Suddenly Uprose Hungary

 At long last, Hungary's "illiberal" quasi-autocratic president Viktor Orban has been voted out of power. Neither the Kremlin's relentless support, nor Orban's capture of civil society and major media organizations in Hungary over the last sixteen years, nor a last ditch effort by J.D. Vance and Donald Trump to intervene in his favor, proved enough to save his campaign. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Orban together again. 

Seeing Putin's man in Budapest stripped of power, as ordinary Hungarians defied his relentless pro-Kremlin propaganda in order to vote for European unity, Ukraine, and liberal democracy—I can only think of E.E. Cummings's words: 

Suddenly uprose hungary 

And she gave a terrible cry

"no slave's unlife shall murder me

for I will freely die!"

We know how Russia responded to that—the last time Hungary rose up to demand its freedom. Cummings's poem goes on to describe it. But with Putin bogged down in his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there seems little chance he would pull the same stunt the Soviets did in 1956—at least not as effectively. 

So perhaps, this time, Hungary may be allowed to freely live—rather than having to freely die. 

Of course, I'm not naive. I know the Hungarian election was not so much a referendum on liberal democracy as it was an expression of people's frustrations with economic deprivation and mismanagement. I know that Orban's opponent in the election was a former right-wing ally of the president. Who knows—he could someday end up proving just as corrupt and autocratic as the "illiberal" overlord he is replacing. 

But we can only guess what may happen someday. That day is fortunately not today. In the meantime, the forces of reactionary nationalism and xenophobic populism have undoubtedly suffered a major setback in Hungary—and hopefully this is a harbinger that they will soon lose power in the rest of the world as well. And of Orban himself, all I can say is—good riddance. Or, as Shelley more eloquently put it (writing of Bonaparte): 

I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan

To think that a most unambitious slave,

Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave

Of Liberty[.]