America and Hungary, a Far-Right Love Affair

Matthew Cassel travels to Budapest during Viktor Orban’s reelection to explore why so many right-wing Americans are traveling to Hungary, and what they hope to learn from Central Europe’s most autocratic ruler.

This segment is from the show ‘VICE’ which originally aired in May 2022.

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[peterasztalos]

Hungarian here.

So just record the facts: the yearly median wage is ~ 18 000 USD in this "conservative heaven".

Don't fool yourself, this "conservative heaven" is only heaven for Orbans and his very narrow circle.
For the average folks this means that they have to live in the poorest country in the whole EU.

[korneldubai]

As a hungarian; Orban's policies lead to a record low birth rate in '24 may and unusually high inflation after COVID, the highest in the EU. State media is in the leading party's hand. Orbán have brought in record amount of Chinese and other Asian migrants to Hungary to work in the newly built battery factories, which were built in lot of cases on agricultural land and to places where precious, scarce natural drinking water is being used, also these factories do a lot of pollution. He also made it available through some of the immigration laws he made, that a lot of foreign spies like Chinese or Russian could easily enter to the EU through Hungary. Also he managed to ruin healthcare and the educational system.
Trust me fellow Americans, you don't want a system like this.

[sxyli]

Orban choosing to build another football stadium rather than fix literally any problem his country has:

[Merlinke]

Hungary is one of the last countries in the EU. Their biggest problems aren't migration or LGBTQ issues, but rather the destruction of democracy, the loss of free media, and rampant corruption. Most of the government's supporters are poor people in the countryside who are really dependent on the government, and because they are exposed to a lot of propaganda, they also believe it. Hungary won't catch up to more modern countries like Slovenia, Estonia, Denmark, or the Netherlands. These are the facts. Also they have the highest taxes, and the goverment spends it unevenly. Don't believe every shiny, heroic figure; you'd be surprised how many lies they can tell.

[_]

2023 in Hungary:
- In January, bread inflation was almost 82%, food inflation was over 48%, general inflation was 26.2%, three times the EU average!
- In the first quarter, real wages fell the most in Hungary with a 15.6%, which is 4 times of OECD average
- In July our money lost 36% of its value in 2 years due to inflation !!!
- In January, Lőrinc Mészáros, Orban's main strawman increased the monthly tolls by 72% after he bought the 35-year motorway concession
- Lőrinc Mészáros bought a yacht for 27 billion forints, which is almost 11, 000 years of average Hungarian pension. Mészáros's wealth increased by 50%, 330 billion forints in a single year
- The Matolcsy, the head of central bank (MNB), bought an apartment in New York for 14 billion forints, which is equivalent to 5608 years of average Hungarian pensions. Meanwhile, the MNB has accumulated losses of HUF 2400 billion
- The Orbán family's visible! wealth reaches HUF 100 billion, Orbán's father built a mansion in Hatvanpuszta for 10 billion forints
- The cows on János Lázár minister's stud farm got waterbeds for HUF 3 billion from the state!
- In 2023, Romania overtook Hungary in GDP per capita,
- In 2023, Bulgaria overtook Hungary in per capita consumption, making Hungary the poorest member of EU.
- Hungary has the 2nd lowest average wage and minimum wage in the EU !
- The Dear Leader has finally found the magic weapon against inflation: he just had to fire the leading statisticians of the Hungarian Statistical Office, put them under the Rogán-led propaganda ministry and the single-digit inflation was achieved...! In 2023, the consumer price index was still 17.6% and food inflation 25.9%.
- In 2023, growth (-0.9%) was the 3rd worst in the EU
- 700 billion forints spent by the government to buy the Vodafone Hungary and give it away to Orban's stooge (equivalent to about 280, 000 years of average Hungarian pensions)
- 2021 foreign human traffickers were released from Hungarian prisons in 2023 (official explaination: keeping them in prison is too expensive)
- There are already 100, 000 Asian migrant workers in Hungary, who are undercutting the wages of Hungarian workers, with their numbers increasing by about 1, 000 a month
- 40% of the Hungarian population run out of money by the end of the month, with no savings
- The Hungarian birth rate has fallen to an all-time low
- OTP survey shows that 94 out of 100 young people do not want to work in Hungary !
- 125, 000 Hungarians already work in Austria
- Half a million Hungarians have disappeared in 10 years, the country's population is below 9.6 million, at 1953 levels and falling
- In 2023 the budget deficit was 4593 billion forints, about 6.5 percent of GDP, more than double the 3 percent accepted by the EU, the Hungarian state paid the largest interest burden after the national debt in the EU to GDP (4.3%), the interest expenses amounted to HUF 3, 500 billion, which is equivalent to 1.26 million years of Hungarian average pension, meanwile GDP growth rate was -0.9%.
- In december, a new law was launched to silence critical media outlets and civil organizations!

Just for those who look at Orban as a role model, you should know what to expect...

[czigee]

Hi there from Hungary, lets see the facts:
1. Avarage wage per year is around 17-20.000 USD. Even for employees with Bsc or master's degree.
2. Our healthcare system is ruined by the state (alias the government, the Fidesz party), it has a mandatory cost for every citizen, and the service is worse and worse for every year. No nurses, no doctors, no maintanance of the hospital buildings, no working AC, no soap, no toilet paper... ETC.
3. Our educational system is ruined too with low teacher and staff wages, with no dignity for our teachers, with a lot of useless subjects. It doesn't teach useful methods and tools for our children, only the useless lexical knowledge. The system is making droids from our children to the factories here.. for example the battery factories from china, japan and south korea.
4. Our public utilites like the state train company (MÁV) and the state bus company (VOLÁN) also going down the hill with full speed.. since our polymath guy named János Lázár thinks he is an oracle with the knowledge of all things...
5. Child protection from pedophilia is a non existent thing here since our former President Katalin Novák gave amnesty for a person who was giving hand to a person with pedopfilia. Novák was a designated person by the Fidesz party.. there was no election.
6. The party always talking about illiberalism, but almost every of them are living their lives like any liberal person... the party originally was a liberal party around 1990 which was funded by big money by George Soros.
7. The countryside also in ruins.

A short list just sticked to my brain now.. later i can continue the tale of the illiberal heaven....
Viktor Orban and his party is out on the international stage, while they forgot to maintenance the country to work fully functionally. During this their propaganda flows and brainwashing the people.

[mwatts]

It’s appears these Conservative men are seeking a safe space.

[karomra]

So the American Far-Right like a 27 % VAT?

[ImreBertalan]

This video is a very old one. Things just got worse in Hungary for anyone who is not member of the Fidesz made civilian layer. Their motto is just: If you hate Orbán, you are an enemy. And you are treated such as

[greenmenace]

"Inclusion is a bullshit word which is used to exclude traditional morality, traditional family..." Nobody is advocating the exclusion of a "traditional family". Nobody is saying that you can't have a heterosexual marriage with children. Nobody is against that. The persecution complex is real.

[CortexNewsService]

So families that don't look like the traditional family are the "opposite" and their version has to win. And people wonder why we're polarized.

[Frenyt]

9:54 - That “Harvard scholar” is conflating liberal democracy with liberalism about as much as I’d expect from someone who’s taking notes from Orban. We’re not sending our best or brightest.

[Styleswin]

These people visit there but do not reside there. This is a huge difference.

[eaonhendrickson]

Far Left is who the media should be concerned with.

[doinked]

Too bad the family support measures haven’t actually increased the fertility rate. Also the government is now importing temporary workers from south Asian countries in order to make up for the fact that the wages are so low

[martonnagy]

A huge issue in this documentary (released less than 24 hours ago) is leaving out Orban’s most prominent opponent, that has emerged only this year

[emmataylor]

To all Americans in awe of Orbán’s regime: This "street-fighter hero" runs a country where the economy is sustained almost entirely by EU funds. So far, we’ve received more than double what West Germany got from the Marshall Plan to rebuild their country, yet Hungary ranks last in the EU by GDP per capita. With a VAT of 27% and an average yearly wage of around $20, 000 amid record inflation, it’s clear that the economic rationale behind his conservative policies is nonsense. Hungary is the opposite of a meritocracy (the foundation of the American Dream), with the country’s richest people being his close friends and family, while the rest of the population is impoverished.

Orbán’s current motto is “No War, No Gender (which makes little sense, but I digress), No Migration”. Let’s not even get into the implications of Orbán casually siding with the Russians because he wants to stay close to Putin—this from a man who rose to power because Hungarians were fed up with Soviet occupation. The war isn’t going to end just because we want peace—everyone wants peace. But Orbán is in hot water because the Russians infiltrated Hungary’s national security system (a breach of the highest order) just days before they invaded Ukraine. At the time, he called it fake news, but it’s since been proven true, compromising Hungary’s position in NATO. This is the very NATO that the previous generation worked so hard to join, hoping for integration with the West and not the Eastern Bloc. At the time, Orbán himself supported this.

The concept of gender was unfamiliar to most Hungarians before his propaganda made it a hot topic. State news channels flood the airwaves with this new buzzword. Many still don’t understand it, instead using it the way the state party intended—as a derogatory term meant to stoke hatred for all things “woke” or liberal.

As for immigration, 95% of Hungary’s population is white, with the remaining 5% mostly comprising the Roma minority. Our problem isn’t immigration—it’s the mass emigration of young talent and intellect leaving the country. There’s even a joke that London is Hungary’s second-largest city because more Hungarians live there than in any city except Budapest. Ironically, Orbán brought in 120, 000 “guest workers” from Asia and the Middle East to help build a battery factory on confiscated agricultural land—farmland where farmers were strong-armed out of their livelihoods. This factory will not only poison the land but also deplete scarce water reserves in a drought-prone region.

Orbán claims to protect family values and tradition. Yet his “famous” child protection laws caused massive societal outrage this year when it was revealed that a well-known child molester, linked to the Fidesz system, was not imprisoned but instead awarded an honorary medal by the president (who is basically Orbán’s wingman). His child “protection” policies are mostly empty rhetoric—anti-liberal fluff, part of a communication war with zero substance. One key policy is banning bookstores from selling books with LGBTQ content near schools or churches unless they’re wrapped in plastic (hardly a game-changing law). Meanwhile, children in orphanages across the country live in deplorable conditions, often surviving on food donations. This isn’t child protection—it’s posturing as a "freedom fighter."

To those so enamored with the architectural heritage of our homeland: Yes, Budapest (and especially the Castle District) is beautiful, but this has nothing to do with the current government. It’s a gift from previous generations. What they’re building now is a historically inaccurate slab of concrete that threatens the entire Castle District. It’s being constructed on a hill filled with natural and manmade tunnels, and many experts have warned against it. Meanwhile, many historic buildings across the country are crumbling and could have been restored with the exorbitant sums spent elsewhere. But Orbán isn’t a man of class or taste—he’s more into tacky displays of power and wealth (see his obsession with building football stadiums).

The kind of people you want to associate with in Hungary don’t vote for Fidesz. Even hardcore conservatives abstain unless they have a financial interest in the corruption. Orbán’s main voter base is the uneducated, the elderly, and the impoverished. And, being the cynical and cunning man he is, he knows this all too well. That’s why he’s actively ruining the education and healthcare systems, leaving more people vulnerable, so he can continue his supreme reign as king in this feudal system. His cronies—the “vassals”—remain above the law, while the rest of the people struggle to survive. Orbán’s only chance of staying in power depends on the lack of independent capital and the non-existent middle class. When people are struggling just to put food on the table, they don’t have the luxury of caring about politics.

But the winds are changing, and hopefully, the “peace toad” (béke béka) will be gone by the next election.

[hunguy]

The listeners of this video should note that the Western World and most of their leaders completely oppose Hungary and the Nation of Hungary. The EU courts have fined Hungary to the tune of $200.00 million dollars and 1.00 million per day because the people of Hungary oppose illegal Migration. Incidentally, there was a plebiscite held on this very question and it was the people who decided that they do not want illegal Migration, which was subsequently accepted by the Hungarian Government. The Border Fence and control also serves the legal requirement of defending the Schengen Borders of Western Europe not just Hungary itself. But still the Court fined the Country and no appeals are allowed. The West alleges that we Hungarians are pro-Russian, which is not true! Why? Because it was the US and UK, they forced Hungary to be a satellite of the Soviet Union in 1945, under the Yalta Agreement. Hungary was forced to accept Russian Oil and Gas which subsequently became a Historical inheritance as Hungary no longer has a Sea Port, subsequent to the Paris Peace Treaty of Trianon in 1920. The other point which the West ignores is History, which proves that we are not pro-Russian. We fought the Russians in 1848, 1945 and finally in the 1956 uprising against Soviet Rule. In comparison the US maintained a military alliance with Czarist/Russian/Soviet governments for around 100 years. All this may be difficult to digest and will be ignored. Thank you so much.

[waxoman]

Hungary is an example of how we will turn to fascism instead of any kind of reform to capitalism.

[Alexander-vpgc]

Traditional family values in a country that has the largest porn industry in Europe