Hungary's rabid right is taking the country to a political abyss

"The Hungarian right is loud, strident and radical, and benefits from embedded support within various institutions, not least the Catholic church. The church in Hungary has rallied support for the government's policies of victimising the poor and concentrating power in the centre. This close relationship between the church and the government may have a deeper meaning – that Fidesz has become the true party of state, inheritors of the governing apparatus. The Catholic church was chief among the many institutions contaminated by covert state operations, with widespread use of clerics as informants. Given that the MDF's Istvan Csurka admitted that he was an informant for the communist authorities, it is highly likely that the upper reaches of Fidesz also include former opposition figures compromised by informal and covert operations. Some legacies of communism continue to damage public life, yet manifest themselves in hidden ways.

The Hungarian right has established prominent media platforms and built solid institutional networks. The final piece in the puzzle is its direct emulation of modern US Republicanism, with its toxic brew of intolerance, fundamentalist Christianity and xenophobic nationalism. Fidesz national symbolism is strongly redolent of redneck Southern nationalism – the ubiquity of the flag on political platforms, and its placement on flagpoles outside large traditional-styled dwellings. Fidesz trades in a strikingly glossy, soft-brush veneration of nation, family and mum's apple pie (neatly counterpointed in Hungary by the inevitable cauldron of stew). Ranged against these 'good things' are cosmopolitans (Jews), criminals (Gypsies), sexual deviants (homosexuals) and people who want to give prisoners an easy time (liberals). This straightforward approach defines the opposition as a set of grotesque caricatures before it has a chance to mount any kind of challenge. It is as brutally effective now as it was in 1964, when Harold Wilson was able to define the Tories as incompetent, grouse-hunting aristocrats. Fidesz does hard politics, delivered effectively. However, to reinforce the message, such a strategy has increasingly relied upon hate speech and castigation of different minorities. The resulting effluent provides rich pickings for neo-fascist groups."