James Carville, Ross Morales Rocketto & Dr. Mark Loustau

the interesting things he saw in local offices. Then we'll talk to you Dr Mark G. Lousteau, an expert on Eastern European religion and politics, and what we can learn from Hungary's authoritarianism. But first we have legendary democratic strategist James Carville. Welcome back to Fast Politics, James Carvill, Well, good to be here, Happy Thanksgiving. The news of the weekend was the Trump Kanye Nick Fuentez dinner where Trump

didn't know him. You know, he accidentally had dinner with a white supremacist and a man who has been on anti Semitic terror for the last two weeks. Is that right? Why is anyone surprised? I'm been honest, you know, well, this is terrible, But what is totally consistent with who he is. Come on, he's still the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party. Yeah, but I just think he's going to be indicted, and I don't think it's going to be very long for now, and I think the place

against him is so stunningly compelling. I don't I have no idea. I guess they could delay it, but demorrow Lago thing is just a straight line. The documents case. Yeah, he took something that didn't belong to him. Pople asked Whitely to return it. He didn't return it. Then he got a request that that if you returned everything, he said yes, he didn't, then a subpoena. They still didn't return it. I mean, I don't I have no idea

of what defense is available to him. I mean, anytime you a lawyer a criminal case, the first thing he or she thinks of is what defensives do I have? I don't see where what defenses he is at all here? But you have to get a better lawyer in me. Well, Trumble was famous for not beaying people. Has paid this lawyer. Um. He has put down an enormous three million dollar retainer for for one of his lawyers, so he does clearly know he's in trouble. I mean, theoretically you can run

for offers having been indicted. It's just a yeah, you know, you can run for offers from you can run for president from being in jail. It's just to heavier left right and evidence they have but that we don't even know about. Staggering in front and counter may very well bede him, but I don't know how Mr Smith. Let's let's just pass from him. I don't think he can but brush. I mean, if he's haven't done it with Nick Flinty's, I guess who cares if he gets indicted?

If you stial with him after all that, I feel like the fundamental issue is it's a math problem. Right if you look at across the board, his numbers are starting to weaken a little bit with Republicans, but if you if you think about it, they're the way that they choose delegates, buying Ladge is more winner take all and Democrats are more proportional representation. Now, I don't understand the party rules to degree, but I think it is

a general rule that is a fact. And so if you have four people running and it's winner take all, and you win forty to thirty eight to you know, was at seventy eight to eleven to eleven. You get all every delegate, right, So it their rules, they stay the same kind of favor a person would have, would have really deep level of support. He doesn't need half

right now. The way the Democrats do it, of course, we've got every kind of rule with kicks in and everything else is eleven eleven that generally roughly runs how many delegates you get right, No, and it's much and it's a sort of slower process too. Yes. And I mean also there's going to be movement in the in the Democratic primaries to write that they're going to change up the states and how it all works right or now after the Iowa caucus debacle. Yeah, that I think

they're not going to try to do something. But New Hampshire I think is going to stay. Just that's like like the super Bowl for you, but they're not gonna change. Well, everybody wants it, right, Who done the VATA ships? Good? Good for tourism South Carolina. Do you think Jim Clepen's gonna let him change South Carolina? Jamie Harrison, I don't think so. That's not gonna work. So let's let me ask you about this. We're in a very very interesting

time in democratic leadership. We have Nancy Pelosi is going to stay in Congress, but she's going to retire. She seems to have a secession plan worked out. I mean, what do you think and do you I mean you sort of know much more of the machinations than most of us. Well, I get that Nancy Pelosi doesn't have a plan is absurd. Of course she has a plan. You know exactly what she's doing. And I think it was a good sign. And I think that hockey, you know, can do a really good job. I think all you're

stepping down. I mean, they gotta get some younger people, and in some leadership positions here you feel like there's I mean, who were you excited about with the sort of younger people in Congress. But a lot of them that you know that that you just don't hear from them. I mean just Spanberger, Uh, Colin Albert, my friend from Dallas, very excited about him, our mutual friend Ruben Gego I

got online as Lindsey Ukase. I mean, there's a ton of them, and a lot of them I don't ever know because they hadn't surfaced, but Mark Kelly turning into be the real talent here corrected. Yeah, when Reuben Diego primary is Kirsten Cinema, that is going to be the absolute most amazing primary challenge ever. I don't think she'll you don't you think she won't run again. You'll destroy it. It's true. Independent. I don't know. You came on this

podcast last time before the mid terms. I was desponded and convinced that there was going to be a red wave that was going to install all of these um election deniers and swing states. None of that happened, did you. I mean, I feel like you were a little more optimistic than I was. Well, it was kind of based on two things. And I don't want to deem myself, as I was kind of pleasantly surprised when I wasn't shot. I would see three Senate polls every day and I

just didn't see any change. And then when you would look at the public polls what they called a congressional generic, it was pretty steady. Well, you know, I've been through these bad cycles and good cycles, and generally towards the end, things sort of start breaking, and I didn't see much evidence it was breaking. I mean, it wasn't. It wasn't a great place. We lost a popular vote. I think like it was good. And we want a lot of big,

big centate races and governors races. But if you you know, if you you just sort of look at your instruments, you said, well, I'm looking at center pos in Nevada, pos Colorado, could said, post Charge of Books said pos in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire. And I don't see the requisite deterioration that you would have seen in a really big year. I didn't see a right that makes sense. And I mean I was sort of surprised at how much even Democrats held in the House. I was a

little bit, though I don't think I was. I would have I wasn't in I'm not a predictor. You know, Peter Hart tell there a long time ago. You know, I said, you look at you know he needs to win. He said, you know, I don't. If you go to the doctor, the doctor examined you and said, you know what, nine months and three days you're gonna drop debt? Well, is that a good doctor a bad doctor? You're dead? Nine months and three. Probably you want someone as well, is what you can do to extend this thing out

a little bit. And so you know, I don't have a great instinct to predict the election right out of money. I'm too bigy trying to win it right. I want to ask you about the lame duck. Now Democrats have until January. I mean, there's certainly seems to be really important that Democrats raised the debt ceiling so that Jim Jordan's does not control the dead ceiling or whatever kind of weirdness. The GOP Freedom Caucus MAGA Caucus becomes what

else do you think? Uh, you know, before payment and sells on a zoom call with a lot of number called knowledgeable people, and they're skeptical and that they can get it done. From a political standpoint, I dare them to do it. Make my day. And they would have only got like a four seat majority. They got like sixteen of them I think got elected in districts at

Biden one. I mean, you know, you think these people in suburban New Jersey and you know the Hudson Valley are going to risk of not raising the death ceiling and defaulting under death and wrecking the economy. I don't think so, but I don't like chicken with him. And they've wanted a lot of districts that were Biden districts. Right.

Remember when Rick Scott's plan was to sunset surch coach in medicare force cuts to it, and uh, you know Ted budd and saying position, you know Ron Johnson and the Washington Post fact checker said, yeah, that's not really

a Republican position. Democrats are democratic when they say that. Well, after that happens, Kevin McCarthy said we're gonna shut the up and down to force Cutson medic and so security made the Washington Post like a fool because that's all that their whole raised on debtress to cut these runaway. He got damn runaway and tied with James. We got to curb him and do something, and we got to raise the gas tax while we had a great idea of good chief, I'm right on it. They need right down.

Ron Johnson is. I'm telling you he's like one of my favorite Republican politicians because he is really he is neither charismatic, nor particularly talented, nor intelligent that we found the one person in Wisconsin that he could beat. But that was another one of those races where the polls. If if people had seen how tight that race actually was, he would have been able to raise more money. Yeah, I mean it was one. I mean, I'm just saying, like, if you saw it like that Lauren Boeberd race, like

she won by seven hundred and sixties seven votes. I had that guy Adam Frosh on the podcast. People are like, oh, that's crazy, he'll never win. I mean he was pulling, you know, four or five points behind, but honestly he could have won. Yeah, four or five points behind income but that's you know, that's pretty good. And he had some help because then, you know, they kept putting out that you know, Michael Bennett could lose, Michael Man could lose, or a good friend of him for his campaign, and

it went out of ten twelve points. And then in the margin that Barnes got out of Dane County, which is Wisconsin, was I didn't even met with munch pt Brievers and he said, staggering, I don't know how how we won, and we didn't do that well in Milwaukee. One of the more distressing things is the Black Volk was not great. It wasn't so it wasn't really great in Georgia, and it wasn't great in Milwaukee, and we

gotta figure way to connect better here, you know. Not not the young people did do They held out and pretty good. That was surprising. It's sort of the best thing ever because young people are ultimately but I feel like we are usually disappointed by them, but not this year. Well it's been three years in a row. There's three cycles in a row. All right. How many stories have you read about the two America's rural America, urban America,

white American, white America. But there really two Americas that are emerging that you're more significant anything is young and o America, right. I mean, it's really two different universes they live in. And you know that that that's one of the the good things. So Democrats going forward, the young people come up that you know as well. You know, when young, if you're young and you're liberally, you have no heart. If you're bold and be able here all

the time, the political sciences. Once you vote twice pretty much that's way you can vote the rest of your life, right, James Carvell, thank you so much for joining us super interesting and really great and I appreciate you joining us on a Sunday. Alright, all right, thank you. Ross Morales Roquetto is co founder of Run for Something. Welcome Too Fast Politics. Ross, thanks for having me. Well, it's very exciting you are the co founder of Run for Something.

Run for Something is one of this podcast favorite organizations. Why don't you just tell us a little bit for the few people on here who don't know what Run for Something does. What Run for Something does? I would love to so for those who don't know. Run for Something recruits and supports young, diverse, progressive folks who are run in for state and local office, usually for the first, second or third times. We got our start in the aftermath of the sixteen election. My co founder and I, Amanda.

We're both you know, thinking about right after the election how they're just like, wasn't really anything for young people who like really wanted to like get involved in their communities and run for office. And so we started this thing as a side hustle and thought that maybe if we were lucky, a hundred people would tell us they

were interested in running for office. After the first few months, we had over five thousand people tell us they were interested in running for office, and then as of today, we have over a hudd thousand people across the country who told us that they want to run for office. Amanda and I sort of looked at each other and said, we need to do right by these people. So we started building an organization. So let's talk about that organization and a little bit about some of the candidates you're

working with. It has just been a big midterm election, but that does not mean elections are over. There are a lot of special elections and state elections and small elections. You want to first take a victory lap about your your candidates in the mid terms, Yeah, I would love too. So we had four hundred ninety candidates who had elections on in November. Of those folks, two hundred and thirty for sure have won their elections, and we have another

ninety people who are waiting to call their races. You know, that's like mostly West coast California, Oregon, Washington State, those places where some of the votes get talied a little bit slower. So we're really really excited. Over fifty of those candidates are women. I think actually about sixty percent of them or women over people of color over l G B, t q I A plus, and so we're

just honestly, really really excited. This was easily our best year that we've ever had in terms of win rate, and we're really really excited to see all the new incredible people who just literally got elected. So just tell us about one of them, Like, give us, give us a scene of one of the candidates who came to you and what they've achieved. There was a woman named Amanda Gonzalez who was running for Jefferson County Clerk out

in Colorado. So that's like the suburbs of Denver. It's like a swing county has sort of like trended a little bit bluer over the years, but was traditionally a red county over the last sort of twenty or thirty. She's incredible. She has been involved in sort of like state policymaking, either as a lawyer or on the advocacy side for years. She is one of the people who actually helped write a lot of like the campaign ethics

rules in the state of Colorado. She helped sort of like reform the voting system there when they moved over to having like a more vote by male dominated system. She was trying to recruit someone to run for this office because there was an election denier like running on the Republican side. She wasn't having very much luck finding anyone. And then somewhere along the way she was she realized that like no one else did it, it needed to

be her. So she stepped up and did it. She just won her race, and you know, she's going to be running the elections for and a really critical part of the state of Colorado. You know, it's interesting that I used to go to events that the Arena Summit had. I actually think that's when I first learned about run for something. And one of the things they would say was that women need to be told to run for office many more times than men. Yeah, that's unfortunately true.

It's especially true for women. It's especially true for women of color. It's generally also true for people of color. I talked to so many people who tell me that they've thought about running for office at some point, but you know, then they thought about sort of like who are the people in elected office, and they're like, well, that's not me, Like I'm just like that I can't run.

And the truth is that anyone can run, and anyone really should be able to run, and so part of you know, like what the mission of the organization does and what we're really trying hard to do is make sure people can see themselves and their elected officials. You know. One of the things I was thinking about this weekend was Nancy Pelosi. And I think about this because I am a mother of many children. I had a sort of stint staying at home with them. And Nancy Pelosi

ran for Congress for the first time. I mean, obviously she came from very political families, so she had an advantage, But I say, this is someone who came from a family where I had an advantage, but she was forty seven. I think, like, you know, we're we're trying to be

right now. And I think that is also just like especially true of like our system generally is like I think, young people, so that includes millennials and gen z you know, represent like fewer than of the state legislative like offices and seats across the country. That representation goes down even further when you start to really look at the state

and local level numbers. I mean, I just mean, like they're are women who have spent all this time raising kids who could conceivably run for you know what I mean, like where they could go back and start another career, you know, you know what I mean, Judges, nurses, I mean, I think of Lauren Underwood, who was a nurse, you know what I mean, where they can go on to do other stuff later in life too, and they absolutely should.

I think, like the only real prerequisites that we have, especially for a lot of these like local offices, is that one you care a lot about your community, and two you have a problem that you really want to solve. And honestly, that's what kept me going during the Trump years was getting to see on a regular basis these hundreds of people who identified a problem in their community, who care a lot and decided to step up in a lot of cases because they didn't feel like anyone

else would. And so, yeah, Lauren Underwood's incredible. You know, we don't do congressional races, but we talked to her really early on and her when she started running her first campaign, and there's just like so many other people like her out there who like are just getting started right now. Yeah, that's what I was thinking about. So tell me about some of this sort of off the radar races that are coming up soon and if you

have any candidates there. We decided to focus really explicitly on even more local races about a year ago when we were sort of going through our planning process to like offices that we really targeted were school boards and there's about ten thousand school board elections next yearly and

then also election election administrators. So these are the people like county clerks like Amanda Gonzalz who was talking about, who are responsible for things like making sure there's enough polling locations, setting the hours of polling locations, deciding where drop boxes get placed, making sure that elections are run in a fair way, making sure there's accessibility options for

folks going to the polls. You know, these are really really critical elections that in there that are coming up both in and and you know, we really need good people to be running for these especially because we have and we've seen, you know, on the far right, conspiracy theorists deciding to step up and run people who believe that Donald Trump won the election, then that the election was stolen. We've had a lot of those folks running

for these offices. We started to see that in two and so it's even more critical to make sure that we're getting folks recruited to run for these offices as

well as we go into well. And I also think that you're seeing a lot of people like lips of TikTok right who are targeting these school boards in the hopes of removing you know, the kind of people like lives of TikTok people who are trying to you know, sort of build off of Ron de santisis don't say gay law right, who are trying to keep children from being able to you know, read books about same sex parents. And they're on this sort of book banning not teaching

SIXI bandwagon and so that is pretty scary. I feel like it's really terrifying. And you know, here's the good news, Like we had candidates running against conspiracy theorists at the school board, a level election, administrator, city council, etcetera. And a trend that we did see is that, you know, in a lot of these places we were able to beat them. Um. I think the round Rock school Board

is a really good example. So round Rock is a suburb just outside of Austin, Texas that has traditionally been read and has like trended a little bit more purple over the years. You know, like the Moms for Liberty folks like really invested there. I think they lost all, if not all, of those races. Can you explain what Moms for Liberty is for those for the few of us who have lives and to dwell where we dwell.

You know, Yeah, the Moms for Liberty folks are part of a broader movement of like anti critical race theory folks, while it started as anti critical race theory folks who are basically recruiting candidates to run at the school board level, and they're specifically recruiting them to run at the school board level around a lot of the cultural issues you've seem like mass policies, critical race theory, some of the stuff that you talked about a little bit in your question.

But also like you know, we've seen folks go so far, as you know, like to try to get suicide prevention counselors outside of or out of schools because under sort of the idea that a suicide prevention counselor being in the school encourages kids to commit suicide, which is just so they're pretty stupid that is the craziest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, like all sorts of anti science and they sort of do it under this sort under the mantra of parental choice, and you know, like that's the

message that they try to use. And you know, this cycle, you know, we saw we saw those folks get really organized in Virginia and the Virginia governor is race back and use like these cultural issues around school as a wedge to turn out, like to get higher turnout for far right candidates. This election cycle, it didn't work as well for them. So like in places like Round Rock, most if not all, of those anti cr Team Moms

or liberty candidates ended up losing. We saw that sort of replicated in other races around the country, even in you know, for the election administration roles that we worked in. You know, we had thirteen specific places where that we're highly targeted, We're spending a lot of time and resources where we had a candidate that was recruited and they were running against somebody who was an election denier. Of

those thirteen races, ten of our folks one. It's still scary that three of them, you know that there are three of them that lost but you know, I think the thing that keeps me up at night around all of this stuff isn't about whether, you know, we have conspiracy theorists on the ballot. It's whether those people are going uncontested. And I feel, you know, as an organization and just like as a person who's done this work for a long time, like I feel confident that we

can beat most of the people who are running. The problem is there are thousands of these races all over the country. Um, where we've got these folks who are stepping up to run, and if we don't challenge them, then they're gonna then they're definitely going to get on the ballot and get elected. And the right is much further along in terms of building out state and local

political power than we are on the left. I would say, like, you know, the way that we've described in the past is they're on your forty of a forty year plan. On the left, we're on year six of a forty year plan. So we're doing the work, but it's hard. Yeah, I mean, that's like the Supreme Court, right exactly. I mean, that's what we've seen with the Supreme Court. Tell me a little bit about sort of what people are listening to this how they could support this sort of work

you're doing. I love this question. The first thing is you can think about running for office. If you go to run for what dot net, you can look up, you can fill out the form and you can look up what offices are available to run for in your local community. You can also go to run for something's

website and volunteer. One of the really fun things that we do that a lot of people really enjoy is we train volunteers to actually do one on ones with people who tell us that they're interested in running for office. So anyone who tells us they're interested in running for office will get a one on one with a train volunteers. So we train volunteers to do that, and it's like a really inspiring way to get involved. We also have

opportunities to get involved directly with our candidates. The last thing I'd say is you can also, you know, make a contribution, makeer occurring contribution. The work is expensive and difficult, and you know you can go to run for something dot net slash build for that. Thank you so much, so interesting and also so important. Thank you so much

for having me. I love all your work. You're doing that, You're you're really doing the Lord's work, and I really really appreciate you having Dr Mark Roscoe Loustau is an expert on Eastern European religion in politics and author of Hungarian Catholic Intellectuals and Contemporary Romania. Welcome to Fast Politics, Mark Lusto. It's good to be here. So we are very excited to have you here. You are an academic, but we occasionally we do have academics, not all that often,

but sometimes, but you know that we do. Jesse, don't wait, we sure do, We sure do. Okay, good. What you're going to talk to us a little bit about is this sort of rise in authoritarianism and where this comes from in Hungary and in Romania and and sort of in that area. So talk to us a little bit

about how you got involved in this. First. I first visited Hungary in two thousand five, and then I moved there in two thousand nine, and that was all before the rise of autocracy, before Victor Ordubon, Hungary's current right

wing prime minister, was elected. He was elected in his two thousand and ten and so I kind of have seen Hungary before and after and I lived there for three and a half years from two thousand nine until two thousand thirteen, and then I've been back a bunch of times since then and then have written articles and books about the situation there, and you know, it's become something of a fascination for me, as much as fascism

can be a fascination. It is. So I want you to talk a little bit about because Victor Orban is not just your fascination, he's also Tucker Carlson's fascination. So explained to us a little bit about what it was like living in Hungary before Orban. In Budapest, which is Hungary's, you know, main capital city, it was a diverse place with lots of exciting culture going on, really kind of cutting edge, are yes, exactly exactly, and you know, under

under order Bon life has changed a lot. I mean, I was in a queer club in Budapest when I got raided by the police during this was in the early days of Ordubon's regime, and you know that was really just the harbinger of real kind of concerted, government funded, government enforced effort to kill diverse culture in that country before this election, Like what were this sort of I mean, the kind of mechanics of life in Hungary. There's always a lot of talk about like this sort of how

Germany elected Hitler? Right, was there inflation? What was this sort of economic landscape? I mean, why why would a country that's sort of a normal European country elect someone like this or did they not know what they were electing? There are a lot of causes and effects, right, and it's hard to like single out one thing like inflation or you know, economic downturns. And certainly he was elected in the aftermath of the two thousand eight financial crisis,

and that was certainly, you know, a major impact. And there's also of like political and economic factors that you can trace that led to Ordubon coming into power and and when he did, you know, he came into power in like a landslide election, you know, the the left wing lost, and they lost big time. In two thousand ten, he won a supermajority in parliament, more than two thirds, and that allowed his party to pass whatever legislation it wanted to and really just as importantly, to change the

country's constitution. And they've done that a multiple times since then. He's been in power, and he holds a lock grip on his right wing party. The party is called FEEDES that stands for Young Democrats, But I think the Democrats really should be in quotation marks. They all vote exactly how Victor Ordubon tells them to um and slowly and systematically. Since two thousand and ten, he's taken over all the institutions of the country. He's installed loyal party hacks in

every position of power that you can imagine. It's it's basically, you know, the death of democracy by a thousand little takeovers, a little bit like what Trump had hoped to do with the loyal US and even in the two elections where he tried to install these secretaries of state who were his people, his hacks. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean Victor Ordubon is basically Donald Trump. If Donald Trump had

an attention span longer than my chihuahua. You know, he's disciplined, he rarely makes mistakes, and Ordubon he learns from them, which is really you know, the mistakes that he has made, like, for instance, he tried to pass a law that would make it illegal to open your grocery store on Sundays to try to kind of enforce a Sunday Sabbath and nobody liked that, and so he gave in on that, and he learned from his mistakes and he gave in.

And that's that's what makes what about truly truly terrifying, is that he's able to change tactics to stay in power and does not look like he's going to leave power anytime. It's so interesting because I've read reporting about this that he does do things that are besides being an autocrat, he also does things that are populous, right, can you talk about that? Yeah, I mean he he definitely represents himself as a man of the people. But

doesn't he pay people to have children and stuff like that? Oh? Yeah, paying people to have children is something that a lot of European countries do. There's a general, you know sense in European countries. You know, they're word about the population decline, which is happening all across Europe. It's definitely a policy that that's in in France and in Germany and elsewhere to uh encourage people to have kids by offering them incentives.

Were such suckers in America, and I mean, like we could all be living in Europe being paid to have children and instead but anyway, yes, continue going, yes, sorry, yes, no, no, it's true. He's just kind of bumped that up and made it kind of a hallmark of his regime that Hungary is going to reverse, you know, the European trend and be an outlier in Europe by having a growing population.

The data on that is highly mixed, if not totally pointing in the opposite direction about the effectiveness of his policies. But you know, that was definitely one of his big things coming into power. He not only represents himself was like a man of the people, but you know he um he has like this this persona, this very almost you know, a pugilistic persona. He actually calls himself a

street fighter sometimes. He's a huge fan of Chuck Norris, believe it or not, of all the heroes to have from Hollywood, I would have never picked Chuck Norris, but he you know, so he really kind of compares himself to Chuck Norris and thinks of himself as somebody who's kind of fighting the good fight against well, especially against liberals and progressives. Jesus. I mean, what were the big

changes you saw after orban took over. When I was in Hungary, I was studying at Central European University, which is it was a major, major research institution, one of you know, the jewels of the Crown, of of the Hungary, of Hungarian intellectual culture. And you know, one of the major things that Audubon did is that he passed laws that made it impossible for Central European University to stay

in Hungary. He revoked their accreditation and he forced them to leave the country and now it's it's based in Vienna, in Austria. He's done that to a number of different and geos, a lot of human rights and geos. He's forced them to leave the country by passing laws that

made it impossible for them to do their work. And so a lot of the kind of civil society framework and institutional networks in Hungary and the educational institutions that really kind of work that made Hungry and intellectual leader in Europe as a whole. He's done a lot to take them over, to dismantle them if you can't take them over, and to remake them in its own you know,

white Christian nationalistic image. Do you see in the day to day life and Hungary any of that, Like, for example, you could live in Miami and you are being governed by Ron de Santis, but life is still pretty much the way it is in New York. Did you see anything like the raids on gay clubs? I mean, what did you see where you were like, wow, we really

have a different president here. Now, the economics of living in Hungary did not change dramatically on a day to day basis, right that the stores, the names of the stores didn't change, They didn't go anywhere, And that was really enabled the way that Ordubon has really engineered this as you know, a slow death by a thousand little cuts in a thousand little takeovers. So there was nothing ever truly dramatic. I guess that's how democracy dies, right,

is that it dies little by little. The way he was able to, you know, engineer this small, long term, little by little death of democracy was really because, uh, you know, the economics of the of the state didn't change, because the EU was sending tons of money there and has sent tons of money there throughout his entire regime, right exactly, So what do you think there's sort of lessons of orbon are as people like Tucker Carlson are taking lessons from him on how to be more of

a successful autocrat. What are the lessons that liberals or just people who are pro democracy should take from or bon Well, Yes, certainly Hungary is like America's test kitchen for far right xenophobia and racism and what have you The lessons to learn are you know, to to make certain to organize, you know, always at the grassroots level, right, I mean, you have to start with making certain that people understand on an interpersonal, day to day basis what's

at stake in having a democracy, especially at the NGO level. Explain the NGO what that what that means, because I'm aware of angers, but I'm not aware of how meaningful the larger migration of them is. So if you could explain that the nonprofits in Hungary were you know, primarily focused on protecting human rights in the country and making certain that the media sector stayed diverse, you know, and that that there was an independent media sector not completely

controlled by the government. Their migration out of the country and basically him kicking them out really allowed him to take over the entire cultural landscape and make it in his own image. So for me, that the research that that I've been primarily focused on in my academic work is on churches in Hungary. And he's certainly done everything he can to make certain that the churches offer no opposition to him, right, I mean, ideally churches should be

a prophetic voice in society. And certainly there have been, you know, profits in the past. We've spoken out against the communist regime and Hungary profits you know, based in Christian values in Christian churches or Dubon has done everything he can to buy all the churches and their church leadership. He sends them tons of money, both for social service work that they do and then also for education. The government gives tons of money to churches to run schools.

Of a friend to journalist Alex Fuludi, he was a Hungarian journalist, and his take on this is that it's it's definitely political opportunism, and you know his his good line about this is is that it's hard to talk back when your mouth is full of coins. Right, And so you know, the churches are well and fully bought,

with a few exceptions. What Americans can do is to kind of learn about the few churches in Hungary that have state independent and that are critical of Ordubon's regime and they have suffered a great deal for it, and to highlight their work to resist fascism in Hungary. So interesting. I'm just curious. Does he allow other religions or is he sort of narrowing it down to a sort of more Christian kind of religion. Hungary, unlike a lot of other European countries, came out of World War Two with

at least a remnant of a Jewish community. There are active synagogues attended by Hungarians in Budapest and and other kind of regional cities around Hungary, and they have a strong and very prominent kind of organizational leadership that plays roles in Hungarian public life and in Hungarian politics. So, you know, just recently, this was over the summer, Bordubon gave a speech in which he very intentionally and very

explicitly evoked Nazi language around race and species. He basically said that Hungarians don't want to be a mixed species. It was awful and horrendous, and he received a huge amount of criticism and denunciation all throughout the world, and the Hungarian Jewish community leadership requested a meeting with him to try to, you know, figure out what the hell

he was trying to say in that speech. And so he plays to the awareness that a lot of international organizations have about Hungary's religious diversity and about the fate of the Jewish community and Hungary. He has a very strong relationship with Benjamin Nitsan, Yahoo used one of the

first people to congratulate Natanyahuan on his election. So he's aware of the diversity of Hungary's religious landscape, even as he also, you know, tries to promote the notion that Hungary and Hungarian culture has from the get go been you know, truly Christian and non waveringly Christian. Basically he uses conservative Jews to launder his figo trade. Yeah, not

so different from Donald Trump in that way. Yes, yeah, I mean there's again, this is a playbook, and I think Dubon was generating this playbook that Donald Trump probably observed and borrowed. There's certainly you know, a certain you know Israel washing, right, I think that's the right word,

is washing. The political opportunism of Ordu Bon's you know, turn to Faith, which was really kind of dated to two thousand tent He was not a big a tender of church if at all he had a secular marriage under communism, courthouse marriage, and uh, he didn't really discover religion until after his election in two thousand ten. Definitely, there's a good argument to make that it is just sheer political opportunism and he's trying to eliminate potential opposition

to his regime. And yet at the same time, I think there's also a there's a very smart strategy and what he's trying to do to kind of promote what he calls Christian values. He's trying to create a culture in a whole world that people can live in from like cradle to grave, and they can live in institutions that all basically say the same thing and all parrot

his line. And so the sense of of a of a totally encompassing society and culture defined by Christian values is absolutely at the heart of his program and his goal. But he also wants people to think that there's like a deep depth and a mystery to Hungarian culture and Hungarian Christianity. He wants people to be kind of fascinated by the history of Christian deities. Um he really promotes, for instance, the Virgin Mary. He sponsors art shows and

art exhibitions about the art of the Virgin Mary. Yeah. Not many people know about her. Yeah, yeah, she didn't. She needs to pep. Hungary is really really really really really small, right, yes, in the larger and it has a very tiny economy. So when Tuckle Carlson gets very excited about it, can you just put it in context for us? Yeah, I mean he gets excited about it because American conservatives think of it as like, you know, like I said before, the test kitchen for you know,

policies that they can implement on a bigger scale. In the US. Conservatives like Tucker Carlson also like Rod Dreyer. Isn't Rod drey Or have some kind of relations like monetary relationship with the government there? Yeah, yeah, so I mean all the American conservatives who go there. He's being paid, Yeah, yeah, he's He's like a fellow at the Danube Institute, which is a government funded research center. And I feel like, if you're being paid by the government and then you

say nice things about said government, that should be disclosed. Yes, that should be disclosed. The other thing that makes Dreyer, you know, so fascinating is that he's clearly attracted to by a certain kind of masculinity and manliness. We cannot speculate about a person who's not that famous as love life, but yeah, I agree that, Like you know, the conservative obsession with this just explained, the economy is quite small,

yeah it is. It's well, it's a ten million people in Hungary proper, probably nine million in change now since the last senses, you know, and the EU when it said the only reason really why the Hungarian economy is functioning right now is because the EU subsidizes it gigantically, you know, to the tune of billions and billions and billions of dollars. And that's been going on for you know, twenty some odd years now, ever since it joined the

EU in two thousand and four. And so, you know, I think the American conservative obsession with Hungary is is that they really see it as this you know, miniaturized almost like a you know, a football field where they can kind of game out, you have a practice session for what their policies are going to be going forward.

And so they before Donald Trump was ever inspiring people taunting people into chanting build the wall, Victor Ordubon was actually building a real razor wire fence at the border with Serbia, right and and you know the same thing. You know, I think we should be really closely paying attention to what's going on right now in Hungary with Victor Ordubon entering into his third term in office, because his kind of goal for the third term in office

is to remilitarize Hungarian society. He wants to found ten new military academies in the country. He wants he's created a new civilian border guard unit that he calls the Border Hunters. You know, their specific goal is to catch refugees trying to cross the border. That is their one and only purpose. We should be really really scared that Republicans are going to start trying to remilitarize American society.

Republicans are always hitting liberals about being weak on the military, and so I you know, I would not be surprised if if in the run up to the presidential election we heard candidates talk about needing to expand military schools, needing to expand military education even further into high schools, in public high schools. So I think this very well could be the next step in the Republican playbook. If they do follow Victor word Bond's lead in this fascinating

Thank you so much, Marc lu Stowe. I hope you'll come back. Thank you so much, Molly. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to your the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening. H