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5 LESSONS FROM HUNGARY: HOW TO FIGHT AUTHORITARIANS  
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Gordon Whitman
March 13, 2024
The Forge
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_ Lessons from a convening between pro-democracy organizers from the
U.S. and Hungary. Gordon Whitman explains how grassroots organizations
can adapt as authoritarians change the rules of the game, and how
neoliberalism paves the path for dictators. _

Viktor Orbán , Elekes Andor

 

White Nationalist politicians and activists from the U.S. have beaten
a path to Hungary, lionizing Viktor Orbán as a role model for
crushing liberalism by any means necessary. But what can people
organizing for multi-racial/multi-ethnic democracy in the U.S. and
Hungary learn from each other? And what role can grassroots
power-building play in countering authoritarian movements that aim to
break democratic norms and institutions? 

To help answer these questions, U.S. organizers traveled to Budapest
in June 2023 to compare notes with Hungarian organizers and activists.
U.S. participants had a chance to see Hungary’s other side:
grassroots organizations working to restore democracy, within a long
Eastern European tradition of civic and labor organizing. This article
explains how Viktor Orbán took and has held onto power, and offers
five shared lessons for organizing for social change in the face of
rising authoritarianism.

How Hungary became a poster child for authoritarianism

The end of the Soviet Union brought formal democracy to Hungary and
other Eastern Europe countries, along with economic and social
dislocation. Many Hungarians lost jobs and social benefits. Western
governments preached civic participation –– often conceived as
professionalized NGOs –– while demanding countries deregulate
their economies and dismantle social welfare systems. 

Viktor Orbán was first elected Prime Minister in 1998. He replaced a
government led by the Hungarian Socialist Party, which had embraced
neo-liberal economic policies. After Orbán lost power four years
later, in 2002, his conservative Fidesz party (Alliance of Young
Democrats) invested in widespread civic organizing, albeit more
top-down than is common among social justice organizers. Fidesz
unified many Hungarians around a shared nationalist identity and
agenda. These organizing efforts, combined with the failures of the
incumbent government, helped Orbán regain power in 2010. His victory
took place in the context of the 2008 global financial crisis, which
caused many foreclosures in Hungary, and the larger failure of Western
neoliberalism to deliver on its promises of economic prosperity. 

After regaining power in 2010, Orbán moved quickly to dominate
ever-larger parts of Hungarian society. Over the past thirteen years,
his regime has taken political control over the judicial system,
media, universities, cultural institutions, churches, and economy. The
government tells successful companies that they need to sell
themselves at a favorable price to someone connected to the ruling
party or be driven out of business. It provides capital and operating
costs to churches aligned with the government.

Political scientists call Hungary a competitive authoritarian
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regime, in that elections happen and matter but take place under
conditions where once-democratic institutions are structurally tilted
to the regime in power. Something similar could be said about some
U.S. states, such as Florida and Tennessee, which have seen a serious
erosion of democratic norms
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In Hungary, people engage in civic and political activity without
repression. Opposition politicians and activists are routinely smeared
by the government-aligned media, but they are not put in jail or
threatened physically for speaking out against the regime, at least
until now. Police rarely use violence to break up protests. Fidesz
engages in vote buying
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and pressures people who are dependent on state jobs and workfare, but
votes are fairly counted. 

From a hardcore base of one-third of voters, Fidesz has been able to
win four national elections with between 45-55% of voters since 2010.
While Hungary is in many ways a multi-ethnic country, long home to
Roma and other non-Hungarian ethnic groups, Fidesz has successfully
promoted Hungarian nationalism. Orbán has positioned himself as the
sole leader able to defend White Christian Hungary against the forces
of migration, liberalism, and globalization. 

To consistently win elections, Fidesz extended voting rights to ethnic
Hungarians living in neighboring countries, and has continuously gamed
Hungary’s already complex election law. The ruling party has been
able to maintain total control over the parliament and judicial system
and to amend the constitution at will. The only public institutions
not controlled by Fidesz are some municipal governments. In 2019,
opposition parties with support from civic groups that stepped more
directly into local elections exceeded expectations in winning control
of the City of Budapest and other important cities and towns. 

Orbán and his supporters in the U.S. portray Hungary as a
“developmental state” focused on improving the lives of the
Hungarian people, with an emphasis on promoting strong families.
However, participants in the study trip learned the reality that
Fidesz’s economic policy relies on holding down wages and social
benefits so that Hungary can serve as a source of low-wage labor for
Western Europe. The regime has under-invested in health care and
education, targeted tax credits and subsidies to middle and
upper-middle income Hungarians, and used public works programs to
employ the poorest workers at low wages.

While cultural, economic, and political dynamics in Hungary and the
U.S. differ in many ways, organizers from both countries were struck
by common insights and challenges.  

Five shared lessons for organizing for social change in the face of
authoritarianism

#1 The road to authoritarianism is paved by neo-liberalism

A key lesson from Hungary (and the U.S.) is that the failure of
neo-liberal economic policies sets the stage for authoritarian
politics. During the study trip, Hungarian organizers explained that
liberal and center-left governments administered much of economic
shock therapy following the end of Soviet rule. As a result,
left-liberal politicians and lofty ideas about liberal democracy lost
credibility with regular people. 

One of the participants in the study trip to Hungary, Doran Schrantz,
then-Executive Director of ISAIAH and Faith in Minnesota, shared how a
similar failure by liberal elected officials to deliver material
improvements for working people paved the way for a conservative
resurgence in her state in 2014. After Democrats were voted out of
office, labor, community, and faith organizations in Minnesota
regrouped
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They engaged in a decade of strategic and persistent organizing to
change the state’s political environment. Once Democrats narrowly
regained control of all three branches of state government in 2022,
this patient organizing made possible a string of transformative
pro-working family policy victories
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including paid family leave, universal school breakfasts and lunches,
and increased school funding. 

The best way to defend and deepen democracy is to make government
accountable to poor and working people. Opposition to authoritarian
politics must go beyond fair procedures and good government. Extreme
norm-breaking policies and rhetoric by White Nationalists are meant to
not only show strength to base supporters but to disgust and alienate
less-engaged voters. Efforts to increase voter participation among
people open to pro-democracy ideas need to be tied to substantive
policy demands grounded in listening to the concerns and common sense
of voters. Organizers can play a crucial role in reconnecting ideas
about democracy to policies that address the pressures people face in
their daily lives.

#2 Total warfare over institutions

The hard nationalist right in the U.S. sees in Viktor Orbán a
playbook for total warfare over institutions, including the economy.
This approach is more statist than traditional small-government
conservative ideology. Not only are its proponents explicitly racist,
anti-immigrant, and anti-LGBTQ, they have reoriented conservative
politics away from elitist free-market ideas. They are willing to use
state power and programs to win over middle and working-class voters.
The goal is not just to win elections and implement conservative
policies, but to dominate cultural, educational, and economic
institutions that shape society. The prominence of attacks by U.S.
conservative politicians and activists on corporations, such as Disney
and Comcast, colleges and universities, and school boards echo
Orbán’s approach.

The focus on control over institutions puts people working for an
array of social justice causes, often with different theories of
change, in a larger, more existential struggle over the future of
democracy. People who take democratic norms for granted may be slow to
realize that the rules of the game have changed. As Karen Stenner
argues in The Authoritarian Dynamic
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people who value individual freedom and autonomy often “remain
inattentive to the collective until it imperils the individual.”
People may be slow to recognize that influential players who control
political parties and governments are operating without traditional
guardrails, as has become increasingly evident in U.S. politics. Every
institution is now a site of political conflict and polarization, from
churches to school libraries. 

To retain and regain control over cultural, judicial, media, and other
institutions that make multi-racial democracy possible, we need to
change how civic organizations, campaigns, and networks of
organizations are structured and funded. In the U.S. and globally, too
much social justice infrastructure is locked into well-meaning
programs to advance specific issues and policies. But these are no
ordinary times. To effectively confront movements and regimes that aim
to break democracy and dominate institutions, we need to devote more
resources and energy to building cross-issue and cross-constituency
coalitions. These coalitions need a focus beyond specific issues to
the larger struggle to protect and expand democracy and advance a
vision of society that makes sense to regular people. In the U.S. that
shift is most clearly underway at the state level, where base-building
organizations and funders are investing in long-term, multi-issues
strategies to build governing power
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#3 Align constituencies around a shared power-building strategy

Coinciding with the June study trip, thousands of teachers, students,
and parents gathered at the national parliament building in Budapest
to protest legislation that would strip teachers of their status as
public employees and make it easier to transfer or fire teachers who
organize. This so-called “revenge legislation” followed months of
protests across Hungary against low teacher pay and poor working
conditions. Over the years, Fidesz underinvested in education, reduced
the autonomy of schools and teachers, and took ideological control
over curriculum and textbooks. These changes have made teachers and
students key constituencies in opposing the regime. 

Nonetheless, large and frequent demonstrations over the past decade
have not dented Fidesz grip on national politics in Hungary.
Participants in the study trip reflected on this dynamic and agreed on
the need to align constituencies around a shared pro-democracy
strategy and agenda. For example, teachers, nurses, and public sector
service workers have unique needs but a common interest in social
spending and professional autonomy. A lesson from both Hungary and the
U.S. is the urgency to strengthen the organizing capacity of workers
in specific sectors, connecting workers more closely to the people who
benefit from their work, such as students, and build long-term
alliances across different sectors. The success of the Chicago
Teachers Union in building the movement that elected Brandon Johnson
as a progressive mayor is a good example of this approach in the U.S.
Any pro-democracy playbook needs to include patient organizing that
brings more people into political life and aligns organizations around
a larger vision, agenda, and strategy.

In this spirit of uniting constituencies around shared democracy
goals, Roma leaders in Hungary responded emotionally to Rev. Greg
Edwards, the Chief of Staff of POWER Interfaith in Pennsylvania, who
shared the history of the Black freedom struggle. He explained how
POWER has carried forward that struggle by putting racial equity for
Black students at the heart of its campaign to change how schools are
funded in Pennsylvania and its 2022 statewide bus tour against White
Christian Nationalism. He warned against tiptoeing around racism to
avoid hard conversations, emphasizing that people are struggling not
just for material improvements in their lives but to be seen and
treated as fully human. They need to be fully included in democracy
movements. Béla Rácz, a Roma leader with the One Hungary movement,
explained how hard but critical it is to elevate Roma issues and
leadership within struggles to restore democracy in Hungary.

#4 Invest in building organizations outside of large cities

Although it hasn’t always been so, Fidesz’s constituency is
currently concentrated in smaller towns and rural areas. Rural
communities in Hungary, like the U.S., are home to many poor and
working people who have suffered from cuts to education and health and
low-wage economic policies, yet have strong cultural, religious, and
political ties to conservative movements. In Hungary, people in rural
areas are often dependent on local elites
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for work, including through the government’s workfare program.
People also have limited access to independent media not controlled by
the government, and they don’t trust that middle and upper class
liberals in Budapest have their interests in mind. As in the U.S.,
conservative organizations and politicians in Hungary have invested in
building a base in smaller communities and rural areas over a
generation.

In recent years, in both Hungary and the U.S., organizations working
to defend democracy and promote social equality have begun to focus
more resources and energy on people-centered organizing outside of
large cities. Participants in the study trip from both countries
shared that this work requires long-term thinking, persistence, and
flexibility. The challenge is to start with people where they are at,
tapping into local interests, networks, and issues while connecting
people together across communities to work together on large changes.

#5 Make the most of elections

In 2022, civic organizations in Hungary, led by aHang (the Voice),
organized a primary
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for candidates from six opposition parties for the first time. More
than 800,000 people participated in two rounds of voting, with people
casting ballots online or in person. Thousands of people volunteered
time to make the primary successful. This massive civic action
addressed the fragmentation of the Hungarian opposition by allowing
pro-democracy voters to choose one candidate for Prime Minister and
each legislative race. The primary was not enough to overcome the
ruling party’s control over the media, the deep division among
opposition politicians, and Viktor Orbán’s skillful use of the
Ukraine war to rally Hungarians behind Fidesz. But, like the recent
success of opposition organizations and parties in Poland, it
highlighted how important elections are as moments of vulnerability
for authoritarian governments. 

At the Our Common Power conference
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Budapest in June 2023, during the Hungary study trip, Alejandra
“Alex” Gomez, who leads LUCHA in Arizona, shared how young
immigrant leaders in Arizona decided that they needed to engage in
politics to bring down Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who terrorized Latino
communities in Maricopa County, Arizona for 24 years. Even if they did
not use the word authoritarianism, that is how they experienced
Arpaio. Their struggle against authoritarianism in Arizona was won
through years of grassroots organizing and their choice to engage
relentlessly in building the political power of the Latino community
and Latino youth. 

Over the past decade, many civic organizations in Hungary and the U.S.
have built strategies and structures to engage voters and shape the
issues around which elections revolve. But much of the civic capacity
in both countries is still located in structures that prevent
organizations from directly influencing elections. One shared lesson
from Hungarian and U.S. organizers is that when given the choice
between democratic and authoritarian futures, organizations and donors
need to find more ways to engage more explicitly in elections. When
democracy itself is at stake, remaining on the sidelines isn’t an
option. 

Conclusion

Hungarians have told me they wished they understood sooner and
responded more quickly to Orbán’s authoritarian turn. In The
Authoritarian Dynamic, Stenner [[link removed]] argues
that the delayed reaction is structural, not unique to Hungary. She
writes that people with authoritarian outlooks –– who, for
example, when asked whether it is more important for children to be
taught to think for themselves or follow rules, choose rule-following
–– are highly attuned to anything perceived as a threat to group
norms. Stenner argues that people who feel a deep need for social
order and uniformity can be found on both the right and left, and are
especially agitated by rapid cultural change. Autocrats like Orbán
and Trump play to this sensitivity. This helps explain a weakness in
the narrative that conservative voters are voting against their
interests, since people with authoritarian orientations perceive their
interests as connected to group stability. In contrast, people whose
orientation is live and let live, who value freedom over conformity,
don’t necessarily see the threat to a system of democracy until they
experience a restriction in their personal freedom. Then, it may be
too late to act. That dynamic means that people who care passionately
about democracy and human rights as tools for social progress need to
be better organized, not only to respond to authoritarianism but to
see how quickly the rules are changing around us. And since this
struggle is global, we need to be as connected across countries as
those who are willing to break democracy to get what they want.

Gordon Whitman has been a community organizer and strategist for 25
years. He is the Managing Director for International Organizing at
Faith in Action, where he supports grassroots faith-based organizing
in Latin America, Haiti, Africa, and Eastern Europe.

The mission of _The Forge _is to elevate the strategy and practice of
organizing through the sharing of ideas, methods, history, and
inspiration, and by building connection and community among organizers
and between sectors of the progressive movement.

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