How To Oust A Dictator, According To Hungary

1. 

   @LeejaMiller

   June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

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2. 

   @jeffreywilheim5970

   June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

   Evidently he wasn't much of a dictator if the people of Hungary were able to "oust" Orban through an ordinary democratic election.

3. 

   @DenaliTheAdventuress

   June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

   I trade fruits and vegetables with my neighbors during the shifting seasons. I also make my own soy milk and vegan sausages from the pulp. Grocery costs are down and my family and community are better nourished 🌱

4. 

   @EmeraldWings90

   June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

   Hi, I'm Hungarian. I think I get what you are saying, but I think you are missing a few things. E.g. what is "center-right" in Hungary is not really the same as the "center-right" in the US. For example, we have state-run healthcare. If you advocate for that in the US, they call you a leftist or a socialist, don't they? While here, it's the default… And still, Orbán made things worse. He changed things about Hungarian healthcare (defunding, centralizing, etc) and it got worse and worse under him, and his oligarchs started profiting from private healthcare when more people started using it to get away from the poor conditions in state-run healthcare.
   Péter Magyar is promising to fix it and make it work well. His promises have much more socialist elements than you would think. It is social democracy.
   Honestly, Orbán had social elements in his promises as well. The problem was that the things he did, like tax breaks to families and (slight) increases to pensions, were just to appease the public while he robbed the country blind. And yes, people say "there is corruption everywhere" – but they don't get it. Some corruption might be inevitable. But on this scale? Some analyst said that usually, about 30% public money is stolen; while here, about 80% was. (Not data, just to illustrate the scale of things.) More money was spent on communication – literal propaganda – than on healthcare and education combined. What Péter Magyar campaigned on was that this needs to stop – if this literal mafia state is dismantled, and the government works for the people instead of themselves, everything will be better. And I have watched many, many interviews with him and our new ministers – and they seem to mean it. They are all political novices – that is also important, they are new and they have a feeling of mission to work for the people. And I believe them. They are a government of experts, not a government of politicians. They have promised to serve and have told us repeatedly to stop them if they seem to be stepping off that path (if they get too used to power).
   All this is a big change, not just a slump back into comfort. There was an 80% turnout to vote. There's been a general apathy towards politics for so long, and now Hungarians seem to have learned that we do need to have a voice in politics, we need to be interested, we need to participate. We are experiencing a shift in the national spirit.
   We will never do communism, we (the whole eastern bloc) tried that, it did not work. The US seems to be a capitalist dystopia (I have watched a lot of John Oliver, that's where I get that impression – forgive me if that's not up your alley, I don't know your channel). We won't do that either, I think. There is middle ground between the two. That middle ground is not the middle ground between the republicans and the democrats, it is further to the left. Capitalism with strong social elements. In so many things, what Péter Magyar is promising – strengthening the free healthcare system, the free education system, social services, introducing a wealth tax – could be considered leftist, couldn't it? He's just very nationalist about it, that's why they call him (and he himself) a "right-wing" person. (He also calls his party centrist – well, what he actually calls it is a broad coalition of diverse people.) He is very passionate about serving the Hungarian people. And it's non-hateful nationalism. Orbán had so much hate in his campaigns, and Magyar had none. None at all. He had a message of unity and hope. And he went all around the country looking at what people need, and promised to do that.
   At the new government's first meeting, one of the things they did was to go and look at the drought-stricken country and take immediate action. Literally on day one. Orbán's government had done nothing.
   So no, you do not have to be content with a boring centrist keep-up-the-status-quo candidate. Look for an exciting centrist work-for-the-people candidate, with as many new-to-politics people as you can possibly get. (Magyar's appeal was also that he refused to work with the old opposition, who have thoroughly discredited themselves already through their failures, and some of them also through their corruption. I know you have a two-party system and that's just not possible to change at this point, but you need to convince the democrats that they need as many new people as possible.)
   But yes, avoiding divisive issues like the plague is a good idea, to get as many votes as possible. Every single time they asked him about a culture-war type issue, he answered that what's more important is that healthcare and education and the economy are crumbling because of Orbán, we need to fix that first. And if pressed, he would say that on divisive issues, we'll hold a referendum and the people will decide directly. That may seem unexciting if you want someone to take a strong stance on something, but honestly, it is an extremely good answer to maximize his voter base, and not a bad policy to have.
   Anyway I think I rambled too long already, I just wanted to say that I'm really happy about our new government, not just because it's not Orbán, but because there is genuine hope for real change with these good, competent, dedicated people who are conscious about the fact that power corrupts. It felt like settling, before I knew so much about them, but it does not feel like settling anymore. And I wish you the best in the fight for a better country for yourselves, too.

5. 

   @letitiajeavons6333

   June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

   The problem is that a consumer economy needs people to have jobs. Which is a problem when AI is causing widespread layoffs. Ai and automation are threatening a lot of jobs.

6. 

   @Min_DustBunny

   June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

   While overall quite low and nowhere near replacement rate, Hungary does have fairly high bithrates for a european country, including central/eastern ones, unlike what this video states.

7. 

   @paiigeeee

   June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

   Oh, Leeja. I get your sentiment, but I’m disappointed by your conclusion that we should just nudge less right.

   Look at NYC with Mamdani. We see candidates like Abdul El-Sayed gaining momentum. We have already elected AOC, Bernie, Tlaib, Omar, etc.

   Let’s give at least some hope for progressive candidates. Things are bad enough that leftist candidates have a chance.

8. 

   @jod2389

   June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

   If you think Orban is bad you should see my country

9. 

   @giggles6906

   June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

   I have stepped up, and am volunteering my time to become a county election judge!

10. 

    @lolpandukai

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    for me, the most unsettling part of listening to the speed run through what Orban did in Hungary is realising how far the previous Polish government managed to get, following in his footsteps, over the years they remained in power. at least they never won the constitutional majority in parliament, so they didn't amend it, and yet it's still a nightmare to untangle the mess they made of the judicial system. I can't even imagine the amount of work the Hungarian government has on their hands if they're hoping to repair even just a part of it

11. 

    @ElJorro

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    The key is to work together. To get anything done we need to get the old guard removed.

12. 

    @itsblitz4437

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    Nice video on Hungary but I feel like you missed a few things on Viktor Orban. For one thing he was very anti-Ukrainian during the Ukraine War as well as fleeing refugees as he was also very supportive of Vladimir Putin and received phone calls 📞 for each other as Viktor would say "I am at your command", Viktor Orban was in Putin's to act as a roadblock for both NATO and the EU, the fact Hungary was against EU integration for Finland and a wrench in the EU political system in general.

13. 

    @courtneystewart8006

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    My local Atheist group in Dallas gathers monthly to make portable heaters for homeless people to use in their tents. We safety check them and train people to safely use them. We also volunteer to make ans serve food at a local residential facility that houses people with AIDs or other people who have housing barriers. These outreach efforts have been very fulfilling for us.

14. 

    @Kyla1112

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    I'd vote for a boring establishment democrat over this nightmare any day (And I did exactly that in 2024). We will still continue to fight for change just the same.

15. 

    @goosegaskins

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    Didn't we do this with Biden?

16. 

    @pinkyhodgkins2185

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    🖤🖤🖤

17. 

    @orsolyaringbauer

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    Leeja you're so good for my mental health

18. 

    @jaimegagnon3994

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    I’m studying social work so I can fix what we are watching get broken

19. 

    @mountainlion1989

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    this is the guy jd vance glowed about, idiot

20. 

    @StellarVulpine

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    I can't support a center right American. I'm trans. They still want me and mine dead

21. 

    @cinemaocd1752

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    Lila is low key trying to get us to barter for pottery…this is the second time she's suggested it. I loved this video. Great advice. I've joined Standards not Force which is building community safe zones in MSP working with business especially to build a network for direct action.

22. 

    @brunorossibonin788

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    Interesting take on this

23. 

    @nans639

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    Unfortunately Americans can't wait until 2028 to oust our Dictator with a vote. He needs to go NOW

24. 

    @InsideAssassin2

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    I’m sorry a move back to the center right will just make it more likely we move far right again. Electoral politics will not save us

25. 

    @RebeccaOliver-c5t

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    Yeah Hungary! 🎉❤🎉

26. 

    @thevirtualjim

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    You do know that 'going to another banal neo-liberal' is what we did when we elected Biden over Trump, and then Trump came right back. We haven't had a left-of-centrist president since maybe FDR, and he created a period of economic success for a much larger % of Americans than most other presidents. And then the right slowly chipped away at it, especially since Reagan, and the dems have done pretty much nothing to bring us back to the center fromt he right the GOP has pulled us to.

27. 

    @lutlutdootdoot

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    As a Hungarian me and my family are celebrating but still can't fully believe it is over. This is a great video, the only thing is that this change is not bc the economy got so bad we couldn't take it, – it was been unbearable for the last 10 years – it is that there were noone running who as been viable and decided to go to the countryside to campaign with unifying messeges.

28. 

    @Llluxembourg

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    Thank you for saying that you as a leftist are also kind of introverted and individualistic because I thought I was the only one who had that internal struggle!

29. 

    @MYKI33334

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    I think what you said at the end is the most important, this wasn't just "voting out" a half-dictator. People have been organizing for years to make the elections as clean as possible. Countless people have been threatened and bribed, to stop this from happening. People spent their own money, used their own time to fight for a political cause that was deemed for 15 years impossible to achieve. Yes obviously the leftist paradise didn't came, but this election had an all time high voting percentage, and people actually feel like they can change their soceity if they stay politically active 💪🏻

30. 

    @mihomaster

    June 6, 2026 at 11:41 pm

    Hungary remembers! (Russians go home!)

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