Gay Pride— Hungarian Pride

Hungary Is Salvageable— Just Like Our Own... But By Peter Magyar?

Hate Orbán and hate his supporters— the same way you’d hate Señor TACO and his supporters— but don’t hate the Hungarian people, any more than you’d hate the American people. Yesterday around 200,000 Hungarians endangered their own safety by demonstrating solidarity with the LGBTQ community in Budapest. Orbán had banned gay pride celebrations and threatened legal consequences. Budapest’s progressive mayor, Gergely Karácsony, urged Hungarians to “come calmly and boldly to stand together for freedom, dignity and equal rights.” As many as 200,000 jubilant, defiant, peaceful Hungarians marched through the streets as Orbán and his fascist supporters seethed. Saturday’s demonstrations turned into a general pro-democracy protest against Orbán, the fascist Fidesz party and tyranny in general.

Mayor Karácsony, who announced the city was sponsoring the event, said “The government is always fighting against an enemy against which they have to protect Hungarian people. This time, it is sexual minorities that are the target… we believe there should be no first and second class citizens, so we decided to stand by this event.”

Orbán’s government installed cameras on the lamp-posts along the route and threatened to use facial recognition software to identify people attending, fining marchers $586 (€500). Organisers could face a one-year prison sentence.

The government bluster was widely seen as a way of deflecting attention from Orbán’s and his Fidesz Party’s corruption and their increasing loss of legitimacy in the eyes of the people. Conservative politician Peter Magyar— think someone like Schumer or Newsom— and his Respect and Freedom Party (Tisza) are leading Orbán in recent polls and look like they’ll oust him next year. Like Trump and MAGA, Orbán and Fidesz own about a third of the populace. The rest is either in opposition or up for grabs. 

Many Hungarians have been dissatisfied with Orbán's regime for a long time. The prime minister and those in his circle of power primarily serve their own supporters, who make up about a third of the electorate. Tax breaks and other financial perks are tailored to benefit these people; they are the ones who get the administrative jobs and the government posts, and their companies are given public contracts. Everyone else, all those who are not part of the system, are scraping by or living in precarious circumstances.

Contrary to Orbán's rhetoric that, in Hungary, everything is better than in the rest of the European Union, most public infrastructure is very rundown— from bad roads and neglected hospitals and schools to chaotic administration services.

The increasingly obvious double standards inherent in Orbán's nationalist propaganda have ultimately facilitated Magyar's rise. Observers had already predicted that the threat to Orbán's regime would come not from leftist or liberal opposition parties, but rather from a renegade within— and this is exactly what has happened.

Just over a year ago, both then-president Katalin Novak and Fidesz's lead candidate in the European elections, Judit Varga, who was also a former justice minister, were forced to resign amid public uproar when it emerged that they had pardoned a man convicted of  aiding and abetting child sex abuse. It was one of many cases in which the constant vilifications of homosexuals as supposed child abusers by Orbán and his party backfired.

In September 2024, for instance, it was revealed that the Catholic priest Gergo Bese— a vocal Fidesz propagandist and homophobic preacher who had blessed Orban's official residence— was secretly attending gay sex parties.

Magyar was closely linked to the former justice minister— until the political scandal, he was best known as Varga's ex-husband. He had held a few financially lucrative but politically insignificant government positions, but was not really known among the general public.

All that changed after the two Fidesz politicians resigned. Magyar gave a long interview, watched by millions of people, in which he denounced the hypocrisy of the Orbán regime and said he could no longer bear the lies. When government-aligned media launched attacks against him shortly afterward, he decided to enter party politics and run in the European elections in June 2024.

In order to be allowed to run in the European elections at short notice, he “took over” an existing minor party. Tisza, which had been founded a few years earlier at the local level, had been dormant for some time. But Magyar quickly turned the Tisza brand into a PR success.

The party's name is both an abbreviation of "Respect and Freedom" and a reference to the Tisza River, which has a very prominent role in Hungarian culture and national mythology. “The Tisza flood is coming!” has become a popular slogan at Magyar's rallies— and for Orban and Fidesz, the European elections were the first indication of just how powerful that flood might be. Coming from nowhere, Tisza garnered almost 30% of the vote. Fidesz, meanwhile,  dropped to 44%, losing eight points.

Magyar also uses skillful political marketing in other ways. He has adopted the rhetoric of Orbán and Fidesz, and co-opted their campaign tricks and much of their messaging— with key differences. Those include his pro-European stance, and the promise that Hungary would become a member of the European Public Prosecutor's Office, which facilitates judicial cooperation in criminal matters.

Magyar has linked this pledge to his declaration of intent to systematically fight corruption, and to investigate Orbán and his oligarchs for abuse of office and theft of public funds.

On the issue of migration, Magyar wants to continue Orbán's strict policies. He has accused the prime minister of hypocrisy, pointing out that his government has brought tens of thousands of non-EU migrant workers into the country. Magyar's appearances have a similarly populist feel to Orbán rallies, but he makes sure to deliver positive messages  instead of constantly attacking others, as Orbán does. He presents himself, with apparent success, as the honest, better national conservative who is truly committed to the unity of the Hungarian nation.

Magyar kept away from the pride celebrations and refused to comment. His appeal stems from being a vessel for discontent, especially among voters desperate to get rid of Orbán’s mafia state, but that doesn’t make him courageous, let alone a transformational figure. He is not Hungary’s Nelson Mandela, Zohran Mamdani or Lula da Silva. If anything, he’s a slicker, cleaner Orbán: a national conservative who understands the optics of decency and inclusion, but who ultimately shares many of the same assumptions about power, nationhood and exclusion. If Hungary has a genuine democratic left, it looks more like Gergely Karácsony— principled, coalition-oriented and unapologetically committed to European values. Unfortunately, in today’s Hungary, that kind of politics is boxed out of power by Fidesz’s media stranglehold and the electorate’s desire for strongmen who speak the language of nationalism. In that sense, Magyar may prove useful to the regime's backers that he claims to oppose: not by upholding it, but by ensuring the coming rebellion doesn’t go too far. A new face, a cleaner image, a better haircut— but not a new direction.