{"id":399242,"date":"2026-04-15T06:14:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T06:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/399242\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T06:14:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T06:14:54","slug":"orbans-defeat-is-a-dunt-in-the-snot-for-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/399242\/","title":{"rendered":"Orb\u00e1n\u2019s defeat is a \u2018dunt in the snot\u2019 for Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been an abysmal week for US president Donald Trump<\/a> and his vice-president JD Vance. For Vance in particular, things could not have been worse. Ordered by the idiot king to fly to Budapest in a forlorn last-minute mercy dash to save the government of Viktor Orb\u00e1n, he abased himself by a combination of lies and bombast<\/a>. He lied that he was not seeking to influence the outcome of the election \u2013 an odious pretence that survived about half a minute into his speech at an Orb\u00e1n rally. <\/p>\n

His speech included a live, long-distance intervention by Trump. Trump thought he could make extravagant economic promises to Hungarians which would swing the vote to re-elect Orb\u00e1n<\/a>. He tried the same tactic recently in Argentina to greater effect, securing re-election of Javier Milei \u2013 now ensnared in a $5 million bribery scandal linked to the launch of a cryptocurrency scheme. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s regime has been focusing its efforts on damaging and subverting the European Union. One of its chief allies in this endeavour was the government of Orb\u00e1n. Binyamin Netanyahu, for whom there is an International Criminal Court trial in prospect, has been welcome in Orb\u00e1n\u2019s Budapest. Orb\u00e1n\u2019s government has been found leaking EU ministers\u2019 confidential discussions concerning Ukraine to Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

A publicly-stated American strategy of intervening in European elections in favour of anti-EU, hard-right \u201cpatriotic\u201d politicians came badly unstuck in Budapest. A record electoral turnout delivered a supermajority for Peter Magyar\u2019s Tisza party<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Across Europe, hard-right politicians have been given a dose of reality. Trump\u2019s grotesque approach to global and European politics and his seemingly inexplicable loyalty to Vladimir Putin have proved toxic in the minds of most sensible Europeans. Magyar\u2019s spectacular victory<\/a> was assisted rather than impeded by disgraceful interference in Hungary\u2019s democratic process by Vance and Trump. <\/p>\n

Nobody should swallow the superficial line that Magyar is minded to become a political patsy for the EU Commission or the European Union\u2019s wider political establishment. On the contrary, Magyar\u2019s Tisza is a centre-right party which will always put Hungary\u2019s interests before those of Brussels whenever the two conflict. Magyar was, after all, a leading member of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s Fidesz party. <\/p>\n

To take one example, Magyar \u2013 rightly, in my opinion \u2013 strongly opposes implementation of the EU Migration Pact. He won\u2019t sacrifice Hungarian economic prosperity by overly hasty severance of his country\u2019s energy interconnectors with Russia. He is not by any means a Euro federalist. He does believe, however, that Hungary\u2019s interests lie within the EU. <\/p>\n

He urges the UK to rejoin the EU as a counterbalance to the union\u2019s federalist leaning establishment. There is every reason to believe the UK would be far stronger and more influential in world affairs as an active member and key influencer of the EU. <\/p>\n

Sometimes we speak of dysfunctional democracy. All opinion polls now suggest a clear majority of UK voters believe Brexit was a mistake. But electoral tactics have created a situation in which rejoining the EU is policy taboo for Labour, the Tories and Reform. Even the Liberal Democrats have to soft-pedal their EU convictions to avoid the poisonous wrath of Britain\u2019s Tory media magnates. <\/p>\n

In so far as Magyar\u2019s Hungary strengthens the hands of EU members who regard the union as a partnership of sovereign states rather than an emerging federal super-state, the triumph of Tisza is welcome. Likewise, the outcome of Hungary\u2019s election is, to use a Dublinism, a well-earned \u201cdunt in the snot\u201d for Trump\u2019s outrageous hostility to US-allied European states. <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s not forget the current world energy and economic crisis is the entirely predictable consequence of Trump\u2019s joint war with Israel against Iran. The odious and bloodthirsty regime in Tehran has survived and been strengthened internally by the bombing blitz unleashed by Trump and Netanyahu. <\/p>\n

I would observe, too, that the Irish Government was hopelessly flat-footed in responding to the predictable upsurge in fuel prices. Its first duty is to use all economic and taxation levers at its disposal to cushion the economy and the Irish citizen from unjust and unsustainable results of Trump\u2019s mad bellicosity. People like me who support the State, its democratic institutions, the garda\u00ed and Defence Forces, rightly expect that our Government would demonstrate alertness, competence and authority in dealing with all challenges \u2013 internal and external \u2013 to the functioning of our society. <\/p>\n

The sad fact is that Trump and Vance draw secret satisfaction from the turmoil they have unleashed in Ireland and from a possible emergence of a new hard-right \u201cpatriotic\u201d force in Irish politics. Many of its exponents have been vocal fans of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s attacks on liberalism in the same way as they were sneaking regarders of Donald Trump\u2019s conservatism until recently. <\/p>\n

So while we welcome Orb\u00e1n\u2019s rout, we also need to learn some lessons. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been an abysmal week for US president Donald Trump and his vice-president JD Vance. For Vance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1840,61,60,11598,43,1841],"class_list":["post-399242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-hungary","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-michael-mcdowell","tag-news","tag-viktor-orban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}