U.S. conservatives have looked to Hungary's Viktor Orbán as an inspiration for a right-wing America, and the prime minister has become a close ally of President Donald Trump. During Orbán's 15 years in power, he's transformed Hungary from a young democracy into what the European Parliament calls an “electoral autocracy.
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4 billion proposalDozens of couples get hitched at snowy Colorado ski resort on Valentine's DayPope spends quiet first night in hospital, continues drug therapy and reads papers, Vatican saysMigrantes temerosos piden a activista de Florida que firme documentos de tutela para sus hijosVaticano: papa pasa primera noche tranquila en el hospital, sigue con tratamiento y lee periódicosHungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has become an icon for the global conservative movement that Donald Trump has attached himself to, and is a regular visitor to Trump’s headquarters at Mar-A-Lago and the recipient of praise from the incoming president.President Donald Trump shakes hands with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the Oval Office of the White House, May 13, 2019, in Washington. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban waves has he walks onto stage to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Aug. 4, 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban shake hands during a meeting in Moscow, July 5, 2024. A man sports a shirt with the faces of Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban, left, and Donald Trump as he participates in a march in Budapest, Hungary, June 1, 2024. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for an EU summit at the Egmont Palace in Brussels, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. Alice Weidel, the Alternative for Germany party’s candidate for chancellor, left, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban shake hands during a press conference following their meeting in the government headquarters in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Alice Weidel, the Alternative for Germany party’s candidate for chancellor, not pictured, hold a press conference following their meeting in the government headquarters in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has become an icon for the global conservative movement that Donald Trump has attached himself to, and is a regular visitor to Trump’s headquarters at Mar-A-Lago and the recipient of praise from the incoming president.President Donald Trump shakes hands with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the Oval Office of the White House, May 13, 2019, in Washington. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the Oval Office of the White House, May 13, 2019, in Washington. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban waves has he walks onto stage to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Aug. 4, 2022. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban waves has he walks onto stage to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Aug. 4, 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban shake hands during a meeting in Moscow, July 5, 2024. Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban shake hands during a meeting in Moscow, July 5, 2024. A man sports a shirt with the faces of Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban, left, and Donald Trump as he participates in a march in Budapest, Hungary, June 1, 2024. A man sports a shirt with the faces of Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban, left, and Donald Trump as he participates in a march in Budapest, Hungary, June 1, 2024. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for an EU summit at the Egmont Palace in Brussels, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for an EU summit at the Egmont Palace in Brussels, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. Alice Weidel, the Alternative for Germany party’s candidate for chancellor, left, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban shake hands during a press conference following their meeting in the government headquarters in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. Alice Weidel, the Alternative for Germany party’s candidate for chancellor, left, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban shake hands during a press conference following their meeting in the government headquarters in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Alice Weidel, the Alternative for Germany party’s candidate for chancellor, not pictured, hold a press conference following their meeting in the government headquarters in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Alice Weidel, the Alternative for Germany party’s candidate for chancellor, not pictured, hold a press conference following their meeting in the government headquarters in Budapest, Hungary, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. a possible model for a right-wing AmericaTrump’s unilateral outreach to Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine. During one of last year’s U.S. presidential debates, Trump praised Orbán as “a strong man. He’s a tough person.”EEOC seeks to drop a gender discrimination case, signaling a big shift in civil rights enforcementOrbán used state power to crush rivals, remake the judiciary and game elections to make it much harder to oust his party. He has cracked down on Although the two men and political systems are different, there are striking parallels between what Orbán has achieved in Hungary andAfter becoming prime minister in 1998, Orbán suffered an unexpected electoral defeat four years later. He then swore he “would never lose again” and began planning the political transformation of Hungary, said Kim Lane Scheppele, a Princeton professor who worked at Hungary’s Constitutional Court in the 1990s. While he was out of power, Orbán and his allies created a legal framework to consolidate authority. It was swiftly implemented after Orbán’s Fidesz party swept to victory with a two-thirds majority in 2010.a blizzard of executive ordersIn 2012, Orbán’s government lowered the mandatory judicial retirement age, resulting in the termination of nearly 300 senior judges. Responsibility for filling the positions was vested in a single political appointee — the spouse of a Fidesz founder. “It took three years and it was all over,” Scheppele said. “As long as he had the highest court in his pocket, he could get away with a lot.” While Trump and Republicans cannot unilaterally change the face of the judiciary, the parallels with Orbán are clear. Republicans have long sought a conservative judiciary, and Trump embraced that priority when he first became president in 2017. In his first term, Trump nominated three of the U.S. Supreme Court’s current nine members, giving conservatives a supermajority that last yearThe U.S. court system also is larger than Hungary’s and full of judges appointed by previous presidents, including Biden.Orbán’s first moves after regaining power were rewriting Hungary’s constitution and overhauling election laws in a way that ensured his party would have a greater proportion of its own lawmakers in the legislature. Due partly to those changes, Orbán’s party has won a two-thirds majority in every election since 2010 while receiving as little as 44% of the vote. In Hungary, parties, rather than voters, select candidates for seats in parliament — a system that gives Orbán tremendous power in shaping the government. “He decides who can be a politician and who cannot be a politician,” said Zsuzsanna Szelényi, a founding Fidesz member who left the party in 1994. “He completely owns the party.”Orbán’s evolution into an autocrat occurred parallel to another transformation: his drift toward Russia, China and other autocracies. Géza Jeszenszky, Hungary’s first foreign minister after the fall of state socialism, said Orbán recognized that the constraints of a Western democracy were incompatible with the sweeping changes he wanted. So he took examples from autocratic countries, specificallynot committed Szelényi, the Fidesz founding member, said fundamental political and economic differences between Hungary and the U.S. would make it more difficult for such a comprehensive political capture to take place in the U.S.“If autocratization starts, it goes on like a snowball,” she said. “It’s not something that stops — it’s a process.”Given Christianity’s dominance in US, Trump raises eyebrows with anti-Christian bias initiativePlane carrying Secretary of State Rubio to Europe turned around because of a mechanical issue
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