Hungary Votes Tomorrow, Trump Continues To Flounder and Flail, Understanding And Winning In An Evolving Political Battlefield

I will be joining the Contrarian live Monday at 915am ET. Vote Yes phonebanks this Thursday at 530pm ET - join us and let's close strong in Virginia!

Happy Saturday everyone. Let us hope the talks in Pakistan yield something meaningful, and provide a way out of the extraordinary geopolitical and economic crisis Trump has caused. For this is what the American people woke up to yesterday - escalating, debilitating inflation:

Tomorrow Hungary votes. In a terrific new overview of the Hungarian election in The Atlantic, Viktor Orbán Could Actually Lose, Isaac Stanley-Becker writes:

It may not be obvious why an election in Hungary, a landlocked European country with a population roughly the size of Michigan’s, has commanded so much international attention. It’s not a nuclear power, a global media hub, or a center of innovation. Its language is a beast to learn. But Sunday’s vote may well be one of the most important elections in the history of postcommunist Europe. It will test the longevity of a regime that has deviated from principles of democracy and the rule of law that were vindicated by the peaceful revolutions of 1989 and later secured by the European Union, which incorporated Hungary as part of its eastward expansion in 2004. The bloc doesn’t have a mechanism to expel a wayward member, but Western diplomats told me that brazen electoral theft would inaugurate a perilous new era. Some suggested that the prime minister, who oversees entrenched patronage networks that reach into the minutiae of municipal jobs, has too much at stake to accept defeat. Each side has accused the other of planning violence if the results don’t go their way.

In a new article, The Hungarian Candidate: Is Orban’s Decline Trump’s Fall, Dr. Timothy Snyder writes:

On Sunday, the day after tomorrow, Hungary will hold parliamentary elections. Ho-hum, you might think, a routine round of politics in a small central European nation. But these elections loom large the world over.

Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, is a central figure in the international far right, and indeed the man, more than any other, who created the networks that normalized what he himself calls “illiberalism.” Should he lose, as all signs indicate he will, this would be blow to far more familiar figures such as JD Vance and Donald Trump, who are Orbán’s pupils. Americans tend to think that history moves from us outward; but in the case of the new oligarcho-fascism, we are the students rather than the masters. Much of what seems American in Trump and Vance came from Hungary, or from Russia via Hungary.

Orbán has been prime minister of Hungary for twenty years, the last sixteen consecutively. He was in power long before Trump was president. He was prime minister when Vance attended school in the Cincinnati exurbs. Beginning long before either man won office, Orbán created a model of post-modern authoritarianism. Inside Hungary he managed, largely by way of constitutional changes, to create an apparently invincible strategic position for one-party rule and his own personal power: the “illiberal state” which he then presented to others as a model for emulation.

On the European scale, Orbán has done more than anyone else to generate negative propaganda about the European Union, treating it as a hostile enemy even as he personally exploited Hungary’s membership. He worked to normalize his own anti-democratic, far right position within the EU parliament. He took money directed by the EU to assist Hungary and used it to enrich his oligarch friends. His government opened EU territory to Russian and Chinese intelligence operations and indeed directly supplied Russia with confidential information about EU meetings.

On the scale of Russia, Europe, and North America, Orbán has been a leader of transnational efforts to pass dark money from country to country in support of the far right. Budapest has become a hub in a system in which Russian oil money is laundered to become support for far right figures and organizations in Europe and the United States. Many institutions which we presume to be American, such as the Heritage Foundation, are in fact part of this larger international network. Many initiatives that we treat as American, such as Project 2025, are based largely on Hungarian models. The same goes, for that matter, for a number of American politicians. In our American provincialism we often fail to see that Trump and Vance have been involved in a certain kind of international politics from the beginning; there was never a moment when their terrain was purely American. Indeed, that has always been Orbán’s magic: to be an essentially international player who claims to be protecting the little guy at home.

Orbán has helped far right politicians in Europe and the United States (such as Donald Trump and JD Vance) find their feet in the tricky territory of foreign affairs. Much of what passes for Trumpian policy positions -- the claims that Russia is not the aggressor despite having invaded Ukraine, that Russian energy is always the solution and never the problem, that Ukraine is corrupt and suspicious, that the EU is an overbearing bureaucracy, that immigrants are the real threat -- arise in whole or in part from Hungarian sources.

This is why when Vance just traveled to Budapest to support Orbán (as he just did) he essentially says the same things Orbán does. It is also why Orbán comes to the US to be a star of Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas in 2022, when he instructed the American far right to fight a culture war. A special conference of CPAC was held for Orbán in Hungary last month.

At the level of global fascist propaganda memes, Orbán has been a pioneer in the politics of unreality, shamelessly running electoral campaigns (earlier) on the premise that the international Jewish conspiracy was coming for Hungary or (this time) on the premise that if he loses Ukraine will invade. It should be noted that the Ukrainian angle is also antisemitic, in that it portrays the Ukrainian president (who is Jewish) as a warmongering maniac, when in fact he is a democratically-elected head of state who is leading his country in a defensive struggle against a Russian invasion. Orbán’s slogan is “Don’t let Zelenskyy have the last laugh” and the campaign posters present Zelens’kyi as a dark, cackling Jewish enemy. State-run social media propaganda is even worse.

Earlier this week Anne Applebaum published a must-read piece about Orbán and what she calls his “post-reality” campaign, something we are likely to see here in the US this year. An excerpt:

Flick through pro-government Hungarian accounts on TikTok, and you might see an AI-generated version of Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, sitting on a golden toilet, counting his money, snorting cocaine, and barking orders at a Hungarian soldier. You might also find an AI-generated Péter Magyar, the leader of the Hungarian opposition, appearing to say he’s fine with handing Hungarian factories over to foreigners, as long as he’s the one in charge of the country. Keep going, and you will find images of war, violence, and a SpongeBob look-alike declaring that Magyar “wipes up cocaine with me after he accidentally sneezed and it all fell to the floor.”

You won’t find much about Hungary itself, which is not an accident. In recent years political parties around the world have produced surrealist campaigns, comic campaigns, conspiratorial campaigns, even beer-drinking campaigns. But on any list of strange elections, the 2026 parliamentary election in Hungary will stand out—this may be the world’s first post-reality campaign.

Here’s a photo of the anti-regime rally last night in Budapest:

Independent polls taken in the last few days show Orbán’s party losing the election. But like MAGA here, Orbán has his own pollsters, and his own polls. For any one who studies polling here in the US, this chart showing a wide variance between the independent polls in Hungary and those aligned with the government showing Orbán STRONG and WINNING would look familiar:

In a remarkable convergence, yesterday, a Trump campaign pollster, McLaughlin and Associates, somehow found it within them to do a late poll in Hungary, and of course it gave the Orbán regime and the global right exactly what they wanted:

The American polling firm McLaughlin & Associates, which provided internal polling for President Donald Trump’s campaign in the 2024 US presidential election, has released its final national poll for the 2026 Hungarian parliamentary election.

Just two days before the people of Hungary head to the polls, the Fidesz–KDNP coalition led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary is ahead of the primary opposition Tisza Party, led by MEP Péter Magyar, by 5.3 points nationally. Fidesz is at 42.6 per cent, while Tisza is at 37.3 per cent, according to the American pollster.

As for the other political parties, the far-right Our Homeland Movement’s (Mi Hazánk Mozgalom) support has been measured at 7 per cent, above the 5-per-cent threshold to delegate at least one Member of Parliament from the national list; while the centre-left Democratic Coalition (Demokratikus Koalíció, DK) is just below the threshold, at 4.3 per cent.

Note McLaughlin’s results track the most recent poll from the Orbán-aligned Nezopont Institute that has the race +6. McLaughlin, of course, had to show Magyar losing ground from that Nezopont poll (from 40% to 37%) while most independent polls have showed Magyar widening his lead in recent days.

If Orbán loses tomorrow, and contests the election, central to his case that Magyar cheated will be these right-aligned polls, including, incredibly, by one of Trump’s pollsters, who of course has a long history of working in Hungary!!!!!! (that’s a joke). Our hope must be, as it is here, that the margin of victory is so great, and the repudiation so clear, that it will be impossible for Orbán to contest the election tomorrow.

I also recommend a new NYT article about increasing defections, and the cracking up of Orbán’s coalition, an encouraging development that echoes what is happening with MAGA here.

As in Hungary, the information environment in our elections this year is going to be very challenging. We are already seeing it in the Vote Yes campaign in Virginia. Here’s the Washington Post about a new Peter Thiel-funded campaign to confuse black voters using Klan images:

HAMPTON, Va. — Nearly everyone in the sanctuary at Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Temple raised a hand when Gaylene Kanoyton asked who had seen “the mailers.”

The primarily Black audience at a town hall this week knew what she was referring to: ads using images of Klansmen in white hoods to warn against voting for Virginia’s redistricting amendment and others falsely suggesting that former president Barack Obama and Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) want them to vote “no” on redrawing the state’s political map to favor Democrats.

“It’s a lot of confusion,” Kanoyton, president of the Hampton branch of the NAACP, said in an interview. “It’s no different than when I was coming up and they tried to scare people out of voting.”

Democrats, redistricting advocates and the NAACP are working to dispel what they call a disinformation campaign targeting African American and elderly voters ahead of Virginia’s April 21 referendum. Polling and early voting so far suggest a close contest — prompting both sides of the redistricting campaign to pour in tens of millions of dollars.

The article shared some of the mailers:

These “whatever it takes” tactics will also have a new tool to help them this year, AI. I am now sharing a new video released by Iran, which I warn may be offensive to some, as an example of the kind of media we will be seeing in our electoral discourse this year. It is important we study and learn, for here at Hopium our goal is to understand this new emerging electoral battlefield, not be scared by it, in order to then win in it this November:

As I review in my weekly talk I think we should be very optimistic about having the election we all want to have this November. Trump has failed, the country has rejected him, and we are winning elections and overperforming in elections of all kinds all across the country. But as I say here:

The Crisis The World Faces Today Is Trump (New Video, Written Analysis)

they are not going to give up power without an extraordinary fight. They are going to do “whatever it takes” to stay in power, as we are seeing now in Virginia. Their $1B+ oligarch-funded SuperPACs that will be full of AI slop start next month, in May - meaning that for all intents and purposes the general election starts in a few weeks, not this summer or fall. It is why our community needs to take the lead now in getting the pro-democracy grassroots to shift it’s focus to the election in front of us. We must start doing what we all do best - getting to work and support our candidates and party committees on the front lines of this historic battle. It is time now, for winning this election by as big a margin as a possible is Job One for everyone in the pro-democracy movement, and this fight will begin in earnest in just a few weeks.

For here at Hopium we do more and worry less, and it time now to be doing a whole lot of doing. For here at Hopium we do not fear the fight ahead of us, regardless of their evolving and ugly tactics, we welcome it.

In addition to supporting our candidates and party committees, and making them stronger and more capable of operating in this challenging information environment, one way you can do more and worry less is by joining our second phone bank for Vote Yes this coming Thursday night. We had hundreds of people join us on Thursday night. We made over 50,000 dials, and had 5,000 conversations with voters. Just us, this plucky patriotic community, reached 5,000 voters in just a few hours. I want to double that this Thursday, and note that when we reach 5,000 voters, or 10,000 this week, we are reaching far, far more than that as each person we touch will touch many others in these critical, closing days. Sign up for our phonebank this Thursday at 530pm here, and yes, now…..

Let’s Get To Work People!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winning The Midterms, Competing In Red States and Red Places, Expanding The Map

Hopium’s Winning The House Campaign (2026) - $555,000 raised, $1,000,000 goal (new ambitious, audacious even, q2 goal) - Donate to all twelve of our endorsed House challengers with one click | You can meet and get to know these House flipping candidates by watching our recently recorded Hopium interviews with each.

So far we’ve sat down with Jamie Ager (NC-11), Christina Bohannan (IA-01), Mayor Paige Cognetti (PA-08), Rebecca Cooke (WI-3), Sean McCann (MI-04), Jo Mendoza (AZ-06), Janelle Stelson (PA-10), Shannon Taylor (VA-01), and should rounding out the rest in the coming weeks. If you are looking for inspiration this weekend watch a few of these interviews - I promise they great candidates will get you excited about our opportunities this November!

Huge shout-out to the team at FridayAction. Our recent event together has now raised $97,000 for our House candidates - amazing, amazing stuff! That total is included in our new remarkable fundraising total, as is the money given to each individual House candidate in recent weeks.

James Talarico For Texas - $56,500 raised, $250,000 - Donate | Volunteer and Learn More | Enjoy my inspiring interview with Rep. Talarico as he fights to turn Texas blue

Mary Peltola For Alaska Senate - $81,900 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Volunteer and Learn More | Enjoy my uplifting conversation with Mary Peltola as she fights to turn Alaska blue

Winning Ohio - $119,900 raised, $250,000 goal - Our new campaign splits contributions evenly among Sherrod Brown, the Acton/Pepper ticket, and the Ohio Democratic Party. Donate today and help us turn this critical 2026 battleground blue, and watch my new discussion with our good friend David Pepper, now our candidate for Lt. Gov in Ohio. This total includes $21,00 sent by a Hopium community member directly to each of our three Buckeye State partners!

Roy Cooper for NC Senate (2026) - $103,900 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my new discussion with Gov. Cooper as he fights to turn North Carolina blue

Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $165,300 raised, $250,000 goal - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Enjoy my inspiring conversation with Senator Ossoff

Hopium’s Audacious Expansion Fund - $514,300 raised, $750,000 goal (new stretch goal) - Join our campaign that has helped expand our map by investing in the Democratic Parties of Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Maine, and Texas, all now central battlegrounds in the 2026 election. Catch interviews with the five intrepid state chairs leading their troops into battle this year - will get you fired up!

Many thanks to two generous Hopium community members who have audaciously donated $20,000 to each of our five state parties over the past two years.

Advocate For The Hopium Agenda/Pass Resolutions Of Condemnation In Your Community

There are a few more ways to go to work in the coming days - call your leaders and advocate for elements of our working, ever evolving Hopium Agenda; bring resolutions that condemn our Mad King and lets facts be spoken to a candid world to your state or local government.

Here’s our working Hopium Post-Iran Disaster Agenda:

• Work To End This New Gulf War, And Trump’s Global Imperial Ambitions

• Make Clear We Support Ukraine and Europe, Not Russia

• Roll Back The New, Illegal Tariffs

• Rescind The Trump Tax Cuts, Claw Back The Extra ICE Funding

• Make The US A Clean Energy Superpower, Fight For True Energy Independence, And Lower Energy Prices For The American People

• Keep Fighting To Rein In ICE, End Mass Deportation

• End the War on Science, Health and Public Health

• Make Clear To American Farmers That We Want To End The War, Repeal The Tariffs, Find Legal Pathways For Farm Workers, And Make Health Care And Energy More Affordable

This week our calls should clearly focus on reining in the illegal war in the Middle East and ICE here at home, and rescinding the tariffs that are doing so much damage to our economy.

And please use the paid subscriber chat to self-report the good trouble you make each day.

Keep working hard all. We have a country to save and an election to win, together - Simon