Exit Orban, Brown International mourns, Putin and Trump grieve!

By Yorgos Mitralias

Obviously, Orban’s nemesis Peter Magyar is a die-hard conservative, and just two years ago, he held a high-ranking position in Orban’s party. And just as obviously, his Tisza party is a catch-all party with a conservative majority. However, this does not change the fact that with the Hungarian flagship of the European far right gone up in smoke, his associates seem inconsolable. Italy’s Meloni, France’s Le Pen, Spain’s Abascal, Portugal’s Ventura, the Netherlands’ Wilders, Belgium’s Van Grieken, Britain’s Farage, as well as his close friend, the Israeli genocidist Netanyahu, and the leaders of neo-Nazi groups such as Germany’s AfD, make no secret of their disappointment. But it is Mr. Orbán’s mentors and supreme leaders of the Brown International, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, who are, quite rightly, distraught and stunned. For both of them, Orbán and his regime were the centerpiece of their ongoing project—which aims to subvert Europe and have it governed by racist, neo-fascist, and hard-line far-right parties in their pay!

So, it is no coincidence that all these fine people rushed to support Mr. Orban as actively as possible by participating in person in his election campaign. And above all, that U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance did the same in the midst of a war against Iran, traveling to Budapest just three days before he went to Islamabad to negotiate with the Iranians! A J.D. Vance who didn’t hesitate to call Trump to have him speak live at Orban’s rally at the Budapest Sports Palace, with these words: “I’m a big fan of Viktor—I support him 100%, the United States supports him 100%”! It was all in vain; the loss of their Hungarian stronghold has left them stunned and disconcerted, as it interrupts—for the first time—the long series of electoral victories that have caused the European far right to skyrocket for over a decade in virtually every country on our old continent.

Admittedly, it remains to be seen what impact the loss of what Trump liked to call a “civilizational bulwark for Europe” will have, both on the future electoral performance of this European far right and on the war Putin is waging against Ukraine. However, it is by no means out of the question that Orbán’s crushing defeat, combined with the growing difficulties Trump is facing in Iran and Putin in Ukraine, could bring the unbroken rise of the European far right to a halt.

This is all the more likely given that significant divisions are emerging among the participants of the nascent “Brown International,” due to Bibi Netanyahu’s colonial wars and, above all, due to the policies and conduct of the U.S. president, which are far from universally supported—to the point that several of them (Meloni, Le Pen, and even… the German AfD) now consider his public support more harmful than helpful due to the collapse of Donald Trump’s popularity across Europe.

In short, much will depend on the evolution of relations between the top leaders of this international “brotherhood” of the most aggressive and unapologetic reactionaries, Messrs. Trump and Putin. For now, everything indicates that their relationship remains strong, benefiting, moreover, from the rebalancing of their balance of power caused, on the one hand, by Trump’s loss of influence due to the deadlocks in his war against Iran, and on the other, by Putin’s gains, as his oil and gas revenues doubled last March due to the consequences of that very same war! The best proof of this is the way Trump commented on media reports—based, incidentally, on U.S. intelligence reports—regarding the aid that Putin’s Russia is providing to the Iranians, enabling them to successfully fire drones and missiles at U.S. military personnel. Although the victims are Trump’s fellow Americans, Trump—who usually swears revenge and promises hell to anyone who touches a single hair on an American’s head—limited himself this time to downplaying the significance of Russia sharing such intelligence with Iran, saying that all of this… “doesn’t help the Iranians much”! A reaction—or rather, a lack of reaction—that speaks volumes…

Sparse attendance at the U.S. right wing CPAC rally in Hungary. Under Orban, Hungarian taxes had gone to help finance it.

That said, the crisis of Trumpism and the divisions caused within the ranks of the European and international far right by the bellicose and other actions of Netanyahu, Putin, and Trump are contributing to the fact that the disappearance of the Hungarian stronghold leaves the European far right without a unifying reference point. And this is because Orbán succeeded where all others fail: in achieving unanimity among all the racist, misogynist, homophobic, anti-European, anti-migrant, anti-worker, anti-socialist, fascist, and neo-Nazi tendencies and “sensibilities” of the European—and even global—far right. If we add to all this the fact that Orbán served for at least 12 years as a strategic ally — and also as a Trojan horse within European decision-making centers and institutions — of Putin and his regime, it becomes clearer that his departure is a major event that could have significant repercussions both on the outcome of Putin’s war against the Ukrainian people and on the shifting political balance of power in Europe and beyond.

And where does the European left stand in all this? Unfortunately, it must be noted that it is conspicuously absent, leaving the so-called “liberal” right to monopolize the narrative around Orbán’s defeat and the defense of democracy in Europe. Why? Because Trump’s association with Putin severely disrupts its certainties—namely, that American imperialists will face Russian anti-imperialists, that the “good ” Putin is the enemy of the “bad” Trump. This is why its likely majority faction either refrains from commenting on Orban’s crushing defeat—since any comment would force it to address Putin and his war in Ukraine, something it has deliberately avoided doing for the past four years— Or it recalls and condemns only the support for Orbán provided by the fascist Trump and the European far right, but “forget” to mention the support that — the equally fascist and godfather of fascists — Putin has been lavishing on him for a very long time. Double standards, and then they wonder why citizens persist in turning their backs on them…

So, given the rather dismal state of the current left, we take comfort first and foremost in its rare, truly internationalist oases that refuse to give up and save the honor of the global left—such as with Orbán’s demise, as well as Trump’s failures in Iran and Putin’s dead ends in Ukraine. We console ourselves as best we can while keeping an eye out for the tiny spark that could set our societies ablaze—societies that are more flammable than ever.