Election loss for Hungarian Prime Minister Orbn has ripple effects for Trump, US conservatives
WASHINGTON (AP) — The big election over the weekend was in a small European country nearly half a world away from Washington, but the defeat of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has significant reverberations in the United States.
That’s because President Donald Trump and many U.S. conservatives have long embraced Orbán, who has become an icon among the global right for his anti-immigrant stance. The American president’s agenda has striking parallels with the way the Hungarian leader used the levers of government to tilt the media, judiciary and electoral system to keep his party in power for 16 years.
Trump supported Orbán’s reelection bid and even dispatched Vice President JD Vance to Budapest last week — in the midst of the Iran war — to stump for the incumbent.
Orbán’s loss was a reminder of how the war has diminished Trump’s ability to help allied politicians overseas, as well as of the limited ability of leaders to use their power to tilt voting in their direction in an age of worldwide discontent over incumbents of all ideological stripes.
https://apnews.com/article/orban-hungary-election-trump-republicans-6be613a3ac64c5efdb94b31be4bf18e6