the hungarian question
hungary is not north korea, its a normal eu country, and a normal post soviet bloc country
After many decades of devastation the 20th century had in store for central and eastern Europe along with communist rule many countries in what is now the European union have low(for a first world country) gdp. This might come as a shock to people, but not many countries where as lucky as eastern Germany in recovering. If you were in a democratic nation and democratically voted in a backlash regime to communism, maybe you would look different then other parts of Europe.
I do not feel the need to provide examples, but every left of center and on person in the United States just spent the past few decades saying they want to be more like Europe and in some cases more like certain south American countries. Was it disgusting, evil, and repulsive that they did so? My impression of the arguments over this was conservatives went into ben shapiro fact check mode and seemed to go into the weeds at least as of late. Actually Nordic countries are homogenous, actually Nordic countries say they are capitalist, actually Nordic countries privatized social security, actually Nordic countries have high taxes but they also claim to desire low regulation. We have all seen this play out. I am sure it has happened when people were not arguing and especially in the post 9/11 fervor that people denigrated finding Europe appealing in the triumphant own the libs voice we all know of. But when they show up to actually argue, the actual arguments that come out of their mouth I don’t think include much moral pleading.
The truth is Europe makes less money then we do, as much as people want to point to the best performing among them they don’t seem much interested in articulating why all the Nordic countries do better then all med countries economically, despite both doing the polices many of these people claim is what it boils down to. Whatever it is they want, its clearly not not-being-nord-ed proof. Besides this, the EU, if you wanted to descend into the talking point fight-pits, can be argued to be a dictatorship. The outer party can be fined for speech, people get arrested for speech, and their right to assemble is not as strong as ours is. None of these people have ever lifted so much as a finger to type out ever disapproving of this. None of them until Tucker Carlson went to Hungary.
Keep in mind Tucker has tried to brand himself as *not like other conservatives*(tm) so the fast and loose way in which people have started to rant about conservatives this and conservatives that when the one branding himself as being different acts like they have for decades one time is pretty ridiculous. Nearly all the ways they have foamed at the mouth angry about Hungary could be said of the rest of Europe, the way in which institutions have been captured is what their side has already done, and the tactics they used to implement their polices are explicitly the same as what these people openly say they want to do.
America is not democratic like the EU , America does not use popular vote, America should be parliamentary multi party system instead. America should abolish the filibuster, America should pack the courts, America should create a technocracy that decides district shapes instead of democratically elected representatives, America should abolish the Senate. These people say these things constantly. But maybe if you did all these things with a center right voting public, maybe you would end up with Hungary. Uh-oh. Maybe if you pack the courts after doing a democracy, maybe you pack them with people who erode constitutional norms and make speech conservatives dont like illegal. Uh-oh. Woops. Maybe the only thing stopping this happening are the anti EU conservatives who want to preserve the American political system these people spend all their time claiming are the real threat to America.
Tucker and others probably think Hungary is neat because it is an example of electoral success. Electoral success can happen in any country that votes, it can happen in rich Europe or poor Europe, it can happen in South America or North America, all political factions will behave in this way no matter where it comes from. As someone who is anti crime I find the examples of supposed reduction in crime in parts of Mexico very very exciting. I read about them and found myself very excited. I didn’t really give a shit they have low gdp. I don’t think a country with very high crime discovering ways to reduce it is grounds for belligerent ghoulish taunting about other aspects of Mexico. It does not make sense to argue its awful for me to look to those patches and take heart, to even think its good.
Arguing oh ok all that going to bat for Europe was bad, but Hungary is worse because its just SO MUCH lower gdp just doesn’t mean anything at all. Hungary has high growth, and its got lower starting point because of communism. Having low immigration is not the same as being North Korea. Hungary is part of a free trade bloc that spans a continent, any EU citizen can move there, and it has some of the most cosmopolitan cities in Europe and votes for a center right party. It does not make much sense to spew hateful bile about how insular they are for having lower immigration then a continent that also has low immigration. And right wing people being encouraged at examples of winning elections isn’t really proof of anything at all. Wanting lower immigration is actually a perfectly fine thing for people in a democracy to vote for. A standard only applied to the right wing but never applied to yourself when breaking that standard in much worse ways is no standard at all. People will continue to do ideological foraging and pick and choose what they like from all sorts of examples (pic unrelated). Probably they will keep doing it, probably its not evil.
Hungary is a normal EU country, its on the lower end of first world, its probably fine. It is not a dictatorship any more then the rest of the EU is, it is only unique in that it uses tactics fans of the EU use or want to use against who is usually using it. Maybe people should stop arguing breakfast tacos will be banned by a dictator like a lunatic if people vote for the right wing. Maybe they should reconsider the political form that led to evil dictator Orban that their own side wants to implement and pluck the authoritarian from thine own eye. Maybe sometimes the side you fight against will do the same thing you do sometimes. Oh well. Maybe your side is worse. People do not want to immigrate here because other people immigrated here, America did not have the highest income on the planet a few separate times because of immigration, and there is more to our country then H1B1 visas.