‘The last bastion is gone’: the US right idolised Orbán’s Hungary. Can they recover now he has fallen?

Why This Matters

Key context: <p>Over the past decade, Hungary has been a beacon for the ‘postliberal’ right, with pro-Trump thinkers making regular pilgrimages to Budapest. Now Orbán is gone, how will the movement adapt?</p><ul><li><p>A longer version of this article first appeared in <a href="https://www.thedriftmag.com/the-last-days-of-the-danube-institute/">The Drift</a></p></li></ul><p>Espresso Embassy, a third-wave coffee shop in Budapest’s diplomatic and governmental quarter, is where visiting reporters and academics come to talk politics. On the way in for my morning coffee on 18 March, I passed a poster for Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party that had been vandalised with a&nbsp;marker pen: “the safe choice” had become “the certain way to get fucked”. From across the cafe, I spotted the American journalist and historian Anne Applebaum locked in conversation, possibly with a source. I&nbsp;heard someone exclaim: “Just like Mussolini!” It was election season in Hungary.</p><p>It was also a couple of days before <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/22/trump-lauds-viktor-orban-far-right-leaders-gather-budapest">Cpac Hungary</a>, a satellite event of the US-based conservative conference. As members of the international right arrived in town, the notorious Orbánist thinktank known as the Danube Institute was hosting an event called On Censorship, Tolerance, the Left and God. The official line would be: bad, good, bad, good.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/oct/20/the-last-bastion-is-gone-the-us-right-idolised-orbans-hungary-can-they-recover-now-he-has-fallen">Continue reading...</a> This development from The Guardian highlights ongoing changes in the sector.