Why Trump’s humiliations will only accelerate

When far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of conservative-leaning Tisza party candidate Péter Magyar on Sunday, April 12, the implications went way beyond Hungary. Orbán was a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President JD Vance, both of whom gave his reelection campaign an enthusiastic endorsement. But Orbán lost badly, and his defeat is viewed as a rejection of not only the Fidesz party, but of far-right populism in general — including that of the MAGA movement in the United States.

In an article published on April 14, The New Republic's Greg Sargent emphasizes that Orbán's defeat was a huge disappointment for the Trump Administration and has major implications for the United States' 2026 midterms.

"The extraordinary defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary has unleashed much mockery of JD Vance, and it's richly deserved," Sargent argues. "The vice president's last-minute rally in Budapest cast the Hungarian election as a referendum on global illiberal movements, which makes Orbán's epic defeat all the more humiliating for him — and for Donald Trump, who dispatched Vance and has long seen Orbán as a kindred ideological spirit. But there's another moral to draw here. It's that American liberals and Democrats should more firmly align themselves with anti-authoritarian, anti-ethnonationalist, pro–liberal democracy forces abroad. They can better connect the drama of the battle against Orbánism to the struggle against Trumpism at home."

For Trump, Sargent says, Orbán's defeat was the latest "humiliation" in a series of humiliations.

"The scale of Orbán’s defeat was extraordinary," Sargent explains. "Challenger Péter Magyar’s Tisza party is on track to win a two-thirds parliamentary majority, potentially enabling the reversal of many Orbánist anti-democratic policies designed to lock in his power forever…. So what does all this mean for American politics?.... What if American liberal Democratic politicians were to speak more overtly and forcefully to other liberal democrats — again, small-d — throughout the West about what our vision of a shared international future should be?"

Sargent points out that while "center-right" Magyar is not a progressive, his victory was a decisive rejection of authoritarianism.

"Vance is the likely 2028 MAGA-GOP standard-bearer," Sargent writes. "We should think now about how to win those big arguments against him later. Illiberal right-wing populism may not be 'on the way out' yet, but as (journalist) Anne Applebaum notes, the Hungary results show that determined authoritarianism can lose to challengers who campaign on democracy, the rule of law, and an embrace of internationalist institutions. Between that and the catastrophic failure — and deep unpopularity — of Trumpism at home, there's an opening for a bigger challenge to these toxic forms of illiberalism."

Sargent adds, "In short: The Hungary results demonstrate how Trump's humiliation can be made substantially worse over time — if only liberals and Democrats find the ambition to make it so."

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