The equivalent of a "Tizla strategy" for the US would be Mitt Romney running on a platform of overturning Citizens United, banning gerrymandering, court reform, and jailing half the administration. And I mean, if that were how ol' Mittens were rolling, I'd at least hear him out!
(I could never hope to dance like that -- except at the end when he shrugs and turns that into part of the dance. As @hartmann-villalta.bsky.social can attest, that's one of my moves.)
Hungary's incoming health minister is SO much better than RFK Jr.
Plus there's this:
i will vote for any candidate who offers up this slogan
Regret to inform everyone that Peter Magyar beat the world’s smartest illiberal populist in large measure by working incredibly hard for 2 straight years, meaning the rest of us are just going to have to get off our asses and do shit rather than just complaining.
Orban called Magyar to congratulate Magyar - and admitted defeat to his supporters. It's over. Peter Magyar and his Tisza Party wins with such an overwhelming victory that he has two-thirds of the seats in the parliament and can undo Orban's autocratic legalism!
Hungarians deserve every congratulations for giving Peter Magyar a bigger margin than Orban has ever gotten in all of his rigged elections - and this within the system that Orban rigged. Magyar now has a constitutional majority to undo Orban's constitutional prison and govern as a democratic leader.
JD Vance has two jobs this weekend:
1) Surrender to Iran without it looking too much like surrender or set up a resumption of war without it looking too much like America failing to control events
2) Get Orban reelected in Hungary
Look everyone, we need to face the facts: Vance and Goodwin etc were right and Hungary is in fact a model to look to!
This is the culmination of SIXTEEN YEARS of dogged work by everyday Hungarians.
You think that felt hopeless sometimes? I'm sure it did.
👏 Don't 👏 give 👏 up 👏
holy shit he actually conceded
folks, they tell you they’re invincible
they tell you they’re inevitable
they tell you that you should give up and stop fighting
and absolutely none of that is true
Now Tisza projected at 138 seats against 54 of Orban’s Fidesz. If these numbers are confirmed, this is a larger victory than Orbàn’s 2010 landslide, which allowed him to change the 🇭🇺Constitution and start backsliding towards an illiberal democracy. A historic day.
one immediate dramatic consequence of the Hungarian result:
Magyar has promised to repair relations with the EU and unblock a €90bn EU loan for Ukraine
Schubert's Hungarian Melody, played by Andras Schiff, who has been refusing to return to his native Hungary under Orban (out of principle, and also b/c pro-regime elements were threatening to break his hands if he returned).
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm39...
biggest winners: hungarian people second biggest winners: anyone who wants the EU to actually work and become a balance/bulwark against the authoritarian international
László Krasznahorkai wins the Nobel Prize for Literature and Viktor Mihály Orbán loses a general election.
Pretty good few months for Hungary.
As a liberal I can confirm.
Voting harder just gave the Hungarian pro-democracy opposition everything they need to dispossess Orban's entire political machine, rip up Orban's antidemocratic 2011 constitution, and restore liberal democracy.
Vote hard enough and Trump will meet a similar fate.
Orban, Bolsonaro, Trump, and all the rest of these goons want you to believe they are inevitable and, once in power, invincible. They are not.
"The vote on April 12 is Hungary’s best chance in 16 years to choose democracy over autocracy. It may not come again."
Excellent piece by Bálint Magyar and madlovicsb.bsky.social that lays out the stakes of Sunday's election in Hungary.
1. Something that’s been genuinely painful to come across on Instagram is the accounts of Iranian influencers I’ve followed for years.
I click on their profiles, scroll through their grids, and realize their last post was in December.
Of course, it’s understandable.
Today’s latest Virtual Sentiments episode is with @samuel-bagg.bsky.social on his excellent book on how democracy helps us fight state capture. I’ve posted the episode and some updated thoughts talking about the DOW vs Anthropic contract dispute at my Substack
open.substack.com/pub/kristenc...
There's what @joestieb.bsky.social says. Also, as I understand it, while impeachment is the appropriate response to crimes/violation of the oath of office (of which there are MANY from Trump!), sheer insanity/inability to do the job is the issue w/r/t DJT's post, and 25th exists for that.
In the unlikely event that anyone on here would like to pay good money to hear me talk about Isaiah Berlin, Hannah Arendt, Judith Shklar, and ideas about freedom (or knows anyone who might):
roundtable.org/live-courses...
nothing screams anti capitalism like a bunch of people in matching tracksuits sitting in a line pontificating about the comic they didn't write illustrate or colour
I occasionally teach about "liberalism and its critics" analyzing argumentative texts and try to write about liberalism and a-liberalism in terms of ideas and arguments but sometimes I just think liberals and non-liberals are just wired differently.
One of the things that's always bemused me about integralists: their apparent assumption that in a "post-liberal" America, *they*, as Catholics, would somehow come out on top.
Eh, tankies gonna tank.
I hope you do write an article on it!