like dominos
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.
For some of the people here who are going to yell out “but liberalism is bad and should die anyway!”
I’ve posted several comments in this thread, but I’ll do one top level comment now, not directed at anyone in particular.
Liberal in this instance means socially progressive. Illiberalism as Orban called it, was about stopping the “liberal gay agenda”. This is from American politics, where conservatives have started calling all progressives liberals. It has caught on in at least some Eastern European countries because our far-right leaders love mimicking the American far right Republican party. Putin is also spreading this shit, I’ve got a link somewhere to one of his quotes about liberalism destroying nations through “multiculturalism” or whatever. Essentially “liberals import the blacks and they destroy everything”.
Illiberalism in this instance doesn’t mean getting rid of the market economy or electoral system (necessarily). It means being bigoted.
Liberal in this instance means socially progressive.
Incorrect. The Atlantic is a zionist publication. Socially it’s very regressive.
https://hrnews1.substack.com/p/the-atlantic-editor-in-chief-jeffrey
More importantly there’s nothing to be gained by conflating liberalism with social progress. That’s probably why they used the term “illiberal” in the first place - to muddy the waters. They don’t want to talk about fascism because The Atlantic literally supports fascism.
funny is orban has funded at least the last CPAC, as intermediary from putin.
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
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.
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.
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
then ran Mit Romney
Dems wouldn’t go that far left.
That’s a better comparison, actually. Mitt very publicly doesn’t like Trump, but voted with him like 80% of the time.
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.
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.
The word “liberalism” in Europe is generally used to refer to economic liberalism, not social progressivism.
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.
Haven’t heard it used for economic liberalism in over a decade, but I’m also not from western Europe.
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’
I can’t see shit oudda this thing!
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.
There’s certainly good things about it
No.
Read: State and Revolution by Vladmir Ilyich Lenin
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.
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!
Sounds like you should run for office under those talking points. Good luck.
You seem to have a problem with my comment?
Wouldn’t that require actual elections? Russia does not have that.
I’m really happy that Hungarians got their wannabe president-for-life kicked out peacefully. :)
Regarding Russia - Putin’s popularity is in a clear downward dive, but a dive from very high altitude (he has built a formidable propaganda machinery and brainwashed people severely) so it will take time. His regime currently has almost full control of Internet use in Russia, so the only channels which can operate freely are VPN tunnels to services hosted abroad (Telegram being most popular). I hope self-organizing mesh networks will also offer a challenge in cities, but that remains to be seen.
Sadly, unlike Orban, Putin has also rebuilt the system so that he can order arbitrary violence (e.g. poisonings). As a result, most likely in Russia, when time comes, it will be bloody. But there’s a positive thing about Putin: he’s old and might just die one day (or touch the wrong door handle without gloves, if others near him decide he’s too old), opening an avenue for peaceful change.
Trump will be kicked out, I’m 95% sure of that. But Americans will have to rethink the role and authority of the president quite soon after that. And I mean limiting it.
When Putin goes it will be another 1990s scramble for power and the Russian people will follow whomever is the biggest thug who makes them feel a sense of pride and stability, which is precisely how Putin came to power.
People forget that before Putin Russia was in economic collapse throughout the 90s. And that all of Russian history the central government been authoritarian and corrupt af
This is an incredibly racist framing. Russia literally had the first successful socialist revolution in history, which brought about immense levels of democratization and rights compared to the tsarist regime before it. People originally elected Putin precisely because a stronger Russia with a stronger state was the only thing that proved capable of putting a brake to the neoliberal chaos and destruction instituted after the illegal dissolution of communism. Putin is popular not because he’s positive, but because people are deathly afraid of suffering the 90s again and Putin platforms himself as the solution (when in reality he’s just another filthy capitalist).
Racist? lmao
Russia has been a shithole, on par with Alabama or Mississippi, since communism collapsed into gangster-capitalist fascism. And those people keep picking Putin because he tells them it’s someone else’s fault, just like the Republicans back in America.
It’s cute you that you tried to put a friendly face on that shit sandwich, but it’s still a POS country with way too many fascists to pretend there isn’t something broken with their culture.
Trump will be kicked out, I’m 95% sure of that. But Americans will have to rethink the role and authority of the president quite soon after that. And I mean limiting it.
Vote Libertarian?
Oh no, please no…
We’re not going to make it, are we?Yeah, unfortunately they seem to be the only party who would actually do that. And even though I have some sympathy towards small-l-libertarianism, too many of the capital-l-libertarians are batshit crazy, dumb or both.
Trump will be kicked out, I’m 95% sure of that.
I’m not worried about that, I’m actually more worried about who replaces him when it swings back right. He proved that Hitler adjacent is fine and that overton window isn’t going back left. We’re so far right we could fit two more parties to the left and just be a little progressive.
Why the reluctance to call a fascist a fascist?
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.
Altlantic has, diacussed here by the author
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.
Does he mean fascism?
Magyar? No.
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).
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.
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.
Well, only for the presidency. The zombies in congress are entirely unaffected.
Boy is this lively. I certainly have my concerns as Magyar is former Fidez and of a Minister Portfolio and by all accounts is very much a conservative politician.
But as far as EU policy is concerned his win is likely to finally get Hungry to be in line with the rest of Erouope.
Also remember Trump sent Vance over to try and election campaign against him so that tells you how the people of Hungry feel about that.
All and all consider this winning a battle but the war continues
Conservative is fine. Being Putin’s lapdog is not.
How is conservative fine? All EU conservative parties support Israel which is actively committing genocide.
We are living in a world where both the US and Russia support the same piece of shit. What the fuck
US and Russia were always aggreeing on basically the same thing. They might disagree on who is going to be the leader of the fascist world, but they very much aggree that the world should be fascist and have a leader.
someone mentioned hes mostly center right.
So, while I’m not too knowledgeable about politics in Hungary, this may or may not be relevant…
In Canada we used to have the progressive conservative party, and the reform party. The reform party was the religious / right wing nut jobs, and the PC’s were, well I’m not really sure what i was too young to follow it to closely, but they weren’t like the reform party. How progressive they were though I don’t really know, it could have just been a name… The reform party would be closer to MAGA than what the PC’s were.
The right wing parties were losing elections though to the Liberals, so Harper managed to bring both the PCs and the Reform together under 1 party, with their sometimes very wildly different views. As much as he was damaging to Canada, Harper was an excellent politician and he managed to keep control of these 2 factions within the party as Prime Minister for almost 10 years.
Once Trudeau came into power after people had had enough of Harper, these two factions in the federal conservatives have been in a sense fighting each other. We had Erin O’Toole as one of their leaders, and he was trying to be more middle on some topics, and the nut job part of the faction threw him out.
I’m saying all this to say… Maybe, just maybe, Magyar has thrown out the bad seeds in the party. Yes, it’s still going to be a conservative government, but maybe we can get back to what politics was like before the crazy right wing nut jobs infiltrated all the conservative parties around the world and made things much worse.
I would love to see our conservative parties here throw out the bad seeds. We just had a merger of right leaning, and nut job parties like this in BC, but we narrowly shut them out in the last election, and watching what has happened within that party since, has been a gongshow.
Look, fuck Orban, but y’all aren’t even waiting to see how Magyar pans out, before hailing a new era. Fascism and anti-fascism aren’t just like a Zeitgeist or something. They require concrete actions. Not understanding this means that elections will just keep bringing you back to fascism.
The concrete actions in question, historically, are mass worker movements, both communist and anarchist (the former more historically successful).
