No Orbán Renewal

After sixteen years of unparalleled power, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (below) and his party were voted out of office, with opposition leader Peter Magyar gaining a supermajority in Parliament and overwhelming Orbán's Fidesz party.

Magyar, a conservative who's not a nut about his conservatism (he's actually a former Orbán ally), plans to use his overwhelming power in Parliament to dismantle the very system that had kept Orbán in power for so long and had enriched Orbán and his toadies.  The corruption in the Hungarian government he initiated eventually brought down the Hungarian economy and gave people in the Central European country a sense of fatigue, and it caught up with him.  He lost despite - or maybe because of - U.S. Vice President Vance going to Hungary and campaigning for him and his Fidesz party. 

Given that, here in the States, Donald Trump has done in a year what it took Orbán over a decade to do - push the limits of power to the point where his countrymen have grown sick of him - you would expect the Democrats to be buoyed about regaining the Presidency against a MAGA Republican in 2028.  They likely are.  But they're likely pumping themselves up with false hope.  A recent focus group in upstate New York found that the Democratic rank-and-file used adjectives such as "lacking," "bruised," and "spineless" to define their party and their party leadership.  And this is true.  What more can you say about how pathetic and useless the Democratic leadership is - misguidedly thinking that they only have to wait out Trump and return to a renewal of collegial fellowship with the GOP - when the only American willing to stand up against Trump and call out his crap is this guy? 

Why did the Vatican choose and American to be the next Holy Father?  Isn't it obvious?? 

There are two other things to consider.  Hungary is a small country of about nine million people or so - about the same size as the population of New Jersey - and it's ethnically homogenous, so it's a country where the people are much more tied to each other culturally and politically than in These States.  Also, Hungary is a European country, and Europeans at large tend to be smarter than Americans, who are easily misled and misdirected.  How else could we have kept voting for supply-side economics - a theory dating back to the 1970s and the economic policy that enabled guys like Trump - for the past 45 years?  All right, I'll come out and say it - Americans are too stupid to deal with MAGA the way Hungarians dealt with Orbán.

And as for Pope Leo XIV, I'm seriously taking advantage of my status as a Catholic to go to the Vatican and plead sanctuary.

On the other hand, it looks like Analilia Mejia, the Democratic socialist, pro-Sanders candidate for the U.S. House in my district, will win the special election for the district's seat after all . . ..