Hungary offers the U.S. a grim preview of what happens to a country — politically, economically, and socially — when it falls under the spell of a populist with autocratic leanings. Americans who reflexively buy into the rhapsodizing about Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban would be wise to closely examine his record since 2010, when he assumed power for the second time.
No world leader has been embraced more enthusiastically by the American conservative movement and President Donald Trump than Orban. While feting him at Mar-A-Lago in 2024, Trump proclaimed “there’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orban.” At the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest, Orban’s speech was preceded by a video message from Trump, who called Orban “a great man and a very special person.” The Heritage Foundation’s controversial Project 2025 clearly echoes elements of Orban’s authoritarian playbook. The Danube Institute, a think-tank linked to Orban’s Fidesz party, has a formal cooperation agreement with the Heritage Foundation, and the two conduct joint conferences annually.
Exodus of Hungary’s Best and Brightest
Do average Hungarians share the enthusiasm for Orban exhibited by Trump, CPAC, and the Heritage Foundation? In short, no. Here is one telling statistic: from 2010 to 2024, emigration from Hungary rose by 464 percent. In fact, the number of Hungarians leaving their country rose sharply almost immediately after Orban’s April 2010 election victory. For scores of Hungarians, the future looks bleak, with a recent survey finding that 34 percent of recent graduates and 55 percent of 18-40-year-old Hungarians plan to emigrate. In light of Hungary’s aging population – its median age is 43.9 years – Orban can ill-afford to drive out Hungary’s best, brightest, and youngest. That so many Hungarians are eager to flee Orban’s rule provides the first hint that enthusiasm among his U.S-based cheerleaders is misplaced, even suspect.
Even a cursory inquiry into Orban’s record reveals that he has presided not over Hungary’s advancement but rather its alarming decline. For one, he has masterminded Hungary’s transformation from a full democracy to an “electoral autocracy,” according to the European Parliament. Freedom House now rates Hungary as only “partly free.” As noted in Bertelsmann’s 2024 Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI): “Elections are typically free but not fair, with the ruling Fidesz party benefiting from large-scale gerrymandering, asymmetrical media access and the misuse of state assets.” Today, Hungary is an SGI bottom dweller, ranking 30th out of 30 with respect to: (1) Elections, (2) Quality of the Parties and Candidates, and (3) Access to Official Information.
A Stagnant Economy, Corruption, and Cronyism
Adding to Hungary’s woes is its economy, which has stagnated since 2022, with GDP growth rates declining for four years straight and a ballooning budget deficit of 4.9 percent of GDP, significantly higher than the European Union average of 3 percent. Hungary is also plagued by high inflation, forcing the government to take drastic steps such as limiting grocers’ profit margins. Predictably, Hungary’s currency, the Forint, has lost value and both domestic and foreign investors, wary of arbitrary regulatory shifts and opaque enforcement, are rethinking investments in Hungary. More than €20 billion in EU funds that would have come to Hungary have been suspended over rule of law violations, and innovation lags as firms hesitate to invest in research, development, or new technologies. Why? Among other things, they lack confidence in intellectual property protections.
For ordinary Hungarians, Orban’s mismanagement of the economy has translated into living standards significantly lower than many of the other 37 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Given these and other declines, it is no surprise that, just in the last year, Hungary fell 13 places in Gallup’s World Happiness Report. Hungary now ranks below Russia, China, Uzbekistan, and Honduras. Predictably, countries with thriving democracies dominate the list of happiest countries. Hungarians have grown increasingly disgruntled for many reasons, but the fact Orban has transformed Hungary from a thriving democracy to an electoral autocracy is surely a factor.
Swings from democracy to autocracy typically are accompanied by high levels of corruption and cronyism. Orban’s increasingly autocratic governance style has delivered precisely the results one would expect. The earlier mentioned Bertelsmann index reported that “corruption has become a systemic issue. Members of the Fidesz elite have rapidly accumulated wealth through informal political-business networks.” Hungary now ranks as the single most corrupt country in the EU, according to Transparency International, with State resources routinely diverted to Orban’s allies and family. While Hungary’s government had committed to reducing the percentage of single-bid tenders, a favored tool for rewarding Orban’s cronies, it missed the EU’s 2023 target of 24 percent and is unlikely to meet the 2026 target of 15 percent.
Among the new business elites close to Orban, none has enriched themselves more wildly than Orban’s close childhood friend, Lorinc Meszaros, who rose from being a gas fitter to the head of a major conglomerate. With a net worth of $3.8 billion, to what does Meszaros attribute his remarkable success? In his own words, “God, luck and the person of Viktor Orban have certainly played a role.” Among those three factors, Orban appears to have played a more decisive role. While companies owned by Meszaros won zero public tenders in 2010 — the first year of Orban’s return to office — by 2012 he had won eight. By 2018 he had won 24. When asked by a journalist how he managed to grow his business at a faster clip than Facebook, he helpfully explained that “I am most likely smarter than Mark Zuckerberg.”
Orban also finds ways to reward family members. With an estimated fortune of more than $370 million, Istvan Tiborcz is one of the wealthiest people in Hungary. While Tiborcz is not a household name in most countries, he became one in Hungary after marrying Orban’s daughter, Rahel, in 2013. Tiborcz’s net worth doubled last year.
An Enfeebled Media and Grave Damage to the Rule of Law
Corruption, especially at the highest levels, has been abetted by Orban’s kneecapping of Hungary’s once free press. After Orban’s 2010 return to office, Hungary’s overall press environment deteriorated precipitously in the World Press Freedom Index, with its ranking dropping 45 places in just three years. This decline, which persists today, was no accident. Rather, it was engineered through legislative, political, and economic pressures imposed by the Orban government.
Where Orban has done his most lasting and pernicious damage is to Hungary’s once robust rule of law. Orban has worked assiduously (and illegally) to stack the judiciary with toadies, something reflected in Hungary’s declining scores in the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index. Regionally, Hungary ranks 31st out of 31 countries. Among the world’s high-income countries, today Hungary ranks 45th out of 47. Orban has steadily dismantled one guardrail after another, often in plain view. In 2013, Orban’s parliament amended the Constitution to limit the ability of the Constitutional Court to challenge new laws. This change strips the Constitutional Court of the power to void laws passed by a two-thirds majority, effectively insulating Orban’s actions from judicial review.
U.S. Conservative Movement’s Embrace…of Poor Results
Coming full circle, it strains credulity to suggest the Heritage Foundation and Orban’s other U.S.-based cheerleaders are unaware of the grave damage Orban has done to Hungary’s democracy, media ecosystem, electoral system, economy, the rule of law, and so on. That begs the question: why would the U.S. conservative movement embrace Orban’s corrupt, autocratic governance style when it has delivered such poor results? There is, after all, something unseemly about conservative leaders of a superpower such as the U.S. fawning over the leader of a country demonstrably in decline, especially one with a population and land mass the size of New Jersey and Indiana, respectively.
One explanation for this warm embrace is that key features of the Orban model would advance key Project 2025 goals if applied in the United States. Doing so, however, risks reshaping the United States into a country that shares many of present-day Hungary’s worst features. These include a radical expansion of presidential power, a weakening of checks and balances, the replacement of merit-based civil service workers with political appointees loyal to the president, and the consolidation of partisan control over key government agencies.
In short, Orbanism — and its close cousin, Project 2025 — is not only antithetical to traditional American values, democracy, economic dynamism, and the rule of law, but also provides a proven roadmap for degrading the quality of life of those under its thrall, whether they are Hungarians today, or Americans – including loyal Trump supporters – tomorrow. Those who praise Orban and argue that Hungary provides a useful model for the United States are gravely misguided or worse, and should be challenged with this simple question: have you talked to an ordinary Hungarian lately?
