America is Sliding Towards Autocracy

During Hitler's rise and more recently during Hungary's slide away from democracy many elite institutions and corporate concerns foolishly believed that if they paid to play or went along with the dictatorial regimes they would weather the storm and be left alone and would be allowed to prosper.  In neither situation did this belief prove accurate and democracy and freedom were allowed to wither and it was the autocrats and their families and cronies who prospered, at least in the short term in Hitler's Germany and in today's Hungary. Yes, speaking out and/or opposing those who seek unlimited power and who seek to curtail the rights of citizens holds dangers, but so too does remaining silent or cowering into submission.  A long column in the New York Times looks at the parallels between what happened in Hungary and what is happening here in America and also the desperate need for courage and leadership from those with power that can resist the Felon's regime of corruption, lawlessness and brutality.  The question is whether resistance will grow and whether we see leadership from those with power or cowardice and submission in the mistaken belief that silence and looking away from wrongs will protect you.  The reality is that currently, no one is truly safe. Here are column excerpts:

As the most recent U.S. ambassador to Viktor Orban’s Hungary, I’m often asked if the Trump administration’s tactics and policies feel familiar. The short answer is yes. But the more important — and unsettling — question is this: Does the way Americans are responding feel familiar, too?

After years watching Hungary suffocate under the weight of its democratic collapse, I came to understand that the real danger of a strongman isn’t his tactics; it’s how others, especially those with power, justify their acquiescence.

Take the judiciary. I met leaders of Hungary’s sole independent judicial body in October 2022 to discuss their work. For months afterward, their faces (and mine) were plastered in the papers, branded as traitors and foreign agents, just because they had raised concerns about the rule of law in Hungary. The response from other powerful judges? Silence.

Or take the private sector. Since Mr. Orban became prime minister in 2010, the state has awarded billions in public contracts to his son-in-law and childhood friend, a former plumber named Lorinc Meszaros. What have Hungarian business leaders said? Nothing.

Last year, when Mr. Orban’s close associates reportedly told a multinational retailer to give the prime minister’s family a cut of its business, did other multinational companies speak up? They did not.

Here, too, powerful people are responding to authoritarian advances just as their Hungarian counterparts have — not with defiance, but with capitulation, convinced that they can maintain their independence and stay above the fray.

Major corporations whose logos were once plastered on Pride floats parading down Fifth Avenue now choose to remain on the sidelines. Institutions and professions that have long acted as bastions of critical inquiry, civilized contestation and government accountability have fallen silent.

Many law firms have opted to become instruments of a strongman rather than custodians of the rule of law. Former self-identified defenders of our democracy (back when it cost nothing to support democratic principles), including some who served in Democratic administrations, remain partners at captured institutions, earning millions while skirting their moral and civic responsibility to take a stand.

They cling to the illusion that they can preserve their independence and integrity while making deals with a strongman, just as Hungary’s elite believed they, too, could emerge unscathed. . . . Believing you can outfox a fox is how you become its prey. And American elites, confident in their cleverness, have welcomed a fox into the henhouse.

Investors and executives bought into this narrative, even as their businesses and entire sectors fell prey to economic policies intended to enrich Mr. Orban’s family and friends.

Hungarian judges bought into it, even as Mr. Orban’s machine slowly swallowed their profession. Some saw capitulation in simple terms: as the only way to preserve their access to resources and keep the people who worked for them employed. “We’ll eventually get through this,” they surely told themselves, “but first, we must go along.”

So they all made deals that Mr. Orban engineered: peace with the strongman, in exchange for subjugation and humiliation. Going along is what did them in.

Those best positioned to uphold democratic norms chose the comfort of an illusion over the courage of action. They were and are invisible by choice — and that choice disfigured them and ultimately their country.

The lesson of Hungary is this: We cannot claim to care about democracy only when it costs nothing. President Trump, like Mr. Orban, no doubt believes that everyone can be bought. America’s elites are proving him right. There is a Hungarian phrase I heard often: “Van az a penz” — “There’s always a price.”

If we’re serious about defending democracy, it’s not enough to hold our government accountable in court. . . . Last month, young Hungarians marched in Budapest’s Pride — despite the fact that Mr. Orban had banned it. As usual, Hungarians with power and privilege mostly stayed away. . . . a march of brave, young, gay Hungarians with their lives, futures and country on the line. Hungary’s elites, like so many corporate logos that once decorated floats on Fifth Avenue, were nowhere to be found.

To the stewards of our nation’s great cultural and commercial institutions: Don’t dupe yourselves. The illusion that you are smarter than the strongman, that you’ll outmaneuver him with silent cleverness, is just that — an illusion. Now, more than ever, your principled leadership matters.

Look at those kids in the streets of Budapest last month — and learn from them.