Andrew Marantz
speaker
381 appearances
4 recordings
3 series
first heard Mar 2025
last heard 10 Apr
Andrew Marantz’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Apr 2026 with 1.
Appearances
that in order to get rid of CEU, you have to raid the building, put a padlock on the door, and sell it to become a barracks or something. It means CEU is no longer a degree-granting institution in Budapest. So it's this kind of, I call it a Potemkin University. It's kind of hollowed out from within. Then I come back to the U.S.,
Trump is inaugurated, and he starts going after Columbia University, saying there are all these foreigners here, they have these strange foreign ideas, we don't like it, it's too woke, it's too anti-Semitic. Interestingly, the way they use the trope of the international Jew is kind of different in Hungary and in the U.S., but, you know, same, same.
And then he starts levying these kind of informal attacks on Columbia University, but they don't take the form of an executive order that says Columbia University no longer exists. He doesn't send in the army to raid Columbia University. He says, because you're too woke and antisemitic, we are going to freeze these funds from you.
And I think if I had seen that through a lens of, is this Iran in 1979 or is this 1930s Germany, I would have said, oh, it's not happening here. But seeing it through the lens of competitive authoritarianism, I thought, okay, he's not going to get everything he wants. He's not going to wipe Columbia University off the map if that's even something he desires. But will he weaken it?
Will he chill people's speech? I think he already has succeeded at doing that. I mean, and just to put, you know, the felt sense kind of to close that loop. What it really felt like reporting from Columbia University a few weeks ago was just this pervasive sense of fear and confusion about where the lines actually were, where formal and informal power was.
And that really reminded me of what it was like to be in Budapest. There's these kind of invisible lines that are being made up as you go along. So if you had told me on March 6th I'm afraid to leave my apartment because I think jackbooted thugs are going to show up in an unmarked van and stuff me in the van and I'll never see my family again.
And then when my wife asks where I'm going, they say, we're taking him somewhere because we didn't like his political speech. See you later. I would have said, you're insane. This is the United States of America. What are you talking about? There's no law anywhere that says they can do that.
If you told me that on March 9th, after they did that to Mahmoud Khalil, I would have said, yeah, you're right. You shouldn't go outside.
Well, I think that's one of them. I think the disappearing of political prisoners for squarely protected political speech, that's more out of the Bukele or Duterte or Pinochet playbook than out of the Orban playbook. And so it's a patchwork, right? It's sort of, it's not all of one or all of the other. I mean, the Hungarians I spoke to were like, whoa, what is that?
We are not familiar with that, which was pretty shocking to me. But also, as Zach says, in other pillars like the media, we're faring way better than they are.
I think you could... I mean, I'm with you that this week, as compared to a couple of weeks ago, the wind seems to be shifting in that direction. But I think in terms of assessing which timeline we're on... I'm not sure that it's that material where the winds are shifting this week or last week or last month. I think it's just too early to know.
So I think if we're on a timeline that is anything like competitive authoritarianism, the first year or two or three might be the period we should look at rather than the first hundred days.
The competitive part means you still have elections. They may be free but not fair elections. They may be heavily gerrymandered elections. But it's not the totalitarian thing where the tanks roll in and it's emergency law forever and you rip up the Constitution.
It's a more subtle thing that political scientists, Stephen Levitsky and Lucan Way, tell you is happening before you kind of realize it's happening. So... Orban is looked at as the model, the most successful consolidation of power. He didn't get what he wanted right away. He doesn't even get everything he wants now. He could lose the next election. I mean, maybe, maybe. I mean, he could.
But even on a micro scale. There was a radio station that he wanted to get rid of when he first came into office. It was tied up in the courts until 2021, and then he finally shut it down. So I think, sure, the fact that the wind seems to be at the back of some of the resistance stuff this week is notable and I think hopeful.
And to be clear about my position, I don't think it's like we're cooked and it's over. But... I mean, basically what I think the goal should be is, you know, there's one of these great Orwell aphorisms. It's sort of overused, but I think for a good reason. Seeing what's in front of one's nose needs a daily struggle.
And I think to see things clearly, you need to not be writing backwards from the end of the story.
And they get paraded out at events.
Yeah, I think that basically sounds right, and it explains how the figure of Soros or the international Jew is kind of used in different ways. I mean, you don't have to look much further than Elon Musk doing what looked a lot like something that sort of seemed like a Roman salute, and then... And then Steve Bannon doing it. And then Steve Bannon doing it.
You have said the absolute truth.
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