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Viktor Orbán has lost in a landslide so big that he’s already conceded.

Ketchup all over the walls of Mar-a-Lago and there’s audible weeping in the Kremlin.

https://apnews.com/article/hungary-election-orban-magyar-trump-1a4eb0ba6b94e0c80c3cd18b...

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(1) Does anyone know much about Magyar, the guy who beat Orban? He’s also a conservative, but somehow slipped out of Orban’s party awhile back.

When I prompt AI (google gemini) for differences it appears Magyar is going to try to re-establish the rule of law in Hungary as a step to unlocking $20-30 billion in frozen assets from Europe.

(2) At face value this seems like a good win for democracy. However, Magyar winning a super majority (which seems likely), will be important as it will allow him to remove Orban’s consolidation of power (ie like Orban’s removal of term limits etc).

Magyar has talked about aligning Hungarian currency with the Euro in an effort to help stabilize Hungary’s economy. He’s also talked about allowing European investigators come in and validate a bunch of contracts Orban put in place with Russia and China for Hungarian infrastructure.

On paper all of this sounds great, I wonder how realistic that is, especially since Magyar rose to power under Orban & Orban’s party originally.

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Orban started as anti-communist and very much pro-democracy, and Magyar was in that following. I was studying abroad in Innsbruck when things started opening up and the wall came down, and I remember reading articles about a younger Orban in Hungary demanding that the Soviets leave. But as Orban grew more autocratic, corrupt, and ever more tied to Russia, Magyar split from him and launched Tisza. He's definitely pro-Europe, pro-NATO, pro-Ukraine. And he doesn't seem to be as hostile to liberal society and the free press, as Orban became.

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And why he got elected.

Orban lost his way, a shame for him and for Hungary. Reminds me of a lot of Republican politicians in the last ten years.

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The exact kind of rhetoric we should have seen when Biden took office over Trump. Not sure what the action will look like in office, but at least he's setting a bar of accountability tonight. Hope they don't hire their own Merrick Garland.

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Just my gut feeling. Also, he’s stacked the judiciary. There are a whole passel of Hungarian Aileen Cannons.

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and even specifically asked about how Orban will be “managed” …

Google Gemini says:

“ With his two-thirds supermajority (projected at 138 seats) confirmed as of today, April 13, 2026, Péter Magyar has the constitutional "keys" to the kingdom. However, his public strategy for managing Viktor Orbán is a mix of legal aggression and political caution.

Will Orbán be prosecuted?

Magyar has been careful to distinguish between political retribution and legal accountability:
• The "Independent Judiciary" Strategy: In his first press conference today, Magyar stated that it is "not the job of a politician" to judge if a former leader belongs in prison. Instead, he promised to "restore the independence" of the courts and the prosecution service so they can investigate without interference.
• Joining the EPPO: Magyar’s most concrete move is joining the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO). This is a game-changer because it gives EU-level investigators the power to probe fraud involving Brussels’ funds dating back to 2017—essentially bypassing any "loyalists" remaining in the Hungarian judicial system.
• National Asset Recovery Office: He has pledged to establish a new agency specifically to track down and reclaim "plundered" national assets. This targets the "oligarchic network" surrounding Orbán (often referred to as the "inner circle") rather than just the man himself.

How will he "manage" Orbán?

Magyar’s approach to the outgoing Prime Minister appears to be one of institutional erasure:
• Retroactive Term Limits: Magyar plans to use his supermajority to amend the constitution to limit Prime Ministers to two terms (8 years). Crucially, he intends to apply this retroactively, which would legally bar Viktor Orbán from ever running for the office again.
• Isolation, not Martyrdom: Analysts suggest Magyar wants to avoid making Orbán a "political martyr" through a direct, state-led show trial. By focusing on the financial crimes of the broader Fidesz elite and cutting off their access to state contracts, he aims to starve the "Orbán system" of its resources until it collapses from within.
• The "Clean Hands" Purge: Magyar has already called for the immediate resignation of the Chief Prosecutor (Péter Polt) and other top-tier "loyalists" who protected Orbán for years. If they don't resign, his supermajority allows him to legally legislate them out of office.

Public Speculation

The prevailing view among Hungarian political scientists is that while Magyar may not personally lead the charge to put Orbán in a courtroom, he is building a "legal trap" by inviting European investigators in. The speculation is that the first major prosecutions will target Orbán’s family and closest business associates (like Lőrinc Mészáros), creating a "ring of fire" that will eventually force the former Prime Minister into a corner or into a quiet, forced retirement.”

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In picking Garland for AG. Had been a fine prosecutor but all those years as a judge dulled his skills. Plus it was too obvious a payback from the SCOTUS debacle. He was way too tentative and allowed a simple election case to mushroom and green lit the documents case in a dubious venue.

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wasn't serious when I saw who they were going after. They went after the small fry. The sad sacks who couldn't afford competent attorney's or people who obvious mental issues. They never showed any interest in whale hunting and going after the people who tried to finance the overthrow of an election.

I think I read somewhere, probably the Atlantic, that Jinny Thomas was part of organizing and funding some VA bus caravans.

If you truly wanted to "uncover" what happened, and who was behind the effort, following the money trail would have led to network of people with a lot to lose that would do almost anything to escape ruin (public/financial}.

But that was hardly as interesting as, "QAnon Shaman". Yeah! Let's go after the guy wearing horned headdress.

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Talking about the final weeks of the race.

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/anne-applebaum-hungarys-surreal-post

Orban tried to turn it into an anti-Zelensky fear campaign. Magyar stayed with nuts and bolts, quality of life stuff.

Pretty incredible that Magyar was banned from all official media and still won big.

print article:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/hungary-first-post-reality-political-campaign...

With that kind of influence, Fidesz, which is well behind in most polls, cannot evade responsibility for Hungarian stagnation, and so neither the party nor its leader is talking much about Hungary, its falling industrial production, or its shrinking population. Instead—backed by Russian propagandists, the European far right, and now the Trump administration (about which more in a minute)—the party is directing a small fortune’s worth of posters and social-media videos toward a different goal: convincing Hungarians to fear sabotage, thievery, or even a military attack from … Ukraine.

This is an entirely false, even ludicrous threat. The Ukrainians have enough to do without starting a second war in Hungary. But Orbán, his government, his party, and many outsiders are now focused on making this threat seem true. Pay attention, because this may be the future of electoral politics: Multiple politicians from several countries are shoveling propaganda at an electorate in order to build terror of an enemy that doesn’t exist at all.

The campaign is not subtle. In Budapest last week, Orbán’s face was almost nowhere to be seen. But posters featuring Zelensky were ubiquitous. Sometimes the Ukrainian president is seen glowering alongside the slogan “Don’t let Zelensky have the last laugh.” Sometimes Zelensky appears with Magyar and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European commission, along with the slogan “They are the risk. Fidesz is the safe choice.” Peter Kreko, who runs a Budapest think tank, told me that this is unprecedented. In 2022, Orbán campaigned on keeping Hungary out of the war. Now he’s telling Hungarians that, as Kreko put it, “we are under imminent threat of attack.”

The same threats reach Hungarians on their phones. On TikTok, where new pro-Fidesz accounts appear every day, AI-created videos of Magyar seem to show him slandering his country—“I stay silent because my masters in Brussels have forbidden me from defending the homeland”—or else singing the Ukrainian national anthem. Another genre of video shows war violence: a Hungarian girl crying as her blindfolded father, wearing a Hungarian uniform, is executed, apparently in Ukraine. Multiple videos also smear Magyar, making personal, sexual, and financial allegations against him, but the fear-Ukrainian-invasion narrative dominates. During a Fidesz march on March 15, a group in the front of the crowd carried a banner declaring We won’t be a Ukrainian colony!

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of reporting and the extent to which Orban has taken over control of Hungary’s critical information and financial infrastructure.

Trump truly dreams he could do the same thing here, but that is now quickly slipping from his greasy fingertips,

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Her histories of the Gulag and the establishment of the Iron Curtain from 1945 to 1956 are both terrific. She has also written a book on the Holodomor famine in Ukraine forced by Stalin that I intend to read.

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to campaign on behalf of Orban. Are they truly that oblivious to the fact that everyone in the world outside of this fucked-up country hates their guts? That little stunt probably boosted voting in the other direction by 5%.

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I don't think that Rubio is a plausible 2028 candidate, he doesn't have MAGA in his heart. But getting Vance to go on a losing cause in Hungary and then eat whatever shit comes from diplomacy with Iran?

Smart (political) plays by Rubio.

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is not leading the #1 priority international negotiation at this moment.

And that two unconfirmed family friends -- one, a Florida real estate guy -- are essentially representing the US globally.

And that our purported "Director of National Intelligence" is totally sidelined.

Our administration is so screwed up.

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altogether. Doesn’t have MAGA in his heart doesn’t mean he’ll avoid the brand when it’s time to pick a successor, and if it’s this toxic after 1 year, MAGA will be Chernobyl after 3 more.

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but there's little doubt in my mind that MAGA will fracture into about 17 different pieces within the next two years. The entire 'movement' was built expressly on a cult of personality, and that personality has never taken kindly to sharing the spotlight with any other living thing, let alone passing the conch. This has only ever been about Trump. Combine that with the unchecked, shameless ambition for power and complete lack of character of everyone else in his orbit. It's a recipe for the exact opposite of a smooth succession plan. There will be books, movies, documentaries made for the next half-century about the unraveling of all this.

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predict the most logical outcome of the Trump era of politics, this would be a safe prediction.

Just as “everything we were worried about” in 2016 is finally coming to fruition in the second administration.

We’re all a bit gunshy because everytime someone has counted Trump out he’s managed some miraculous feat of survival and then goes on to thrive, but have you seen the guy (and his movement) lately? I think it’s probably safe to start declaring the end and then… finally… the reckoning that will inevitably follow.

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Apparently SOS means “going to UFC fights with POTUS”

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With his boss.

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He could lead an opposition for 2 years

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