Hungary under Viktor Orban has become a classic example of a democratic leader mixing in some authoritarian and populist elements to his rule. Gaining particular notoriety during the 2015 refugee crisis for his aggressive opposition to refugees, to the point of building a chain link fence to prevent them from crossing the border. Now, a week before the election, expecting a win, one journalist describes the feeling in Hungary and how Orban is approaching the election.
He explores the enemies that Orban is attempting to deal with and identifies one of particular importance, that of George Soros. Soros is a Hungarian investor with a net worth of $8 billion that Orban is claiming is attempting to have millions of refugees flood into Europe and Hungary, presumably to make Europe and Hungary the Islamic states that populists fear so much.
This indicates one of the main assets a populist leader like Orban has available to them. The ability to find a specific group or individual, make a baseless claim such as George Soros letting in tens of millions of Muslims to destroy Christian Hungary in order to spread fear among the population them and unite them around the populist leader.
The issue that this presents is that leaders like Orban are able to construct these blatant falsities in order to rile up a population to vilify another group. This othering effect creates a situation where there is a degradation of social trust among the population. The main remedy to this is to constantly question claims made by politicians but in the era of fake news, many of the supporters of Orban may believe that the media is lying but Orban is telling the truth.
Democracy is Dead! Long Live Democracy! 