--:-- [Sound of a Hungarian song]
--:-- Noelle King: It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. This is a Hungarian song. Here's what's going on while we're waiting out in the street in downtown Budapest to be let into a lovely old apartment building.
--:-- Matei Halmos: Our fixer, Matei Halmos, told us about this couple named Tibor and Erzsebet Horvat. In liberal Budapest, Matei told us, you will not find a lot of pro-Orban people or people who support his party, Fidesz, because of the whole authoritarian-ish thing. But these two like Orban. They're from outside of Budapest originally. She came from the East. I came from the West, and now we are met here 45 years ago. And it was a love at first sight, and we are eager to love one another since that time.
--:-- Tibor Horvat: Does she agree it was love at first sight?
--:-- Erzsebet Horvat: She says they get along well.
--:-- Noelle King: Tibor is in his late 60s. He's a retired telecom engineer. Erzsébet is in her early 70s. She's a retired dental assistant who lights up like a kissling chandelier when you say the name Viktor Orban.
--:-- Tibor Horvat: Can we ask her, what is so nice about Viktor Orban? Why does she like him and Fidesz so much?
--:-- Erzsebet Horvat: He stands up for the interests of the Hungarians all the time. He does everything so that we can stay out of the war and we can live peacefully, because peace is the most important thing.
--:-- Noelle King: Orban was just re-elected, and one of his campaign promises was to stay out of Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine. Now, Hungary is a member of NATO, and Orban is chummy with Putin, so he wasn't ever going to get involved in this war.
--:-- Tibor Horvat: But truthiness, it worked. He's ten times more cleverer than anybody in the left-wing parties. He's been a star since he was born, I think. He was born at a secondary school, in the university, and so on. So he's a talented politician, a born politician.
--:-- Noelle King: Who would you compare him to? Is there a politician like him in the United States?
--:-- Erzsebet Horvat: Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan. Aha. I know that the American people consider him the best president ever. And we consider Mr. Orban the best president ever.
--:-- Tibor Horvat: Tibor knows that Orban is not a saint. Hungary has a lot of economic corruption. Some guys get rich. They get good government contracts because they're connected to Fidesz. It bugs him. So he decided to address it with the man himself. Four years ago, I sent a letter to the secretary of the prime minister. Oh. With two points. One point was, I can appreciate your efforts to stop the big migration at the Hungarian border. Congratulations. He's happy that Orban built a fence along the southern border to keep out migrants from places like Syria and Afghanistan. And the second point was that the corruption is higher and higher. And I've got an answer within two weeks. Thank you for the congratulations. The congratulations got a thank you note. The criticism went unanswered.
--:-- Noelle King: Let's talk about democracy and Viktor Orban. I think many people who are critical of Prime Minister Orban, they think he has too much control. Control over judiciary, control over the media, control over the economy. And they say, that's not what democracy is. That's something different.
--:-- Tibor Horvat: You are right. I like the left-wing people to criticize Orban. and sometimes I do the same because I know that the corruption rate is very high in Hungary during Orban as well and I know that that Orban himself is a part of the corruption of course You know that Yeah I know it So Orban has all the power. His propaganda machine is staggeringly efficient. He doesn't answer to critics, but he'll take a compliment. He set it up so he can't lose an election.
--:-- Noelle King: Is this not reminding you of something?
--:-- Tibor Horvat: I have a question for your wife, but tell her that I'm an American and if I sound ignorant, I don't mean to. Communists in Hungary had so much power over the political system, the media, the civic institutions. But now people say Viktor Orban has all the power over the media, the civic institutions, the judiciary. How is Viktor Orban better than the communists?
--:-- Erzsebet Horvat: In the 50s it was terrible. In the 50s it was terrible. Terrible. The police closed down their pantry so that they would starve to death. They sealed the pantry and they said that if any of the kids tempered with the seal, they would take the parents to prison. This was in their family home?
--:-- Noelle King: What was going on here? In your family home, the communists?
--:-- Erzsebet Horvat: Yes. You don't know what communism is. It's the problem. You cannot imagine. How can we compare communism to Orban with Mr. Orban? How? That's no way to compare the two. It's not fair, is what you're telling me.
--:-- Tibor Horvat: That's democracy, real democracy. This is real democracy.
--:-- Noelle King: I didn't realize you had suffered so much. And it's stupid to compare what's happening here today to what was happening back then.
--:-- Erzsebet Horvat: It was compulsory for you to give these kind of questions. But every day in the press and the media, the electronic media, you meet the situation that it's communism, it's communism, it's fascism, it's Goering and so on. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies.
--:-- Noelle King: He's saying the Western media paints Orban as a fascist. But imagine writing a letter to Joseph Stalin or to Vladimir Putin. Dear sir, you've done some good things, you've done some bad things. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get a nice letter back.
--:-- [Sound of a radio show]
--:-- Noelle King: Our next guest is Zabi, a volunteer host of a radio show about Indian classical music. He's a Buddhist. He teaches sitar for a living. He canoes. Many of us know at least one Zabi. Your outfit would suggest, are you a marathon runner?
--:-- Zabi: Yes, yes, I ran here and I ran back when I finished everything. So. Are you serious? What? You'll run home? Yeah, yeah, of course.
--:-- Noelle King: Zabi has been on the receiving end of Orbanism. Check this, the government has a quota system. Community radio stations have to provide 50% Hungarian music and 50% international music.
--:-- Zabi: Wait, what? The government gets to tell you how much Hungarian music you have to play? Yeah. And it's a small country. We don't have that much good music.
--:-- Noelle King: Do you, like, search the streets for, like, punk bands?
--:-- Zabi: Can you imagine my Indian classical radio show? What to do? I started playing with the names. Like, instead of Ravi Shankar, I said Ravi Sándor. No, you didn't. You made Ravi Shankar a Hungarian? Oh my God, don't tell me things like that on tape. I'm worried for you.
--:-- Noelle King: Coming up, Zabi explains the grotesque absurdity of the Hungarian media laws and what it feels like to butt heads with bureaucracy and lose. Plus, an Orban-curious American in Budapest. Thank you.
--:-- [Sound of a radio show]
--:-- Noelle King: We're back with Zabi at the radio station. He's been volunteering in community radio for 30 years. And the station itself might as well be in Berkeley. There are kitchen shelves crammed with coffee mugs that don't belong to anyone in particular. There are awards for public service, trash cleanup, in a glass case.
--:-- Zabi: So we were the most successful trash collecting team on the river Tisa. Why is a radio station collecting trash? Because there are so many trash on Tisa.
--:-- Noelle King: What does Tilos mean?
--:-- Zabi: Forbidden. Forbidden. But it was, I kind of just wanted to have a tasty, tasty name for the radio station. At that time, it was not forbidden. I mean, there was no media law at all. The name was ironic. Communism was newly out. Free media was newly in. Fidesz, Orban's party, was radical chic.
--:-- Noelle King: When we started this radio station in 1991, people said that, oh, we are surely the radio station of the Fidesz. Because at that time, Fidesz was a young and liberal party. And you were the kids. You were the community radio kids.
--:-- Zabi: So everybody thought that you were, I see. Were you Fidesz supporters?
--:-- Noelle King: No, no, no, no. That's the basic thing. We don't get, for example, support and any money. We don't accept any money from parties, political parties and companies.
--:-- Zabi: Did you think Viktor Orban was cool, though?
--:-- Noelle King: Actually, there was one. I'm not sure if I can remember exactly the quote, but once he said in 1992 that it's a very cool thing and it must have to have something like that in Hungary. Tilosz. And it was about Tilosz.
--:-- Noelle King: Over the course of about 30 years, Tilosz Radio grew from a small operation to include hundreds of volunteers in a building that used to be the old state coin mintage. Tilos isn't a news station, but it has news bulletins and talk shows about current affairs.
--:-- Zabi: And once upon a time, there were many Tilos. At that time in 2012, when the Fidesz came in power, there were 68 community radio stations in Hungary. Like this one. It just volunteers, people doing shows that interested them, Little Kitchen, everybody shares mugs. There were 67 of them? Yeah. No, 68. 68. 68. And they banned, actually, they closed 67 out of them. You're the last one? As far as I know, yes.
--:-- Noelle King: From 68 or so to one. A thing that Viktor Orban and Fidesz have done remarkably well is capture the free press. Their media law would make Kafka blush. It's 150 plus pages of tiny font that controls everything from who gets to be on TV and radio to whether you can show minors drinking alcohol.
--:-- Zabi: You cannot. Tilos regularly has to renew its FM radio license. And the Fidesz-controlled Media Council, which enforces the Fidesz-written media law, recently turned them down. It's a minefield, so you cannot do everything right there.
--:-- Noelle King: For example, we have to provide sometimes a week-long program, transcripted seconds by seconds. And we don't have anyone who can do that because our station is based on live music. We play lots of black wine ears, etc.
--:-- Zabi: The government is deliberately making it difficult. Yeah. The government says Tilos is losing its FM signal for using inappropriate language four times since 2015. The station also allegedly failed to provide data to regulators twice and had two irregularities in its reports.
--:-- Noelle King: If all of that sounds very vague, yes, that would be the point.
--:-- Zabi: Now there's an argument I've heard many times in Hungary from people who like Viktor Orban, that this is not a big deal. A bunch of neo-hippies can't get their little radio shows on the airwaves? Who really cares? You're not particularly political. But can you explain for somebody who might be skeptical, like, why does a little community radio station matter? What is the bigger thing that's going on here?
--:-- Noelle King: To have everything. I mean the government wants to have everything And this is part of everything It's pettiness, it's control, it's suspicion, it's fines for breaking rules that can't be followed. It's everything.
--:-- Zabi: And yet, let's remember what brought us to Budapest. American conservatives are holding CPAC here.
--:-- Noelle King: What exactly about these circumstances would appeal to freedom-loving, bureaucracy-hating, small-government, no-bullshit Americans?
--:-- Zabi: It was time to ask an American.
--:-- Noelle King: I can tell you're from upstate New York by looking at you. Does that sound crazy?
--:-- Chris Belluzzi: No.
--:-- Noelle King: Chris Belluzzi grew up two towns over from me. He's wearing reflective sunglasses, khaki shorts, a Sandlot t-shirt. We're in a suburb of Budapest, but Chris improbably is living the American dream. He's only 30, but he has two gorgeous kids. His wife's family lives just down the street. He has a small but pristine house, and his mortgage is exactly zero.
--:-- Chris Belluzzi: We bought this house for $9.5 million for it. Yeah, so that's $30,000. High five me. Damn, son.
--:-- Noelle King: Chris's politics are a little all over the place. He's pro-gay rights, pro-abortion rights. He says he's a registered Democrat, but he's totally meh about the Democratic Party. He doesn't like Trump or Biden, so he just didn't vote in the last election.
--:-- Chris Belluzzi: I just couldn't feel good with either of the decisions. But that doesn't mean he's not paying attention to politics. In fact, he was watching the Hungarian election really carefully.
--:-- Noelle King: What do you think nowadays about Viktor Orban?
--:-- Chris Belluzzi: Well, I think on the world stage, it's amazing what he's accomplished. I think he's a very successful man. I think that a country like Hungary with its population and its GDP, very tiny, but somehow his name's being brought up. Somehow he's got swing. Somehow he's meeting with these big guys. So he's doing something right. And he just got elected with an overwhelming percentage. So he's doing something right and um I understand that a lot of that comes from uh his control over the media so uh I do understand that however I'm not one of those people that is under his you know veil that doesn't can't see uh objectively what's going on
--:-- Noelle King: It sounds like there's probably a not insignificant number of Hungarians who know exactly what Viktor Urban is all about and like you say this guy is doing something right for the country right the country's doing well the economy's doing well the policies benefit us i don't yeah the economy is not okay the economy let's not say that he's like uh like he's he's killing it what i'm saying is that um he's done something for hungary that i don't think any other guy would be able to do so um make it a player in the world?
--:-- Chris Belluzzi: Yeah. Yeah. So we were talking about Trump and Orban. And I think you need to include Putin in this conversation if we're talking about autocrats. So I think that Trump is a wannabe Orban. Orban is a wannabe Putin. If you look at the level of autocracy, you go Trump, Orban, Putin.
--:-- Noelle King: You're living very happily in a country where you're saying your belief is the prime minister wants to be like Vladimir Putin, why does that not scare the hell out of you?
--:-- Chris Belluzzi: You seem very happy here. I'm more scared of, as a father, I'm responsible for my children. Until they're adults, it's my job to guide them, steer them. And if I look at who I think's going, personally for me, going to be the best person to help me pursue my vision of what I want to achieve, I think that right now, Fidesz would be better. Long term, I don't think that they should keep hold of this control.
--:-- Noelle King: All of this makes sense, I suppose, but Viktor Orban has been prime minister since 2010. Long term, that's the whole point.
--:-- Chris Belluzzi: And it's a very easy thing to miss, even if you're watching carefully. What I like about Fidesz is they have been able to set up a system that runs very well. It's a well-oiled machine. He gets shit done. Republicans get shit done, and sometimes they get shit done that you don't like, but they do get shit done, and I feel like the other side will not get shit done. Viktor Orban's ability to get things done in a not-very-democratic fashion appeals to a lot of American conservatives, too.
--:-- Noelle King: They're here in Budapest for the conservative political action conference, Hungary Drift. Coming up tomorrow, we try to get in to the conference that we have flown thousands of miles to cover. But will Hungarian bureaucracy stop us?
--:-- Noelle King: Our show today was produced by Miles Bryan. It was edited by Jolie Myers and Matthew Collette. It was engineered by Efim Shapiro, and it was fact-checked by Laura Bullard.
--:-- Noelle King: The rest of the team today explained includes Halima Shah, Hadi Mawagdi, Avishai Artsy, Victoria Chamberlain, and our audio fellow Tori Dominguez.
--:-- Noelle King: Sean Ramasveram is my co-host. We had extra help this week from Matei Halmos. Our supervising producer is Amina El-Sadi.
--:-- Noelle King: Vox's vice president of audio is Liz Kelly Nelson. We use music by Breakmaster Cylinder and Noam Hassenfeld, and we're distributed to public radio stations across the United States in partnership with WNYC.
--:-- Noelle King: I'm Noelle King. Today Explained is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. We'll see you next time.
