Not impossible: Fed up Hungarians oust ‘a fantastic guy’
Published 1:30 am Tuesday, April 14, 2026
DEAR READER: Something stunning happened in Hungary last Sunday. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian government was consigned to the trash heap of history after 16 years of malignant cronyism.
Anointing the prime minister as “a fantastic guy who has my complete and total endorsement,” President Trump had sent Vice President Vance to Budapest to squeeze Orbán’s shoulders at a campaign rally.
Unimpressed were Hungarian voters. They went to the polls in record numbers, weary of their stagnant economy and a health-care system that caters to the wealthy. The gerrymandered electoral system Orbán’s party created to skew the vote in his favor could not prevent the reckoning:
The party of Orbán’s opponent, Péter Magyar, won two-thirds of the seats in parliament.
Orbán’s support for Vladimir Putin’s ruthless push to subjugate Ukraine, Hungary’s neighbor, was on full display long before 2022 when the Russian dictator invaded a sovereign democratic nation. Orbán opposed European Union sanctions against Russia and used Hungary’s veto to block EU aid to Ukraine. He has been a staunch opponent of NATO.
It remains to be seen how many years it will take to reverse the damage inflicted on Hungary’s constitution by Orbán and his minions, including the prime minister’s wealthy son-in-law and other allies of Russian oligarchs. Shady wheeling and dealing and outright corruption have been rampant.
We must say this about Viktor Orbán: His conscience — atrophied by greed — made an election-night comeback. He congratulated Magyar, saying the election result was “painful” but “clear.”
No “stop the steal” movement, though the MyPillow mogul, Mike Lindell, might yet intervene to share his election expertise with the losers if he can spare a week from his rousing MAGA campaign for governor of Minnesota.
COMMENTATORS are weighing whether the Hungarian ballot box revolt bodes badly for other far-right European parties, notably Alternative für Deutschland, which wants to Make Germany Great Again. That means controlling the media, sharply curtailing immigration of “undesirables,” and cutting funds for higher education and cultural institutions it characterizes as intent on inculcating guilt among German youth over the Holocaust. In other words, the trains ran on time in 1936 and the Autobahn was great.
My favorite German word is unmöglich. Pronounced “un-moog-lish,” it means “impossible.” It delighted me through the language lab headphones at Grays Harbor College in 1961 as I attempted to learn German. Our instructor, Harold Enrico, was a gifted poet and a man of great culture and patience, indulging my immaturity as a reporter for the college newspaper. It was his fate to be its adviser.
I’d never heard unmöglich used with perfect mother-tongue inflection, not to mention passion, until three years later when I spent several memorable weeks at an Air Force base in southwestern Germany. At a tavern one night, I met a young college student whose English was impeccable and moral compass true north. Just 19 years after the end of World War II, he told me his parents still maintained Hitler had done “a lot of good things.”
“Das ist unmöglich!” he said, repeating the phrase when I nodded that I understood. Then, in English, he said, “They’re trying to rewrite history and excuse their shared guilt.”
“Excuse,” I repeated, marveling that his command of English was superior to mine.
Excusing, like silence, is complicity — impossible if you truly care about America.
ON THE HOME FRONT, as gas pump sticker shock reverberated from sea to shining sea over the weekend, Trump sent Vance to negotiate with Iran so he could attend the Ultimate Fighting Championship in Miami. Later, he took a jab at the Pope for preferring peace over his billion-dollar-a-day war and followed up by posting a robed image of himself as a Christ-like figure healing the sick, light emanating from his hands, with a backdrop of fireworks, fighter planes, the Statue of Liberty, and the American flag.
It was a jaw-dropping display of narcissistic blasphemy. And even though many would consider the backlash from his MAGA base tepid at best, it was strong enough to result in the rare removal of the post from the president’s Truth Social account rather than his usual doubling down.
The president then shrugged off the criticism, saying, “I thought it was me as a doctor, and [it] had to do with Red Cross. It’s supposed to be me as a doctor making people better, and I do make people better.”
Are you feeling better, fellow Americans?
John C. Hughes was chief historian for the Office of the Secretary of State for 17 years after retiring as editor and publisher of The Daily World in 2008.
