Post

To explain the incredibly important lesson I think Americans should take from the Orbán defeat, I have to start by telling you about my high school friend Jonah who is the biggest LA Dodgers fan I've ever met. Weird, I know. But deeply relevant. Let me tell you why. 🧵🧵🧵

Jonah is a huge LA Dodgers fan. Like, huge. He tapes the games. Watches them after work. He knows the players’ stats and their quirky origin stories.

His phone buzzes with notifications about which players are injured. If he happens to be visiting LA during the season, he makes a point to catch a game at Chavez Ravine. Last time I asked what he was reading, he told me “the Kershaw book” and then said unironically it was “actually really good.”

As a kid in LA I grew up following the Dodgers too. In adulthood my fandom faded. Still, over the years, especially when the Dodgers are having an especially good season, I’ve felt a soft sadness that my hometown team has faded into ambient awareness, just another thing in the background of my life.

Last fall, when the Dodgers clinched the NL pennant, I confided in Jonah that I wished I could feel more excited about watching the games. “You have to follow them for the whole season,” Jonah said. “That way, when they get to the World Series, you’ll be totally invested. And it will be meaningful.”

That was good advice, and a sentiment I returned to this weekend as the people of Hungary took to the polls and overwhelmingly ousted their autocratic president Viktor Orbán. Orbánism is the model home after which a sprawling network of nationalists have patterned their politics and governance.

After sixteen years in power, his loss is a searing rebuke for the global far-right and a warning to leaders from Benjamin Netanyahu and Narendra Modi to Donald Trump that Orbán’s “illiberal democracy” isn’t the magical system hack they hoped it was.

Having spent the last few years studying the global far right and the grassroots and political movements mobilizing to defeat it, I was following the Hungarian elections at verified Jonah levels. I was talking about their significance here and on my social platforms.

And when Orbán conceded this evening, a flood of texts came in from friends who had become a little bit invested, too. And all of us felt good! Because we had all been along for the ride, part of our own dalliance with authoritarianism here in the United States.

Major league baseball teams don’t wake up one morning in the World Series, with everything on the line. And countries don’t wake up one day under dictatorship.

Knowing the context helps us make meaning of the victory. Autocracy happens in stages, with many opportunities to take an off-ramp. The people of Hungary knew that these parliamentary elections – still free, if not exactly fair – could be the last real off-ramp from dictatorship, and they took it.

Imagine an electoral campaign like this in Russia today. You can’t. Too many have died under mysterious circumstances or rotted in prison. No one is left to push back against Putin without extraordinary risk. Hungary is a reminder it's critical to contest power forcefully while you still can.

I get asked from time to time what people can do about “the state of the world” – the unflinching assault on democracy and decency, and the rather persuasive sense that everything is only getting worse. But the truth is that there is no shortage of things we can do.

But here is something small and significant: Follow the global democracy movement like you follow your favorite sport. Or like you follow movies. Or pop culture. Or celebrity gossip. Or the stock market. Be like Jonah – for the era of the autocrat.

I know things feel helpless in the United States. But they are not. Orbán was in power for sixteen consecutive years. He was the spoke at the center of the global far-right. He built the network, wrote the playbook, modeled competitive authoritarianism. His long reign seemed a sure thing.

Just like Trump aims to defy political gravity and the norms of democracy. Just like Bibi does the same. If we keep watching, learning, and obsessing over what works, they will all go the way of Orbán.

Paying close attention to global democracy movements helps us understand how things can change. It also grants us emotional entry into this profoundly global work. There are models, new ones every day, for stepping off the path of autocracy.

If you don’t follow the Dodgers all season, sure you can celebrate – but it won’t mean much. The broader story gives meaning to the victory. And crucially, understanding the context for a victory, or a loss, teaches us what it takes to win.

In the end, Hungarians showed us not only how to beat a thuggish nationalist, but also how to defeat our own stubborn cynicism. Set some Google news alerts. Get a little invested. The future can still be ours. Nothing is inevitable.