You may have noticed that for some time I have been ignoring Viktor Orbán’s Friday morning interviews. Before the beginning of the pandemic, the prime minister’s half-hour sessions, held every two weeks, were more or less tolerable, and at times they actually shed light on his latest thoughts on certain issues. In the last three months, however, these by now weekly interviews have become tedious and devoid of substance. Therefore, I wasn’t at all surprised when 444 opted to focus on the reporter, Katalin Nagy, instead of Viktor Orbán.
The prime minister, as it is often pointed out, is not the bravest man when it comes to hard questioning by reporters. And so, he makes sure that his regularly scheduled so-called interviews are conducted by journalists who will cause him neither trouble nor embarrassment. During his first administration, Orbán consented to one interview a month on MTV’s “Nap-kelte” (Sunrise) but was willing to face only János Betlen, who was considered to be one of the Fidesz “choir.” Betlen never asked any hard questions. Yet, in contrast to Katalin Nagy, he was at least an erudite individual with a sense of humor. I don’t know what Betlen, who retired in 2015, thinks today of his old friend, but I encountered an article a few years back which claimed that he was thinking of joining Hír TV when Viktor Orbán and Lajos Simicska parted ways.
Katalin Nagy, after three years as a student of Hungarian literature and history, began working for Magyar Rádió in 1981. She stayed there until 2006, when she joined Hír TV and also worked for Lánchíd Rádió, both belonging to the growing Fidesz media empire. During the second Fidesz government, as testament to her loyalty, she received the Knight’s Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit, which, by the way, was established on June 14, 1922 by Miklós Horthy and resurrected by Viktor Orbán. But because of her slavish attachment to Orbán, she was fired in 2015 after the Orbán-Simicska fallout. She therefore returned to Magyar Rádió. I should add that her husband is the CEO of Magyar Rádió. All in the family.
Great friends, Viktor Orbán and Katalin Nagy in the studio / Photo: Zsolt Szigetvári / MTI
The “interview” last Friday began with Nagy’s introduction of the first topic: Orbán’s unilateral decision to reject the directive of the European Union to allow free access to travelers from 14 “safe” countries: Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, and Uruguay. Nagy, in her first “question,” outlined the growing number of infected people in the neighboring countries and reminded listeners that Béla Merkely, the rector of Semmelweis University, only recently said that Hungary must prevent the transmission of the virus from abroad. “How can we prevent this? What kinds of measures are needed?” That set Viktor Orbán up to announce his decision to ignore the EU’s suggestion and close the borders to travelers from these countries with the exception of Serbia. Any reporter worth his salt would have inquired: “Why is Serbia an exception when in Serbia there are 302 new cases and 1,846 cases/1 million when Uruguay has no new cases and only 275 cases/1 million?” Naturally, Nagy remained silent on such a potentially uncomfortable issue.
The way Nagy opened the conversation allowed Orbán to brag about the excellent Hungarian record on COVID-19 and to call attention once again to the dangers of migration. Nagy said she was puzzled by the European Union’s decision on both scores. Everybody knows that the number of cases is growing in the region and that migrants are carriers of the disease. And yet, they want to open the borders across the EU and interfere with the Hungarian way of defending its own borders. Again, she was priming Orbán to spin his tale instead of questioning the connection between the spread of the virus and the refugees or pointing out that most of the countries on the list are nowhere close either to Hungary or to the route of the refugees, with the exception of Serbia and Montenegro.
Moving along, Katalin Nagy turned to the new national consultation, with false naivete asking about the necessity of a new consultation when Hungary already had one specifically on the question of migration. That gave Orbán an opportunity to explain that “this time our questions are concerned with the connections between migration and the epidemics.” But his effort to link the two failed, and eventually he admitted that most of the questions are about the revival of the economy, healthcare, and the pandemic. He then abruptly turned to the dreadful economic situation in certain Western European countries that have huge national debts. Hungary’s situation is much better. At present, it looks as if the former communist countries will have to help bail out the rich West. That would be all well and good, but “there is one problem, we are poorer.”
The helpful reporter stepped in again, interrupting Orbán and saying: “This is what I wanted to point out.” The GDP per capita is higher in France, Spain, Italy, even perhaps in Greece than in Hungary, and yet the money must be divided in such a way that the southern countries will end up better off when “we are still an emerging economy.” She wanted to know “why should we, the V4 countries, end up worse off?” At this point, Viktor Orbán could pretend to be magnanimous and point out the difficulties the European Union is facing when it comes to tackling financial issues after the economic meltdown. He claimed that “we are ready to offer help to the southerners in trouble, but at the same time we want to have fair treatment. So, we don’t want to be suckers.”
Otherwise, out of this 3,600-word interview there was only substantive point: “We must understand that we need to be successful together. So, Europe needs to stick together. We have a better chance of being successful as part of a European economy than as separate national economies.” But, of course, he wants the economic benefits that the EU provides without giving an inch on the issue of national sovereignty. Unfortunately for him, the EU has long since moved beyond the European Economic Community, established in 1957; in 2009 its institutions were absorbed into the EU’s wider framework. And so, Orbán cannot take advantage of a common market without also being subject to the EU’s values and its directives.
George Orwell would not be surprised by the “double talk”, let alone nonsense spit out by Orban. His insincere comment about Europe needing to “stick together” is valid for Orban only as long as the regime collects large EU subsidies. As Professor Balogh knows (and most readers), this regime is hardly interested in the EU ideals.
Like the regimes in Turkey, the US etc. the mafia regime is interested in lining its’s own pockets, especially with $$ from other EU members. What a sick joke i.e. his “offer” to help “southerner” EU members. The only help Orban could offer would be teaching how to steal and get away with it.
So true – Orban’s government are thieves.
Of course, if you find a Hungarian is a thief, it’s not a surprise. What you really have to watch out for…is a Hungarian who appears legit. That’s only for a time, until he finds out where (between which ribs) he must sink in the chiv…
It’s a total BS and a pack of lies, the Orbàn’s help to southern EU members – he refused to relieve Italy or Greece in the wake of the migrant crisis and never did/paid anything, except for offering a couple of policemen. And Italian money is going into his pockets via the EU subsidies.
A liar, a cheat and a thief (to start with).
Unlike Uruguay Serbia regrettably has a substantial Hungarian population. The usual fatuous, nitpicking, malicious criticism we have come to expect from Eva.
Perhaps Orbáncould publicly recognise that “national sovereignty” willy-waving by all concerned is one of the reasons that cross-border Hungarian communities live in such “regrettable” conditions
What regrettable conditions?
They can freely practice a parallel society, on their own terms – from crib to crypt – Hungarian schools from Kindergarten to University-level, associations and churches, and double citizenships with HU social benefits.
To be honest, I know of no other region in Europe with such great tolerance towards the autonomy of a neighbor’s outlying minorities.
“We”? The pronoun to describe your self is “I”. The “substantial” Hungarian population in Serbia has little to do with Orban’s set aside for Serbia. Rather the regime there is more in keeping with regimes that Orban prefers.
Gáspár
An infected Serbian/Hungarian is a “threat to the Hu people” as Orbàn put it. So what’s your point? Orbàn’s virus, just like his communists, are good for us?
Yes, Gáspár, it is way better to allow infected Hungarians from Serbia spreading the virus in Hungary than to admit non-efected people from Uruguay to the EU.
According to Szabad Magyar Szó, there are 300 new cases in Serbia. The football stadium in Belgrade is being converted to a hospital with 500 beds for corona virus cases.
@Eva S. Balogh,9:08 am
Yes, completely correct as usual. The idea of throwing open the Hungarian border to Serbia is just insanity. They are
experiencing a second wave that is about as bad as the first:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/serbia/
But well, pig-headed Viktor Orbán will have his way…
“…so, Orbán cannot take advantage of a common market without also being subject to the EU’s values and its directives”
Would that be right; but it seems that, that is exactly what Orban and his party of putrid parasites have been doing for near a decade.
“Unlike Uruguay Serbia regrettably has a substantial Hungarian population”
Their Hungarian ethnicity has helped them develop an immunity against the virus??? Hajra Magyarok!
“But, of course, he wants the economic benefits that the EU provides without giving an inch on the issue of national sovereignty.”
Holding out his begging bowl whilst simulataneously spitting on all decent values the EU represents. Why democrats in the EU can bear to be even in the same room as this parasite never mind keep his miserable regime afloat is beyond me.
Because they are weak and stupid, and secretly want to be taken advantage of and so that’s what Orban does. Why are Western people naive? That’s just the way they are and they can’t behave in any other way.
Why are Western people naive? The Western people are not naive – it only appears so when you fall on your head. Does Hungary have its own brand of car… or do they have their own aircraft? No, they just have a big mouth. In German there is a saying nur ein großeses Maul und nichts dahinter means stupid gossip.
The Western people are wealthy. But they are naive and dumb. Why? Because they can afford to be. As I said, this applies mostly to the white Americans, people of color in the US cannot afford to be naive and have more street smarts. They make mistakes, upon mistakes, again and again, they misjudge Orban, Putin, Erdogan etc. it doesn’t matter, there is no real downside, no consequence. (Of course voters don’t necessarily feel this way, they get impatient after many years of stagnation, but the elite, the bureaucracy, the political class feels there is no downside.) They are still so rich, it doesn’t matter. You take a walk on any major Western European shopping street and you realize there is no catastrophy, including a new WW, which could destroy that level of wealth. Which is why Orban and Putin have unlimited contempt for Western people. Western people just have it too easy in their eyes. Most top European politicians (who keep putting money into Orban’s pockets) couldn’t become a third level operative in Fidesz. Also a reason of this phenomenon is the high very level of trust in the society. It’s not an extraneous factor imposed on society, it… Read more »
Re White Americans – they are not doing well!
Mortality has been higher and higher in the last years, life expectancy has become much lower than in Western Europe!
A very interesting book on this by a Nobel Prize winner:
http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/joshua-cohen-angus-deaton-deaths-despair
There’s also an article on this in the SPIEGEL – for those who can read German.
It’s time to consider that US problems are directly related to the ridiculous growth of its population, which is a by-product of the need to keep pumping up the ‘Demand’ side of the economic equation…
” … ridiculous growth of its population …” of the US … there were probably too many petofis after the discovery … those who never understood literature …
Dear Don K.
I’ve been studying Shakespeare’s biography going on 55 years. Have discovered a lot about the bard (and so-called scholars) in that period.
Ouh Marty if they’re rich how can they be naive and dumb? Then the eastern people are realistic and smart?
Then I’d rather be naive and dumb and let you believe. The Hungarians are realistic and smart, then what are you complaining about?
Don’t be so simplistic. “Guns, germs and steel” which is one of the most important non-fiction books of the last century and is now a mainstream history book starts with the following story. The author, who was a biologist originally, went to New Guinea several times to do research and once one of his local contacts asked him: how come we buy Coke from you and not the other way around? So Jared Diamond started to think about it. So how can you be rich and naive? This outcome in the present could have a ton of reasons but they don’t negate the fact that they are naive politically. Perhaps when the basis of the richness was established they weren’t naive but then they got used to the wealth they ‘atrophied’. Or perhaps the high level of trust is conductive to wealth creation but it is a disadvantage when it comes to politics – however as long as politics is relatively calm and people look for consensus etc. it doesn’t matter if they are naive. Also, as I said, they are way too rich to be bothered by Orban’s theft. He could be there for 50 years still it would… Read more »
Don’t be so simplistic. The EU politicians know exactly what Hungary is and who Orban is. Why should the Germans get their hands dirty for a country that chooses Orban? Don’t be so simplistic. Look at the professors and doctors mooh. Germany should stand up for them? For a handful of phantom crash pilots who didn’t say a word when the education system was centralized. If the Hungarians are happy with Orban, it’s good for everyone. The German Nazis get cheaper workers for house and garden and German industry too. Don’t be so simplistic.
They may or may not know. The average Brussels based commission bureaucrat may or may not know that the monies sent to Hungary will be stolen (by Orban’s party machine).
I met not so long go some German professors (they could’ve been from anywhere else, not Germany is the point here) and the level of knowledge about the workings of any autocracy was astonishingly low.
They were simply unable to really believe that an autocracy could exist in places relatively close to them. .
Educated, supposedly smart people, men and women, with significant life wisdom amassed, and they were visibly having difficulties to contemplate the issue.”Naah, you must be exaggerating, c’mon…But you have a constitutional court, that can protect you.” And so on. – and that in 2020, 10 years after Orban grabbed power. They really lacked the conceptions and experiences to understand how such a system works (as far as I know none of them were East Germans). The idea of an autocracy is like Chinese characters to most Western people.
They only should’ve read the Economist or the FAZ. Yet they were more naive than any 10 year olds in Hungary. Don’t underestimate people’s gullibility.
“They may or may not know.” (apology not read further for natural reasons) Marty, how stupid do you think people are … delicious … hey Marty if you don’t know, why are you writing about it?
Marty, please take care in generalizing regarding “most western people”. The actual reality is a bit more complicated and yet pedestrian i.e. Hungary is a small and by European standards, an insignificant country. Hungary is not even on the same level as say Belgium, an equally small, but significant country because of its economy etc. In US, things are worse as most people could not tell you/us where Budapest is located, let alone that is the capital city. Ignorance knows no borders i.e. many Hungarians could not identify the major details of many EU nations.
If people had read their Machiavelli, they’d know that autocracy is based on the notion that you keep the citizenry down-trodden, and thankful for any little they get…
“Germans get their hands dirty…”??
Are these the same Germans who worked the concentration camps. Could their hands ever get clean again to make them, once more, dirty?
petofi 5.pm
BS. This is quite a primitive and stupid vendetta notion. Which nation doesn’t have some appalling deeds on their historical record? What matters is that some uphold the appalling past ideas and incite to appalling deeds now.
I agree with Marty all the time.
He has the x-ray vision to see the twisted affairs in and outside of Hungary.
Hungarians have a part in Shakespearian drama:
“We are more sinned against than sinning.”
Of course.
Poor Hungarians.
Anyway…
HAJRA MAGYAROK!!!
Marty, again re Western people being naive and dumb – because they don’t fight against Orban or Putin …
Then what do you call the Hungarians etc who don’t fight either – but work for them without any critical remarks, adore them etc … 🙂 🙂
You’re kind of funny!
The only thing missing is Hungarians offering their firstborns (or maybe their wives? 🙂 🙂 ) to their mighty leader – their money he already took.
Another idea:
weigh him up in gold – as some Asian religion is wont to do …
Or the reintroduction of jus primae noctis …
No, because they let themselves ripped off time and again. They don’t have to fight Orban just perhaps not give him money to steal.
Look at the World Bank, the EU bureaucracy etc. They are filled with the same naive people and they get ripped off all the time (but the bureaucrats want their jobs so they will keep lending, giving money etc.).
The people who fight Putin end up in a gulag eating worms…
“The Western people are wealthy. But they are naive and dumb”
Actually, picking this sentence apart further. Look at the nonsense Orban has sold the morons in his voterbase over the years: “Give me your pension and I will pay it back sometime”, “Soros is out to steal your savings.”, “The immigramts are queueing in their millions to get into Hungary to rape your daughter.”, “Brussels hates Fidesz because it has changed Hungary in the world’s greatest success story.” And it goes on….
So the typical Fidesz zombie like the “western people” you group in one all-encompassing phrase are Naive, they are Dumb. But unlike the typical westerner they have the added disadvantage of being poor (racist, homophobic, anti-semitic wife-beaters also seems to be more of a majority viewpoint amongst government supporters here than in the west but let’s stick with “poor”) So…again give me a civilised decent “rich” westerner over a racist, homophobic, wife-beating poor Orbanist everytime.
Well said! And nobody in the West has been fooled by Orbán for years. Everybody knows that Orbán is cheating and stealing, anybody expects something else. That is why the EU wants to introduce rule-of-law mechanisms to prevent Orbán for further stealing and telling Polt not to close every single case presented by OLAF for example. Naive and dumb are only the 2 000 000 voters that again and again vote for Orbán, no matter how bad their life became under him.
The monstrous asinity of both Hungarians and Americans…believing in polls. Horseshit. The Drudgereport put out a poll, right to the day of election, that McCain was leading by 6 points. He lost hugely.
Americans and Hungarians are like sheep–they follow as they’re told.
Right now, Biden is up 16% (56%) and climbing but, unbelievably, Trump holds at 40.7% for weeks now.
Germans still expect cheap workers in Hungary and of course cheap holidays – and they are not alone …
Just think about all the US movies produced in Budapest – it’s surely not because of the perfect English that is spoken here. 🙂 🙂
And the fact that “outsiders” like LGBT people, Jews, liberal artists, scientists, doctors and nurses etc are treated badly in Hungary – well, no problem in the EU/Schengen area at all. They can and they do leave in droves …
And they are really welcome in DACH eg too!
Just look at Paul Lendvai and his magazine:
https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000118499130/kein-interesse-fuer-osteuropa-diskussion
It’s being closed down, why? Because most people in the liberal West of the EU aren’t really interested in the Balkan sh*thole countries and their politics – they are just too insignificant
Weak and stupid *and* scum pretty much describes Fat Vic’s ordinary Joes. Western Europeans have reached a stage of civilisation and decency which the dregs in Orbanistan’s sewers can only dream of. Happier wallowing in their filthy poverty because they believe their fat bast*ard of a messiah when he tells him they are the chosen people. Thick scum. Give me a decent western weakling everytime
That’s a different argument. All I claim is that the West will continue to finance Orban and they can’t change. Orban, Putin Erdogan, any third rate dictatopr will take advantage of the West. This argument doesn’t say anything about the fans of an autocrats.
Marty, please!
From our trolls and Fideszniks we often hear the claim that the money that foreign companies take out of Hungary is even higher than what the EU pumps into Hungary.
So who is right?
re your professors:
Maybe they didn’t know about the situation in Hungary because they just don’t care and are not interested?
For those who care (and I know many of them) there have been many articles in all German and Austrian media eg – from the liberal Süddeutsche to the conservative FAZ, from Focus to Spiegel and so on.
So you can be sure that every politician or industrialist knows what’s going on – and takes advantage of it.
After 1989 many companies went to Hungary – and away again when wages and other costs became too high.
The whole purpose of the scripted*, very hard attacking the “left” and “Brussels” [see 444.hu article], “questions”, seems to me to portray OV as less extreme “right” and “anti-Brussels” than at heart he really is.
So those listening [or having to listen] to these weekly “interviews” can get as impression that their myghti lidur is quite “mellow”.
*yes scripted, as I don’t believe the 1-Party-State-“public”-Media “interviewer” has anything to say in what she has to ask her Serial Democracy Killer.
I won’t say that. He did deliver them a short uppercut to the chin, just in case they think he has mellowed, at the recent V4 summit >
“We need our police and soldiers…What we have witnessed in western Europe and America, that societies and politicians have betrayed their own police, must not be allowed in central Europe”.
But he needs the EU money and market and, as he has proved over and over again since 2010, he can very well take advantage of a common market and also avoid being subject to the EU’s “values” (yes, mostly far-left ideology, anti-European values really) and its directives.
The (same) game goes on, nothing new here.
What are you saying, what are you playing?
Who are you obeying, day-out, day-in, huh?
Every regime/dictator needs some “essentials” (see Dictator’s Handbook) ie. at least the minimum necessary to keep him in power. While in eg. Latin America the military were, in Africa still are, the most important “essentials”, in Europe, Russia, mid Asia today its a larger group of supporters, helpers and enablers. So the moral standards, national psyche of those determine the nature of the regime, the extend and the tools of the oppression, etc. Reading the groveling, subservient, crazy laudations from the Horthy era and seeing how impermeable to truth and reality the Orbàn faithful are, I’m not very optimistic.
In Hungary a dictator only needs to win the general election, (be enabled by 50% of the population) and be opposed by a divided opposition (which disagrees with him for different reasons and hence unable to unite against him).
You know with government ruling in a ‘soft’ dictatorship it is better from the opposition’s point of view to certainly have disunity rather than utter silence. And even then silence by itself does not imply conversion. But an unfortunate albatross has to be carried by an opposition since there are creatures inside the country and outside of it who seem to ‘think’ the ‘Goebbelsization’ of Parliament and government is alright. The propaganda genius cannot hold himself back in what has been offered to him and the rest of the acolytes. He is just starting to play in the playground opening up to him:
’We enter Parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy , with its own weapons. ..If democracy is so stupid as to give us free tickets and salaries for this bear’s work that is its affair’. ……J Goebbels, Der Angriff , April 1928
Past 2010 the majority of us voted against Orbán and he did some magic with the numbers and got 2/3 in parliament. Others would call that cheating. And Orbán has a core of 2 000 000 voters and these are enough for endless power, this is definitely not 50% of the population, even when you see the fact that a Million left since Orbán took power again. These 2 Millions are just about 1/4 of adult citizens. 53% of the votes was the best Orbán ever got in 2010 and he used that for ending our democracy. Even Marty with his endless FIDESZ-strong-posts declared that elections never would remove Orbán.
“And Orbán has a core of 2 000 000 voters and these are enough for endless power, this is definitely not 50% of the population….These 2 Millions are just about 1/4 of adult citizens.”
Yes but this other 1/4 does not go out and vote against Orban. They don’t seem to care either way. You may call them ‘passive enablers’, as opposed to the other 2 million who go and vote for Orban, and who participate in the HU political life (and in the system, so as to advance their private interests)
So it is still 50% with both the passive (indifferent, “idiotas”) and the active core/enablers.
It’s such horseshit hearing about ‘elections’.
No one seems to be paying attention to what Stalin said many years ago: “The thing about democracy is not voting, but who counts the votes.”
What would Friday morning be without the predictable Friday-morning-Orbán B-S? So repetitive, so predictable.
DAY 98 OF ORBÁN’S FRIDAY-MORNING-BULLSHIT DICTATORSHIP
“That set Viktor Orbán up to announce his decision to ignore the EU’s suggestion and close the borders to travelers from these countries with the exception of Serbia.”
let me repeat my yesterday’s comment:
official corona data
example in “OV friendly” HU neighbor country [Serbia]:
–Jun.22 article about under-reporting
https://balkaninsight.com/2020/06/22/serbia-under-reported-covid-19-deaths-and-infections-data-shows/
–possible reason for under-reporting were the parliamentary election held Jun.21 [boycotted by many parties and therefore won by the governing coalition]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Serbian_parliamentary_election
–Jul.03 article about “OV friendly” president [tries to] dismiss other data
https://balkaninsight.com/2020/07/03/vucic-dismisses-birn-report-on-covid-19-figures-in-serbia/
It is obvious Ms. Nagy does not understand her position as being a member of the country’s ‘fourth estate’. It is not only to create the ‘right’ questions to keep government honest . It is also to ‘stir the pot’ of opinion or in difficult times to raise hell. It is to act as the country’s conscience. But it is evident in the smiles seen that all is well in the collaboration of government and media in a supposed free media society. Each hand washes the other. But the natural bellicosity between the two is non-existent as Fidesz attempts have anesthesized it. Both now cooperate to write the ‘scripts’ as in the restrictive Kadar period where state media was the last word on ‘opinion’ and what it should be and you better make sure you understood it. Ms. Nagy has come a long way from studying history and literature as she now creates scripts from the top of a media world which has probably made her go far beyond her wildest dreams as she has become in Fidesz eyes a powerful expediter of the Fidesz ‘way’. She sits wonderfully upon the soft Fidesz dunyhas of power at Magyar Radio. So… Read more »
“It is obvious Ms. Nagy does not understand her position as being a member of the country’s ‘fourth estate’.”
Executive = Orbán. Legistative = Nation. Jurisdiction = Nation. Media = Nation. Nation = Orbán. L’etat c’est Orbán
OT Over the weekend, I went to see relatives who spend their summers at Balaton (North shore). At the local beach one of the top opposition politicians (MP, top party leaders) was pushing a stroller. He was there enjoying the weekend or his summer holidays. No pressure, no phones, he was calm and significantly pudgier than one would’ve though from pictures (not that he’s in the media often). Needless to say nobody recognized him (though sometimes he wore dark sunglasses, but sometimes he did not). There is no way this guy or his fellow-politicians would ever be able to defeat Fidesz or win even in a free elections. Not far from him I spotted two parents, both of them clinically obese, who were tending to their three children. The parents both had huge swastikas tattooed on them (among other extremist pictures), the man over his heart and he also had a three-pronged swastika too, the mother only on her back. I tried to overhear the talks of the beach goer average joes (actually above average because they had the money to actually spend and go someplace) and I would say that from this bunch 80% votes for Fidesz, their speech… Read more »
And yet – you still express the specific expectation towards a scant and media-muffled political opposition, to inspire and lead a national reform of the basic mainsream-culture of the Hungarian population!
You are some naive dreamer, Marty!
Which is the right approach? Is Orbán enabled by extremists or are extremists made by Orbán? Still 6-7 years ago radical right wing thoughts were not mainstream and Orbán pretended to be conservative.
The extremists were probably always there but he told them it’s OK to be open about it.
Orban just directed 500m to the annual Kurultaj “Asiatic tribal gathering” which used to be aligned with Jobbik I guess, but now obviously with Fidesz.
The main problem of these Swastika bearers is probably that they’ll die young …
Their two boys aged about cca. 7-9 were also very overweight.The little girl was in normal shape. It was a weird spectacle.
But Hungarians are the fattest in Europe anyway.
As Marton Bede of 444.hu put it: “people on the beach are every year fatter and have more tattoos”. True.
The number of confirmed CoViD-infected people reached 3 million in the US and 11.6 million worldwide today.
Mortality rates
worldwide: 4.6% = 538179/11630935
US = 4.4% = 132667/3000601
US = 25.8% of worldwide infections, 24.7% of worldwide deaths.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
The mask situation is getting better, temporarily, in Hungary.
(But this is NOT because of the alleged huge Chinese mask heaps in the Orban’s secret storage locations.)
For instance, I was able to purchase a reusable 3M 6900 mask with FFP3 = N99 filters from a place in Somogy county today.