Article #20422

Let’s not draw the wrong conclusions from Hungary’s election or the US president’s troubles

Viktor Orbán’s crushing defeat in last month’s Hungarian election has led to an outbreak of democratic optimism. Across the globe, democrats are drawing lessons from the results and speculating about the decline of the far right. There is simultaneously a consensus that Donald Trump has gone from inspiration to “liability” for the global far right.

While the fall of Orbán has great symbolic significance and important consequences for EU politics (see the EU-Ukraine deal), we should be very careful not to read too much into it for three reasons.

Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today