Lessons from Hungary: How Dictators Strangle Democracy with Christian Nationalism
‘Apotheosis of Washington,’ by John James Barralet, imagining the first president rising from his tomb (Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images/The Conversation).
Found this Image on the Pennsylvania Capital Star
Ever since he rose to power back in 2010, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has taken every effort to dismantle Hungary’s democracy to consolidate power in his own hands. With a supermajority in Parliament, he rewrote key parts of the constitution to secure control of the courts, media, and elections. He lowered the retirement age for judges to force out old ones and replace them with Orbánite loyalists [1]. He created a Media Council that assumed state control of the largest news channel (M1), while instituting harsh restrictions on press freedom that has forced many journalists at independent outlets like Index to quit [2]. As a Hungarian-American dual national, I’m not only concerned about this issue because I’ve seen it affect my family but also because I’m worried it provides a playbook for “wannabe” dictators in other nations, even here in the US.
Yet, despite these clear attempts to consolidate power, Viktor Orbán continues to comfortably maintain his position of leadership. In the most recent parliamentary elections of 2022, Orbán decisively defeated a six-party anti-Orbán coalition. Despite being the strongest force of anti-Orbán unity in history, they barely managed to secure 35% of the total vote [3]. The reason for this electoral failure is simple: Hungarian people generally do maintain that Orbán is democratic and that he is a strong leader for the country. Despite the fact that he is clearly eroding Hungary’s democracy, 62% of Hungarians do not believe that Orbán has made the country less democratic [4]. Orbán has successfully been able to manipulate the people into holding this perspective with Christian nationalist rhetoric, as it distracts from his antidemocratic efforts by painting him as a savior of Hungary’s Christian moral values.
Before exploring how Orbán exploits Christian nationalist rhetoric, it is imperative to first understand what Christian nationalism is. Nationalism, at its very core, is a broad ideology that believes that a certain cultural group has the right to self-determination [5]. Thus, Christian nationalism, as a specific form of this ideology, is the effort to create a nation based on Christian ideals and beliefs. Many times, it not only entails tying Christian morals to values like national security and identity, but it also claims that other nations are threatening their Christian way of life. This line of reasoning is often used by autocrats to justify undemocratic power grabs, as they claim to simply be protecting the state from enemies who want to tarnish the nation’s core Christian values.
Viktor Orbán has managed to do exactly just that in Hungary. With appealing nationalist rhetoric, he has successfully tied Christian identity and morality to Hungarian security. Since a core part of the electorate values the themes of Christianity and the need to protect Hungarian society, many people believe Orbán’s rhetoric [6]. This then allows him to claim that other powers, particularly from the West, are trying to destroy our Christian way of life by accepting Middle Eastern immigrants and promoting “woke” movements. As a result, the populace, who trust Orbán for his seeming respect for Christianity, believe him. Thus, they believe those issues are the biggest threat to Hungarian security, and not Orbán’s undemocratic actions. Even people who have slight reservations about Orbán’s undemocratic or economic policies still trust him as a leader willing to protect Hungary because they resonate with his Christian nationalist ideals [7]. Orbán has effectively pulled “the wool over his citizens’ eyes,” making them think Hungary’s threats are external, not internal [8]. In doing so, he can not only justify legislation that restricts individual freedoms and liberties, but also simply distract people from his efforts to seize control of the courts and media.
In seeing how dangerous Christian nationalism has been for Hungary, Hungary must serve as a warning example for how Christian nationalism has the power to dismantle democracies. Even in the United States, a nation acclaimed for the strength of its democracy, extremist political figures like Matt Walsh (a self-proclaimed theocratic fascist) are trying to tie national security to Christian values and how “woke” movements and migrants are an active threat against these commonly shared Christian values. However, his real, ideal goal would be to use this as justification for extremists to claim and consolidate power in the United States. While Matt Walsh is a fringe political figure unlikely to ascend into political power anytime soon, people like him indicate that any democracy, no matter how large, is susceptible to falling victim to the exploitation of Christian nationalism.
So, no matter how devout we are as Catholics (as I certainly am), we must be wary to not allow Christian morals and values to be exploited by authoritarians to claim power. These ideas of steering religions like Christianity away from politics certainly aren’t novel, as they trace back to the fundamental ideas of the separation of church and state in democratic societies. But in precarious times like these, it’s always vital to remember how susceptible strong democracies can be to backsliding into autocratic Christian nationalist regimes.
Bibliography:
Human Rights Watch, “Wrong Direction on Rights | Assessing the Impact of Hungary’s New Constitution and Laws,” 2013, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/%20files/reports/hungary0513_ForUpload.pdf.
Zoltan Simon, “Hungary’s Strongman Leader Nears Full Control of National Media,” Bloomberg, 2020, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-24/top-hungarian-independent-news-site-staff-quits-citing-pressure.
Nigel Walker, “Hungary: 2022 General Election,” House of Commons Library, 2024, https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9519/.
Laura Clancy, “Hungarians Differ in Their Evaluations of Democracy under Orban’s Leadership,” Pew Research Center, 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/08/03/hungarians-differ-in-their-evaluations-of-democracy-under-orbans-leadership/.
Steven Kleinedler, ed., “Nationalism,” in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (HarperCollins Publishers, 2022), https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=nationalism&submit.x=30&submit.y=27.
Hans-Georg Heinrich, “From Horthy to Orbán: Neo-Authoritarianism in Hungary,” in New Authoritarianism: Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century, ed. Jerzy J. Wiatr, 1st ed. (Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2019), 101, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvdf08xx.10.
Heinrich, “Neo-Authoritarianism in Hungary,” 115.
Zack Beauchamp, “Make America Hungary Again,” The Atlantic, 2024, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/07/why-special-republican-relationship-hungary-so-worrying/679035/.