronger and more influential in world affairs as an active member and key influencer of the EU.
Sometimes we speak of dysfunctional democracy. All opinion polls now suggest a clear majority of UK voters believe Brexit was a mistake. But electoral tactics have created a situation in which rejoining the EU is policy taboo for Labour, the Tories and Reform. Even the Liberal Democrats have to soft-pedal their EU convictions to avoid the poisonous wrath of Britain’s Tory media magnates.
In so far as Magyar’s Hungary strengthens the hands of EU members who regard the union as a partnership of sovereign states rather than an emerging federal super-state, the triumph of Tisza is welcome. Likewise, the outcome of Hungary’s election is, to use a Dublinism, a well-earned “dunt in the snot” for Trump’s outrageous hostility to US-allied European states.
Let’s not forget the current world energy and economic crisis is the entirely predictable consequence of Trump’s joint war with Israel against Iran. The odious and bloodthirsty regime in Tehran has survived and been strengthened internally by the bombing blitz unleashed by Trump and Netanyahu.
I would observe, too, that the Irish Government was hopelessly flat-footed in responding to the predictable upsurge in fuel prices. Its first duty is to use all economic and taxation levers at its disposal to cushion the economy and the Irish citizen from unjust and unsustainable results of Trump’s mad bellicosity. People like me who support the State, its democratic institutions, the gardaí and Defence Forces, rightly expect that our Government would demonstrate alertness, competence and authority in dealing with all challenges – internal and external – to the functioning of our society.
The sad fact is that Trump and Vance draw secret satisfaction from the turmoil they have unleashed in Ireland and from a possible emergence of a new hard-right “patriotic” force in Irish politics. Many of its exponents have been vocal fans of Orbán’s attacks on liberalism in the same way as they were sneaking regarders of Donald Trump’s conservatism until recently.
So while we welcome Orbán’s rout, we also need to learn some lessons.
