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Massive Rejection By Hungarian Voters Shows How To End MAGA-Style Politics

Hungary’s strongman Viktor Orban has lost reelection in stunning fashion, an absolute electoral wipeout that presages what his MAGA allies in the U.S. will be facing this November.

The brand-new opposition Tisza party won around 53 percent of the vote, to just 37 percent for Orban’s Fidesz. Tisza is projected to secure around 138 seats in the 199-seat parliament, comfortably above the 133 needed for a supermajority, giving it the power to rewrite Hungary’s constitution and begin dismantling the autocratic system Orban spent 16 years building. Fidesz currently holds 135 seats.

The victory came despite Orban rigging the playing field: gerrymandering the country so the opposition needed about a 5-point margin just to break even, and turning public media into government mouthpieces.

MAGA and Orban have long been tied at the hip. The right-wing CPAC conference has hosted an annual Hungary edition since 2022. There, he’s fed the MAGA faithful red meat like: “Progressive liberals, neo-Marxists intoxicated by the dream of wokeness, those in the pay of George Soros, they want to abolish the Western way of life that you and we love so much.”

He’s also leaned hard into culture war paranoia, telling the CPAC Hungary crowd in 2023: “Gender and woke also divide the nation into classes, and proclaim that class is more important than nation, taking precedence over belonging to the nation and taking precedence over national identity.”

So you can see why the MAGA crowd loves him so much. For many on the American right, Orban isn’t just an ally—he’s a blueprint, with influential voices openly arguing for “Orbanizing” U.S. institutions by using state power to reshape media, universities, and the civil service. Tucker Carlson helped cement that relationship, broadcasting a week of shows from Budapest in 2021.

For millions of MAGA viewers, Hungary wasn’t some distant country—it was a working model of what conservative power could look like in practice, a model Orban actively marketed. “Hungary is actually an incubator where experiments are done on the future of conservative policies,” he said in 2023. “Hungary is the place where we didn't just talk about defeating the progressives and liberals and causing a conservative Christian political turn, but we actually did it.”

Yeah, he and his party did it. And on Sunday, two-thirds of his country rebelled against it.

Adding to the schadenfreude, Vice President JD Vance actually traveled to Hungary and campaigned for Orban. “What the United States and Hungary represent under Viktor’s leadership and under President Trump’s leadership is the defense of Western civilization,” Vance declared at one rally. At another, he went full sermon: “Will you stand for Western civilization and for the God of our fathers?”

The god of our fathers? Vance is so weird.

His overt meddling drew backlash across Europe, including from Germany, which rejected Vance’s claims that the European Union was the real outside influence in Hungary’s election. But really, everyone should be happy at Vance’s visit, as his “kiss of death” record (literally with the last Pope) remains unvarnished:

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, tried his own version of election interference—dangling U.S. economic support if Hungarians kept Orban in power. It worked in Argentina, where Trump gave his pal Javier Milei a $20 billion taxpayer giveaway in the weeks before his reelection campaign.

“My Administration stands ready to use the full Economic Might of the United States to strengthen Hungary’s Economy, as we have done for our Great Allies in the past, if Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Hungarian People ever need it,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “We are excited to invest in the future Prosperity that will be generated by Orbán’s continued Leadership!”

Can’t wait to see how “excited” he is now.

Trump’s support was just the latest in a long line of backing for Orban, whom he praises in the same breath as Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. And the alignment isn’t just rhetorical. Orban has consistently acted as a spoiler inside the European Union, delaying or weakening sanctions on Russia and complicating efforts to support Ukraine. In practice, that’s made him Vladimir Putin’s most reliable ally inside the EU, a bridge between Moscow’s interests and the MAGA movement that has long admired him.

There is, however, one way Orban appears to be better than Trump or Putin: He has reportedly respected the outcome of this election, calling opposition leader and Prime Minister-elect Péter Magyar to concede and congratulate him.

It’s a low bar, but one Trump couldn’t manage to clear.

The geopolitical implications are immediate. Ukraine, in particular, stands to benefit. While Slovakia’s Robert Fico remains aligned with Putin and hostile to EU support for Ukraine, he will now be far more isolated. Without Orban to share the burden, it becomes much harder for a single leader to block aid to Kyiv without facing serious consequences for his poor nation from the rest of Europe.

And for Trump, it’s one less strongman ally. If MAGA wants to keep pointing to the Hungarian model, let them. Voters there just showed how that story ends.

Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Antisemitic Influencers Who Say They're 'J-Pilled' Know Exactly What It Means

A New York Times report on young attendees at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference soft-peddled the movement’s antisemitism by describing some right-wingers as “J-pilled” and erroneously defining that term as “far-right slang for skepticism of Israeli influence.”

One indication that definition is inaccurate, as my former colleague Madeline Peltz pointed out in criticizing the article, is that “a few grafs later they quote a groyper who says ‘at least 60 percent of the young people here’ are fans of Nick Fuentes, who wants to deport all Jews from America.”

Another tell, of course, is that “Israel” doesn’t begin with a J — but “Jew” does. “J-pilled,” as should be extremely obvious from the name, is actually far-right slang for skepticism of Jewish influence. Those who claim to be “J-pilled” see the hidden hand of the Jewish people behind every social ill, an adaptation of the gutter antisemitism familiar from the blood-soaked anti-Jewish fraudulent tome, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

This strain of explicitly anti-Jewish sentiment is a growing problem on the right. Fuentes, a Holocaust-denying white nationalist once barred from the mainstream right, broke that containment in 2025 with a wave of appearances with popular podcasters like Tucker Carlson. He and his allies have tried to use the horrific scenes of devastation the Israeli military perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza to make inroads with young Republicans and encourage them to adopt virulently antisemitic views — and polling suggests they are succeeding.

If you spend enough time watching the programs of Fuentes and his ilk, you will hear the cohort the Times describes make very clear that when they use the term “J-pilled,” they are talking about Jews, not Israel.

Here’s a viewer telling Fuentes that his “boomer family” is “being J-pilled” by Candace Owens talking “about the propaganda surrounding Hitler.”
Here’s one explaining to Hitler-praising manosphere streamer Myron Gaines (real name Amrou Fudl) that he “found out my mom is jew pilled” when he “brought up some things about the jews and she started talking about the red cows and temple.” (While reading this comment, Gaines shortened “jew pilled” to “J-pilled.”)
Here’s another one telling Gaines, “My sister who is J-pilled thinks the jews want Maduro dead because his politics outlaws jews! no porn, no abortion, no usury!” (When Gaines read the latter comment, he said “J’s” in both places where the text read “jews.”)

Some on the far-right, hoping to avoid being accurately tarred as antisemites, deliberately try to muddy the waters. Gaines, for example, often uses the term “J-pilled” when he is discussing Israel.

But the streamer has also made clear this is a smokescreen. During a March 2025 show, he read a viewer’s claim that “the Disney CEO (Bob Iger) the man who has been destroying movies with bs trans ideology and feminism ideology and funding shitty movies it all makes sense when you check WIKI” — a reference to Iger being Jewish.

In response, Gaines told his livestreaming audience to type “1” into the stream’s chat “if I've J-pilled you,” adding, “I gotta obviously use certain terminology here for obvious reasons, but you guys know what I'm talking about.”

“All right, sweet,” he said as the chat became a stream of people replying with 1s.

Some are less subtle about what they mean when they talk about “J-pilling.” Take Stew Peters, a prominent right-wing streamer and influencer known for bigoted commentary, violent ideation about his political foes, and deranged conspiracy theories.

“As everybody knows, The Stew Peters Show and this network broadly have been and still are to this day at the forefront of J-pilling the American people,” Peters said in November 2025. “Our people are waking up. Our people are rising up. They’re noticing, and the noticing will continue. If you think about it, it’s impossible not to notice.”

Peters then detailed who and what his supporters are “noticing” — the Jews responsible for all of society’s problems.

“Just think of everything that these walking, talking, interest-charging demons have been responsible for,” he said.

He continued: “If societal ills were a bunch of stones in the middle of a field somewhere and all of us got together walking around, turning up the stones to see what’s underneath them, under every single one of these stones, you would find a little Jew-man, grubbing his hands, smirking, wearing his tiny hat, trying to get over on the goyim. Trying to kill the goyim, when it really comes down to it.”

“Just think of all that these people are responsible for,” he added. “Usury, central banking, communism, Bolshevik communism, the Holodomor, the transatlantic slave trade, transgenderism, the normalization of homosexuality, the normalization of pedophilia, transgenderism for kids, open borders, white replacement, white genocide, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, AIPAC, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, abortion, which is just a modern-day Malachian sacrifice ritual.”

Musk Says He'll Cut $500M In Medicare And Social Security 'Entitlements'

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — whose net worth is just shy of $400 billion — just dropped a hint that he may be eyeing significant cuts to earned benefits programs like Social Security and Medicare in the future.

During his Thursday appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Musk was asked about his "Department of Government Efficiency," or DOGE (which is not yet an official federal agency authorized by Congress) project, and about the scope of spending cuts he aimed to implement. The South African centibillionaire asserted to NewsMax anchor Rob Schmitt — who interviewed him on stage — that "waste" was "pretty much everywhere."

"People ask how can you find waste in D.C., it's like being in a room and the wall, the roof and the floors are all targets," he said. "You can shoot in any direction. You can't miss."

Schmitt then asked Musk specifically about his plans for the Social Security Administration, which DOGE representatives have already reportedly accessed. Schmitt referenced "$72 billion in waste in seven years," while Musk seemingly alluded to hundreds of billions of dollars in supposedly wasteful spending.

"I think that the rough estimate from the Government Accountability Office is over $500 billion a year. $500 billion. With a B. Per year," Musk said.

"On Social Security?" Schmitt asked.

"On all entitlements. All entitlements, yeah," Musk responded, using a catch-all term to describe mandatory spending like Medicare and veterans' benefits.

Musk insisted during the interview that millions of dead Americans are still getting Social Security payments, including Americans who are allegedly hundreds of years old. ABC 7 New York debunked that claim, and pointed out that Musk was misreading Social Security Administration data. One of the agency's databases includes every American who has ever been issued a Social Security number, and no date of death has been listed for many of those Americans as they died before electronic records were established.

ABC 7 reported that of the roughly 67 million Americans currently receiving Social Security benefits, only 0.1% of them are over 100 years old. And while there are occasional fraudulent payments, that accounts for less than 1% of total spending and is usually in the form of overpayments to living beneficiaries.

"When Donald Trump ran for president, he blanketed swing states in flyers pledging to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Now, Trump has empowered Elon Musk to slash $500 billion a year from these vital benefits," Social Security Works communications director Linda Benesch told AlterNet. "But Congress has the power to stop him. We urge everyone to call their members of Congress and demand that they pledge one penny in cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid."

According to figures from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the federal government had approximately $3.8 trillion in mandatory spending obligations in Fiscal Year 2023, which included $1.3 trillion for Social Security and $839 billion for Medicare. Beneficiaries of those programs have their eligibility and benefit formulas set by federal statute, meaning it would take an act of Congress to change it.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

'Normalizing' Nazis: CPAC Chief Enraged Over Report On White Nationalists

Critics are blasting CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, as the embattled head of the organization that puts together and hosts the event, Matt Schlapp, is attacking NBC News over its report that states: “Nazis mingle openly at CPAC, spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories and finding allies.”

“Nazis appeared to find a friendly reception at the Conservative Political Action Conference this year,” writes Ben Goggin, NBC News Digital deputy editor for technology. “Throughout the conference, racist extremists, some of whom had secured official CPAC badges, openly mingled with conference attendees and espoused antisemitic conspiracy theories.”

“The presence of these individuals has been a persistent issue at CPAC. In previous years, conference organizers have ejected well-known Nazis and white supremacists such as Nick Fuentes,” NBC News also reported. “But this year, racist conspiracy theorists didn’t meet any perceptible resistance at the conference where Donald Trump has been the keynote speaker since 2017.”

Schlapp is the head of the American Conservative Union. He and his wife Mercedes Schlapp were once described as the “Trump-Era ‘It Couple’.” Now he is facing a $9 million lawsuit over alleged sexual assault, including “aggressive fondling,” after Republican strategist Carlton Huffman, a staffer at the time for the failed Herschel Walker senatorial campaign, says Matt Schlapp groped him in January of 2023.

CPAC’s list of speakers last week included the far-right ultra-conservative president of Argentina, Javier Milei, who “gave Donald Trump on Saturday an ecstatic hug,” the AP reported. Donald Trump, calling himself a “proud political dissident,” delivered the keynote address at CPAC on Saturday. CNN described it as “lie-filled.”

Schlapp was both furious and dismissive of NBC News’ report.

“NBC’s claim that there was a Nazi presence at CPAC 2024 is false, misleading, and grossly manipulative—especially coming from a writer who has carried the water for Hamas in much of his reporting on the Israel-Gaza war,” Schlapp wrote in a statement posted by CPAC to X. “When we come across someone at CPAC peddling any kind of anti-semitism, we deal with them immediately. Knowing this, NBC weaved together lies and fabrications to create a false perception, and we won’t stand by idly while NBC engages in willful misinformation.”

In a separate post, Schlapp also wrote:

“Yawn. This is a tired old cliche. The Neo-Nazis in our midst are the ones controlling our college campuses and major institutions and grossly populate the newsrooms of corporate media, calling for an Israeli surrender.”

NBC’s Goggin responded:

“The Nazis introduced themselves to me at a mixer and said they were national socialists, started talking about skull measurements and pushing the conspiracy theory that all races were being controlled Jewish people. They were posting about their presence at CPAC online.”

He also provided photos and video:READ MORE: Democrats Discredit GOP Claims on IVF as Republicans Try to Regain Ground After Fallout

Schlapp was both furious and dismissive of NBC News’ report.

In a separate post, Schlapp also wrote:

NBC’s Goggin responded:

He also provided photos and video:

“Either CPAC is lying about having no idea about this, or they simply don’t have a grasp on who they approved to come to their conference…,” Goggin added.

“Nazis, antisemitism, the great replacement theory, [white supremacist Nick] Fuentes, have become so common among conservatives that I think attendees, even journalists, didn’t think too deeply about them being at CPAC. There was very much an ‘oh them’ attitude about the nazis.”

“It really illustrated how successfully extremists have shifted the Overton window. This year, they were expected, and their presence was tolerated,” he added.

Critics blasted CPAC.

“At CPAC, avowed Nazis mingled openly & spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, as speakers welcomed the ‘end of democracy.’ They are all saying the quiet part out loud. And most GOP lawmakers are silent (or cheering). This is how extremism is normalized,” warned Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Spitalnick “led a group that won a $25 million judgment against the neo-Nazis who organized the deadly 2017 Charlottesville march in Virginia,” The Times of Israel reported in 2022.

“Seriously, read this @BenjaminGoggin piece and tell me those of us ringing the alarm bells on increasingly mainstreamed Nazism are being hyperbolic,” Spitalnick added.

“CPAC denies the presence of Nazis at their conference this year, but when I reported that @cpac was teeming with white nationalists in 2022 there wasn’t a peep from Matt Schlapp about it,” wrote Texas Observer special investigative correspondent Steven Monacelli.

Former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY), currently a candidate for Congress running to unseat U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), said: “I am appalled that Nazis were allowed to attend CPAC—an event Donald Trump headlined again this year. Make no mistake: the Republican Party and Trump have empowered white nationalists for years.”

Responding to the NBC News article, former U.S. government official Mike Walker wrote on X: “This is not Munich, 1933. This is Washington, DC, 2024.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

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Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Massive Rejection By Hungarian Voters Shows How To End MAGA-Style Politics

Antisemitic Influencers Who Say They're 'J-Pilled' Know Exactly What It Means

'Normalizing' Nazis: CPAC Chief Enraged Over Report On White Nationalists

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