Hungarian Top Minister Viktor Orbán stood ahead of a captivated target audience of conservative activists from the U.S. and laid out his imaginative and prescient for American politics.
The Western media, he declared at a Might 2022 particular assembly of the Conservative Political Motion Committee in Budapest, are “the root of the problem.” The important thing to conservatives reclaiming energy in america? “Have your own media.”
Orbán spoke from enjoy, having systematically reshaped Hungary’s political panorama since 2010, in large part via reining within the self reliant press and changing it with a faithful media equipment. His recommendation, despite the fact that at odds with democratic values, was once warmly embraced via his American admirers, together with conservative reporters, podcasters and political leaders.
Now, 3 years later, one specific political determine, President Donald Trump, seems to have taken Orbán’s phrases to middle, mimicking Orbán’s early movements and shifting hastily to dictate the phrases of his personal protection.
A protest via Hungarian civil society in opposition to Top Minister Viktor Orban’s govt on Oct. 23, 2012.
Picture via Dagmar Gester/ullstein bild by the use of Getty Pictures
New phrases for the clicking
In his first 100 days, Trump asserted new regulate over the clicking, beginning with those that quilt him day-to-day.
In February 2025, his management barred The Related Press from the Oval Place of job for the usage of “Gulf of Mexico” reasonably than adopting the president’s newly named “Gulf of America.”
Quickly after, Trump’s crew stripped the White Space Correspondents’ Affiliation of its authority to make a decision which retailers are within the presidential press pool, a task reporters have held for over a century.
Now, Trump has escalated the ones calls for, calling at the Federal Communications Fee to punish CBS and revoke its license over a “60 Minutes” section he didn’t like. He declared the community’s protection “unlawful and illegal.”
From sidelining newshounds to looking for prison retribution, Trump’s movements mirror no longer a chain of remoted strikes however a coordinated effort at media overhaul – one aligned together with his broader try to restructure nationwide establishments.
As a student who research propaganda fashions and narrative regulate, I imagine the most likely supply for this media overhaul playbook is Orbán.
Hungarian Top Minister Viktor Orban waves as he walks onto the level to talk on the Conservative Political Motion Convention in Dallas on Aug. 4, 2022.
AP Picture/LM Otero
The Orbán style
I’ve intently adopted how Orbán consolidated regulate over the Hungarian press as top minister, permitting him to mission the appearance of media consensus and common strengthen. His marketing campaign started promptly after returning to energy in 2010.
This was once no longer simply an effort to mood grievance; it was once the outlet transfer in a broader way to remake Hungarian media.
The regulation drew sharp condemnation, maximum particularly from reporters but additionally from the Ecu Union. When Orbán later addressed the Ecu Parliament, participants protested via taping their mouths close and maintaining indicators that learn “censored.”
To his critics, Orbán claimed that Hungary’s “media regulation system” had “collapsed” and that it was once his govt’s responsibility to rebuild it. However for the clicking, this was once no reconstruction.
As one Hungarian journalist put it, “Orbán saw the media as a battlefield; occupied by enemy troops and crowded with territories for potential expansion.”
Oligarchs take over media
The true takeover got here thru a coordinated wave of media acquisitions.
Many once-independent retailers have been quickly resurrected as pro-Orbán media.
By means of 2018, the consolidation was once entire.
In a show of political choreography, just about 500 privately owned media retailers have been donated to a central maintaining corporate: KESMA – the Central Ecu Press and Media Basis. Run via Orbán’s allies, KESMA now dominates Hungary’s media panorama, turning in a uniform circulation of pro-Orbán content material, selling what he calls his “illiberal” time table.
Orbán’s marketing campaign introduced a Twenty first-century style for media regulate – one rooted no longer in overt censorship however in narrative saturation. Whilst some self reliant media stay, the huge refrain of pro-Orbán media now drowns out their dissent.
It’s a style that has drawn admiration from right-wing figures around the globe.
American media personalities equivalent to Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson have traveled to Budapest to satisfy with Orbán and learn about his playbook, whilst the Hungarian chief has turn out to be a celebrity at the U.S. conservative circuit, talking at Conservative Political Motion Committee gatherings and forging ties with the MAGA motion and Trump.
After becoming a member of him at the marketing campaign path closing summer time, Orbán boasted of his “deep involvement” in serving to form Trump’s upcoming time table.
Uploading the playbook
Reporter Brian Glenn from Actual The usa’s Voice asks questions flattering to President Trump all the way through an Oval Place of job press convention on Feb. 28, 2025.
Having a look again on the president’s first 100 days, it’s transparent that Orbán’s ways at the moment are surfacing in Trump’s 2nd time period.
The place Orbán handed a media regulation to penalize imbalanced reporting, Trump now calls positive protection unlawful, and his management has begun investigations into a minimum of one media outlet. He has additionally begun to sideline retailers that defy his time table, as his press workplace continues denying get entry to to twine services and products equivalent to Reuters and Bloomberg.
The place Orbán’s allies bought and repurposed adverse media, Trump has discovered robust media companions of his personal, equivalent to Elon Musk. Musk’s 2022 takeover of Twitter, now X, mirrors the method of Orbán’s billionaire allies, permitting the tech tycoon to successfully turn out to be the platform right into a megaphone for Trump’s time table.
After all, simply as Orbán built an unlimited loyalist media community, Trump allies are increasing a parallel MAGA media universe designed to enlarge and protect his message.
That equipment is now a fixture of the White Space. As self reliant retailers equivalent to AP and Reuters are shuffled out, a brand new crop of pro-Trump voices are ushered in. Amongst them: Steve Bannon’s Warfare Room, Actual The usa’s Voice and Lindell TV, based via MyPillow CEO and Trump suggest Mike Lindell. Those networks don’t simply quilt the management − they rejoice it.
Brian Glenn, a reporter with Actual The usa’s Voice, was once lately granted the primary query in an Oval Place of job press match. He used it to reward Trump’s accomplishments and ballot numbers: “All of your agenda that you ran on, you’re accomplishing that. You’ve got the support of the American people. … If you can comment on the latest Harvard poll, I’d appreciate that.”
At any other briefing, a Lindell TV correspondent requested press secretary Karoline Leavitt if she may proportion Trump’s health plan, remarking that he appeared “healthier than ever,” and including, “I’m sure everyone in this room can agree.”
Settlement is exactly the purpose. By means of recasting the media in his symbol, Trump is construction a press pool that can champion his message. It’s Orbán’s phantasm of consensus, and that is simply the outlet act.
