Bill Kristol: Are the Winds Finally Shifting?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Bulwark Podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, and I'm sitting in for my good buddy, Tim Miller. I didn't have my pearls today, but I'm going to try this hat for just a minute. Actually, Bill, what do you think of the hat?
Excellent. But you look better in it than Tim Miller. I'm going to just say that for the record. But you can take it off. You can take it off now.
You've made the point. Okay. Well, just because I am sitting in for Tim since he is, nobody works anymore, Bill. No one works anymore. These kids.
Except for us, you know.
Except for us.
I know.
But just because you don't have Tim doesn't mean you don't get Bill Kristol. Bill Kristol's here to join me after a action-packed, news-filled weekend. So many things happened. In fact, Monday hasn't slowed down one bit. We have this morning Donald Trump posting himself as Jesus. He is in a hot war with the Pope. America is now closing itself the Strait of Hormuz. And most importantly, and where I want to start, is with the big election in Hungary where Viktor Orban yesterday was defeated resoundingly, resoundingly. And for people who maybe at a macro level say, I know Orban's a bad guy and I'm glad he lost, but maybe they don't understand all of the implications, both for Europe and for us. So I thought, Bill, I'd just turn it over to you and let you set the stage for why yesterday's election was so important.
Happy to, and it was important, and I found it exciting and moving, really, when you saw the scenes from Budapest and elsewhere in Hungary and read about everything that had happened to make this possible. I do think it's... We're living in a new world, and I was at this... long scheduled kind of social get together yesterday afternoon and evening and checking my phone constantly for updates on the Hungarian returns. Looking at this one website that had me too. And I don't speak Hungarian, needless to say. But luckily they had like the colors. You could see the blue dots increasing on the in the in the assembly in the Hungarian parliament and actually getting over two thirds, which was important.
So Orban's been in power since 2010. He's been the model of what he called illiberal democracy. He used that term proudly way back 2011, 2012, something like that. And it became a kind of an inspiration and a calling card for authoritarians around the world, including here. for MAGA, for Trump World, Bannon and people like that were close to him. Various American conservative right-wingers went to Hungary and set up camp there. Obviously, as recently as this last week, J.D. Vance went to Hungary and had a big rally with Orban. So, you know, it's a small country and you've got to be careful, obviously, about extrapolating the results too literally almost, but the fact that he lost overwhelmingly, having really consolidated power, suppressed opposition media.
Imagine Trump in power for like 10 years doing what he's doing today. So it's not just CBS News and X that are controlled, but it's everything except the bulwark, basically, a couple of websites. And it's every business is kind of in league with him, not just some of them and so forth. So the fact that the Hungarian people were able to do what they did is really inspiring. And it seems like it's going to hold. It was such an overwhelming victory. Orban did a lot of things to monkey with the elections, but it didn't end up mattering. It doesn't look like a huge defeat for Putin. Orban also within the EU has been one of the main apologists for Putin, has stopped certain actions against Putin. And so that's important, I think.
Yeah, so really a defeat for Putin. global illiberalism and authoritarianism and a real inspiration and i think the one thing i will say is i i just highest regard for the hungarian people for pulling this off i mean i might go old enough to remember you know 1989 obviously the fall of the berlin wall very exciting and americans many friends of mine went over to central and eastern europe to try to help them set up you know a functioning democracy and they did i mean a lot of them did good things and they helped i think get things going there and many of those places are
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:12–5:05
2
What does Viktor Orban's defeat in Hungary signify for authoritarianism?
5:05–6:03
3
How does Bill Kristol perceive the implications of Orban's loss for Europe and the U.S.?
6:03–20:06
4
What lessons can the U.S. learn from the Hungarian elections?
20:06–21:21
5
Who is Peter Magyar and what is his role in Hungarian politics?
21:21–25:02
6
What are the potential impacts of recent political events on the future of democracy?
25:02–42:18
7
What strategies did Magyar use to connect with voters despite media control?
42:18–43:00
8
How does the American conservative movement relate to Hungary's political landscape?
43:00–56:45
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Bulwark Daily
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