{"id":355832,"date":"2026-03-30T22:13:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T22:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/355832\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:13:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T22:13:10","slug":"john-oliver-on-magas-love-for-viktor-orban-for-them-orban-is-a-blueprint-john-oliver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/355832\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver on Maga\u2019s love for Viktor Orb\u00e1n: \u2018For them, Orb\u00e1n is a blueprint\u2019 | John Oliver"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver<\/a> looked into the reign of Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/a> in Hungary<\/a>, ahead of the country\u2019s election on 12 April. The rightwing leader is the longest-serving head of state in the European Union, having been elected in 2010 with an absolute majority in government for almost 16 years.<\/p>\n

A staunch religious conservative, he is also beloved by some Republicans in the US, and has been officially endorsed in the upcoming election by Donald Trump. But \u201cthe lovefest between Orb\u00e1n and American conservatives is a two-way street,\u201d Oliver explained. Just last week, Orb\u00e1n praised the US president at a Republican party Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) offshoot in Hungary. \u201cSince President Trump\u2019s win, the western world has become a better place,\u201d Orb\u00e1n said. \u201cGender propaganda and woke ideology have been pushed back. People can proudly embrace Christianity as the foundation and sustaining force of our civilization. What\u2019s happening now is the largest political realignment in western civilization in 100 years. The epicenter of this change is the United States, and its European forward base is Hungary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWow, there is a lot there, but citing the west\u2019s \u2018largest political realignment in 100 years\u2019 is pretty striking given, you know, what started happening in Europe around 100 years ago,\u201d Oliver noted. \u201cThat\u2019s right, Winnie-the-Pooh was first published. I don\u2019t know what you were thinking about.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut things in Hungary aren\u2019t going great,\u201d he added. On Orb\u00e1n\u2019s watch, the country has become one of the poorest in the EU, \u201cso it\u2019s frankly no surprise that in recent years, there\u2019s been plenty of protests against Orb\u00e1n\u2019s government.\u201d The longtime autocratic leader is now considered an underdog in the upcoming election, though he may still win \u2013 legally or otherwise.<\/p>\n

Oliver then dived into some background: Orb\u00e1n came up through the fall of the communist regime in Hungary in the 1980s, where he and his party, Fidesz, were once a relatively liberal youth movement within the formation of the country\u2019s democracy. In the late 80s, Fidesz campaigned on adopting western economic and political standards, as well as limiting the role of the state and religion on public life. But once he was elected to parliament in 1990, Orb\u00e1n began moving the party to the right. Orb\u00e1n became the youngest prime minister in the EU when he was elected in 1998, only to be voted out four years later.<\/p>\n

In his years out of power, he journeyed further rightward, amping up nationalist populist rhetoric and the trappings of militant Christianity. He also leaned into authoritarianism, promising he would \u201conly need to win once\u201d to stay in power. Since his election in 2010, he and Fidesz have rigged the Hungarian election system heavily in his favor, via gerrymandering and other tactics \u2013 in 2014, for example, he won 45% of the votes, but 91% of the districts. Elections in Hungary have been deemed by experts as \u201cfree but not fair\u201d \u2013 \u201cwhich is an interesting combination\u201d, said Oliver. \u201cYou are free to vote for anyone you want, whether it\u2019s Orb\u00e1n or whoever inevitably loses to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n has also corrupted Hungary\u2019s court system, preventing any legal challenges to his power, and instituted a propaganda machine: his party created a new agency to impose heavy fines for coverage it considered unbalanced or offensive, as well as a new state media organization called MTVA that exerts editorial control across radio, TV, print and internet. In short, \u201cyou can\u2019t write anything bad about the government\u201d, said one anonymous journalist to Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Oliver cited a recent study of a nightly news show, finding that over six months, there wasn\u2019t a single instance of government party politicians appearing on-screen in a negative light. \u201cLiterally zero seconds of negative coverage, which just should not be possible,\u201d he mused. \u201cPoliticians attract negative coverage about everything they do, whether it\u2019s about their offensive fashion faux pas or their court-ordered liability for sexual abuse, to pick two equivalent examples,\u201d he joked next to photos of Barack Obama in a tan suit and Trump.<\/p>\n

Orb\u00e1n also extended his reach beyond state media, as his allies bought up independent outlets and then consolidated them under one foundation. Oliver saw some concerning parallels. \u201cWow, a far-right leader\u2019s friends and allies just buying up all the media outlets in the country and turning them into conservative sycophants \u2013 can you imagine that? I sure can\u2019t,\u201d he said sarcastically next to an image of David Ellison-owned Paramount, which is in the process of buying HBO parent company Warner Bros. \u201cThat\u2019s definitely not something I\u2019ve had recurring nightmares about for the past month!\u201d<\/p>\n

Abroad, Orb\u00e1n has been a thorn in the EU\u2019s side for his close ties with Russia. Domestically, he has \u201creshaped Hungary into what\u2019s basically a theme park of reactionary talking points\u201d, Oliver said. He\u2019s railed against Hungary becoming a \u201cmixed-race\u201d society and has attempted to ban all migrant asylum seekers from entering the country. And not unlike many conservatives in the US, such as, say, JD Vance, he\u2019s become fixated on low birthrates, as part of \u201cgreat replacement\u201d theory racist fearmongering.<\/p>\n

All of these changes have fostered a growing resistance movement, but \u201cthe truth is, in this election, the playing field is still tilted strongly in his favor\u201d, said Oliver. \u201cAnd even if he somehow ends up losing the game that he\u2019s carefully rigged, it\u2019s worth knowing his main opponent, P\u00e9ter Magyar, isn\u2019t exactly the reformer that you would dream of here.\u201d Magyar is a former member of Fidesz who shares many of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s views, though he has railed against his corruption.<\/p>\n

In sum, \u201cOrb\u00e1n\u2019s stranglehold on power should be alarming for us here in the states,\u201d Oliver warned, \u201cbecause he has clearly been an inspiration to American conservatives, to the point that JD Vance is apparently planning to visit Hungary to show support for Orb\u00e1n ahead of their election. And that is because, for them, Orb\u00e1n is not a cautionary tale. He\u2019s a blueprint.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are lucky to have the checks and balances that we do, but we would do well to watch for warning signs of what happened in Hungary starting to happen here,\u201d he added. \u201cSmall things, like, I don\u2019t know \u2013 stacking the courts, or shameless gerrymandering, or fearmongering about immigrants, or presidential allies buying up the media. Anything you might spot like that!<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, it is not a perfect one to one,\u201d he concluded. \u201cOrb\u00e1n\u2019s takeover was organized and methodical, while Trump has the attention span of a coked-up hummingbird with a head injury. But they\u2019re not worlds apart either.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver looked into the reign of Viktor Orb\u00e1n in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-355832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}