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Samuel Alito's Anger Problem
The right-wing Supreme Court justice has a well-established pattern of outbursts that has not subsided with his remarkable success in dragging this country backward.
Jul 23, 2026
You might think that an archconservative who has used his lifetime seat on the Supreme Court to send US law back to the 1920s would take a victory lap and maybe chill just a bit. But no. Despite his success in helping to dismantle abortion rights, attacking public-sector labor unions, elevating gun rights, promoting “religious liberty,” and destroying the Voting Rights Act, Justice Samuel Alito Jr. is still seething mad, motivated by ideological extremism and a stack of personal grievances, some dating to his childhood in Trenton, New Jersey.
Alito’s well-established pattern of outbursts was on full view during the court’s June 26 announcement of several late-term rulings. He set the tone for the session by reading a summary of his cruel 6-3 majority opinion that denied political asylum-seekers the right to enter the country before reaching the US-Mexico border (Mullin v. Al Otro Lado). Finishing quickly, he paused before moving on to summarize another of his opinions. Justice Sonia Sotomayor apparently took the break in the action as a cue to read a synopsis of her dissent. Dissenters often refrain from reading their summaries, but there is nothing unusual about them opting to speak up, provided they give advance notice of their intentions.
Sotomayor blasted Alito’s handiwork. “The consequences of today’s decision are predictable,” she said. “More people will die. More people will attempt to cross the border illegally, and some will make it while others will not.” Her remarks apparently enraged Alito, making him look, in the words of NPR’s legal affairs correspondent Nine Totenberg, like “he had just bitten into a lemon.”
“There is much that I would have added to my bench statement had I known there would be a dissent read,” Alito said, uttering remarks that, in the staid confines of the nation’s most august judicial body, were veritable obscenities that prompted audible gasps from spectators and reporters in the gallery. A court spokesperson later clarified that Alito was in fact notified of Sotomayor’s plans, but to date, he has not publicly apologized. Like the president whose policies he almost always supports, Alito invariably overreacts and never recants.
The problem is not that Alito has personal hang-ups—we all do—but that so many of his hang-ups have become the law of the land.
Who can forget Alito sneering on live TV during Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address, mouthing the words “not true” as the president decried the court’s Citizens United opinion and the impact it would have on future elections, including greater foreign influence? Since then, Alito has only gotten more unhinged and offensive, becoming a regular featured speaker at Federalist Society events, railing against the legalization of gay marriage, labeling the Second Amendment and freedom of religion as “unfavored” constitutional rights, and condemning liberals as a threat to civil liberties.
In September 2021, Alito went ballistic after The Atlantic magazine staff writer Adam Serwer penned a column accusing the court’s right-wing majority of releasing a 5-4 shadow-docket ruling on Texas’ newly enacted vigilante abortion law in the middle of the night to minimize public outcry. In an hour-long live-streamed speech delivered at University of Notre Dame, he excoriated the press for portraying the court’s conservatives as “a dangerous cabal that resorts to sneaky and improper methods to get its ways,” and for feeding “unprecedented efforts to intimidate the court or damage it as an independent institution.”
In June 2023, Alito again went off the rails with an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that lambasted a ProPublica report that in 2008 he took a luxury fishing trip to Alaska, flying for free aboard a private jet owned by Republican megadonor Paul Singer. The problem, according to ProPublica, wasn’t just that Alito had failed to recuse himself from reviewing lawsuits involving Singer’s hedge fund, but that he also failed to note anything about the excursion on the annual financial disclosure forms required under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.
Claiming he had no duty to reveal the junket, he argued that his spot on the private jet “would have otherwise been an unoccupied seat” if he had not accepted the billionaire’s offer of a free ride, and that gifts of “hospitality” need not be reported. In a follow-up interview with the Journal, he added, “Congress did not create the Supreme Court” and “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period.”
Alito’s official court opinions have been equally acerbic and hyperbolic. They arguably reached a crescendo in his 2022 majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization). Not content with simply overruling the 50-year-old precedent on which US women had come to rely as an essential part of their healthcare, he wrote: “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.”
When used by a high court justice, the phrase “egregiously wrong” is an insult and a sign of contempt. And to add further insult, Alito reached deep into the bowels of Anglo-American common law to override Roe, citing the work of Henry de Bracton, a 13th-century English cleric and judge who condemned abortions as homicide, and a 17th-century English jurist who sentenced at least three women accused of using witchcraft to death.
What’s behind Alito’s fury and habit of issuing norm-breaking invective? As Georgia State University law professor Eric Segall told The Wall Street Journal in an article published this month, “Alito thinks of the other side as the enemy.” And true to Segall’s observation, Alito unwittingly admitted as much at the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual dinner in 2024, when documentary filmmaker Lauren Windsor asked whether there was any way the country could overcome its terrible polarization, then surreptitiously recorded Alito’s answer that “there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.”
Like most extremists, Alito has views that derive not just from his abstract political beliefs, but from his lived experiences growing up in a predominantly white Christian community as the son of deeply religious Catholic Italian immigrants, and later as an out-of-place right winger at Princeton University and Yale Law School.
In a revealing new biography, Revenge for the Sixties: Sam Alito and the Triumph of the Conservative Legal Movement, journalist Peter S. Canellos offers a compelling psychological portrait of Alito as a man dismayed by the demographic and secular changes that have transformed and, by his estimation, degraded the country of his boyhood. Alito has been on a mission to reverse those trends ex cathedra from his perch on the Supreme Court.
The problem is not that Alito has personal hang-ups—we all do—but that so many of his hang-ups have become the law of the land. On June 30, NPR’s Totenberg erroneously reported that Alito planned to retire so that President Donald Trump might nominate a younger right-wing zealot to the bench. The story turned out not to be true and was promptly retracted. Too bad for her—and even worse for the country.
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Hate Group Turns DC Into 'Fascist Hellscape' With July 4 March
"Absolutely terrifying to have white supremacist hate group Patriot Front march through our streets today in Washington, DC," one human rights lawyer said.
Jul 04, 2026
Hundreds of members of the white nationalist hate group Patriot Front descended on Washington DC Saturday morning as the nation's capital prepared to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Members of the group, wearing masks and carrying Confederate and US flags, rode the DC metro and marched around parts of Capitol Hill before departing the city by train, as WUSA reported. Beyond the march itself, no other incidents were reported connected to the group.
"What kind of fascist hellscape is [happening] on Pennsylvania Ave at the Eastern Market Metro stop?" Georgetown Law professor Josh Chafetz wrote on Bluesky upon spotting the group.
Chafetz said the group appeared to be all white and all male.
What kind of fascist hellscape is happing on Pennsylvania Ave at the Eastern Market Metro stop? These guys—seemingly all white, all men—have their faces covered, are carrying shields, wearing brown …
[image or embed]
— Josh Chafetz (@joshchafetz.bsky.social) July 4, 2026 at 6:43 AM
"Absolutely terrifying to have white supremacist hate group Patriot Front march through our streets today in Washington, DC," human rights lawyer Mai El-Sadany wrote on social media. "Their manifesto calls for a white ethnostate, excludes people of color from their definition of citizenship, and is deeply antisemitic and xenophobic."
In one video shared by WTOP reporter Mitchell Miller, members of the group stood in a line outside DC's Union Station chanting, "Life, liberty, victory" and "Reclaim America."
A group of masked men gathered at Union Station today and called for reclaiming the country and getting rid of immigrants. Some held Confederate flags. They have been marching across Capitol Hill. pic.twitter.com/xTfaoJDHOO
— Mitchell Miller (@mmillerwtop) July 4, 2026
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Patriot Front split from Vanguard America after the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, at which white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into counterprotesters, killing anti-racist activist Heather Heyer and injuring 35 others
"Patriot Front is an image-obsessed organization that rehabilitated the explicitly fascist agenda of Vanguard America with garish patriotism. Patriot Front focuses on theatrical rhetoric and activism that can be easily distributed as propaganda for its chapters across the country," SPLC explains.
The group believes that democracy no longer functions and wants to transform the US into a "pan-European" ethnostate that excludes both citizens of color and new immigrants and refugees.
One image from a Reuters photographer shows the masked Patriot Front marchers standing around a Black woman sitting on the DC Metro.
"This image is from today. A Black woman sits on the DC metro as masked white nationalists prepare to march on our nation's capital. This is America's 250th anniversary," attorney Aaron Parnas posted on social media.
This image is from today. A Black woman sits on the DC metro as masked white nationalists prepare to march on our nation's capital.
This is America's 250th anniversary. REUTERS/Cheney Orr pic.twitter.com/eIO8XJwIuA
— Aaron Parnas (@AaronParnas) July 4, 2026
Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, blasted the group for carrying Confederate flags and embracing fascism while claiming the mantle of US patriotism.
"You have no right to call yourself a '[patriot]' while carrying the flag of one of America's enemies, and claiming victory on behalf of the ideology that fueled another—both of which the US defeated," D'Arrigo wrote on social media.
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What Progressives Can Learn From Mexico About Avoiding a Right-Wing Backlash
Mexico’s continuity may reflect not only the material results achieved by the government, but also the broader narrative through which those results were understood.
Jun 26, 2026
The recent presidential election in Colombia highlighted a striking political paradox. New data from the country’s national statistics agency shows that the national poverty rate fell to 28% in 2025, the lowest level ever recorded. Nearly 1.8 million Colombians moved out of poverty in a single year, while extreme poverty and income inequality also declined. The figures represent a significant social achievement and continue a multi-year trend of improving living standards.
Yet, despite this advance, Colombians elected right-wing lawyer and businessman Abelardo De La Espriella, whose nationalist and law-and-order platform marks a sharp contrast with the policies of outgoing President Gustavo Petro. The outcome suggests that even significant social and economic progress does not necessarily translate into electoral support for the government that helped produce it.
Nor is Colombia unique. Across the region, electoral cycles have repeatedly shown that social progress does not necessarily produce lasting political loyalty. Similar patterns can be seen in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and elsewhere in South America, where periods of progressive governance have often been followed by the election of more conservative leaders or governments with markedly different priorities.
Former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa offered one explanation for this phenomenon. He argued that when people escape poverty and enter the middle class, many become primarily concerned with preserving their newly acquired status. As a result, they may become less supportive of policies aimed at extending similar benefits to others. Whether or not one accepts this interpretation, it highlights an important political challenge: The very success of progressive social policies may alter the interests, expectations, and priorities of the people they benefit, making long-term political continuity more difficult to sustain.
The very success of progressive social policies may alter the interests, expectations, and priorities of the people they benefit, making long-term political continuity more difficult to sustain.
There is, however, one notable exception: Mexico.
Mexico presents an important counterexample. The presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador was followed by the election of Claudia Sheinbaum, who belongs to the same political movement and has pledged to continue much of the same agenda. Rather than producing a backlash, the governing project maintained broad popular support through a successful leadership transition.
Why Was Mexico different?
Part of the answer may lie not only in policy outcomes but also in political identity. While many progressive governments in South America have defined themselves primarily through ideological labels such as socialism or the left, Mexico’s governing movement increasingly describes itself through the concept of Mexican Humanism. Although its policies share many objectives with progressive governments elsewhere, the language is notably different. Mexican Humanism emphasizes dignity, community, solidarity, and national culture rather than ideological affiliation.
This distinction may matter. Political projects framed primarily in ideological terms can reinforce divisions between supporters and opponents. Projects rooted in shared cultural and ethical values may be better positioned to build identification across traditional political boundaries. From this perspective, Mexico’s continuity may reflect not only the material results achieved by the government, but also the broader narrative through which those results were understood.
The Colombian election therefore raises a broader question for Latin America. If poverty reduction, lower inequality, and improved social indicators are not enough to guarantee political continuity, what is missing? Is the decisive factor economic performance, security, media influence, political organization, or something deeper within a nation’s culture?
Mexico suggests that political durability may depend on more than effective governance alone. It may also require a shared sense of identity and purpose that transcends conventional ideological categories. The most interesting question may not be why some countries move from the left to the right, but why Mexico has not.
This article was first published on Pressenza.
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Clarence Thomas Is More Dangerous and Powerful Than Ever
As Thomas reportedly told two of his law clerks in 1993, he planned to serve until 2034, and until then would continue to make the lives of liberals “miserable.” He has already made good on that pledge.
Jun 25, 2026
Clarence Thomas went more than 10 years without asking a single substantive question from the bench. His silence between 2006 and 2016 prompted commentators to call his courtroom quietude embarrassing, a sign of fatigue and a lack of intellectual candlepower. Even earlier in his career, he had earned the nickname of “Scalia’s Puppet” for his habit of joining majority opinions written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the outspoken and reactionary “originalist” who shared the dais with him until his death in 2016.
But the characterization of Thomas as an inattentive echo of Scalia is wrong. Thomas has always been more extreme and dangerous than Scalia, and his influence has never been greater.
After his bruising 1991 confirmation hearing, Thomas set his eyes on the goal of moving American law backward to the laissez-faire era of the Gilded Age, undoing the regulatory state of the New Deal, weakening the civil rights legislation of the 1950s and ’60s, and undermining many of the forward-looking precedent decisions issued by the Warren Court. As Thomas reportedly told two of his law clerks in 1993, he planned to serve until 2034, and until then would continue to make the lives of liberals “miserable.” He has already made good on that pledge: He is now the second-longest serving Supreme Court justice in history.
Thomas is best known for concurrences and dissents that seemed culled from the lunatic fringe when he wrote them, but were later embraced by the majority as the court moved hard right.
There is no telling how much more jurisprudential carnage he will cause or how much more disgrace he will bring to the reputation of the world’s most powerful judicial tribunal.
On affirmative action, in a 1995 case on government contracting (Adarand Constructors v. Pena), his concurrence denounced “remedial racial preferences” in federal hiring as a form of “racial paternalism.” This was an astonishing choice of words for the nation’s second Black Supreme Court justice, who overcame childhood poverty and, after a brief flirtation with Black nationalism, became the beneficiary of affirmative action at Yale Law School. Twenty-eight years later, however, in a majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts (Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard), the court ended affirmative action in higher education.
On abortion in a 2000 case (Stenberg v. Carhart) that invalidated Nebraska’s late-term abortion ban, Thomas dissented, arguing that the Roe v. Wade decision was “grievously wrong,” and that nothing in the Constitution “dictates that a State” must legalize abortion. Twenty-two years later, Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization adopted Thomas’ view.
Ditto for the Second Amendment. In Printz v. United States, a 1997 gun-regulation case, Thomas contributed a concurrence arguing that the amendment encompassed a personal right to keep and bear arms rather than simply a right connected with service in state militias, as prior case law had clearly held. Eleven years later, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the court recognized the personal right in an opinion authored by Scalia. Thomas went on to expand the personal right in 2022 with his majority opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, a decision that severely handicaps state and local authorities from enforcing gun-control laws.
Thomas is also on record advising the court to revisit its precedent decisions on the right to court-appointed counsel in criminal trials (Gideon v. Wainwright, 1963); the right of married persons to contraception (Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965); the right of adults to engage in private consensual sex (Lawrence v. Texas, 2003); and the right to same-sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015). He has also called for the court to reconsider 1964’s New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark case establishing First Amendment protections in defamation cases involving public officials and public figures, which is widely considered the lynchpin of freedom of the press in America.
In a recent column published by the influential Scotusblog website, constitutional law scholar Erwin Chemerinsky noted that “Thomas is the only justice… who has openly said that precedent deserves little weight in constitutional law.”
Despite his laid-back courtroom demeanor, Thomas has also been an active and loquacious speaker out of court on the right-wing banquet and convention circuit, especially in meetings of the Federalist Society and events hosted by Hillsdale College, the Michigan-based private Christian institution long recognized as a hub for conservative thought leaders and a breeding ground for the right-wing’s ever expanding culture wars.
Supreme Court justices typically attend academic, judicial, and bar-related conferences, and initially, Thomas’ public remarks were fairly judge like, focusing on time-honored topics like judicial independence. But as his stature grew and the court’s lurch to the right accelerated, he shed whatever inhibitions he once had about voicing his personal beliefs, becoming in time a full-fledged and open culture war combatant.
n a 2011 address at a law student symposium sponsored by the Federalist Society in Charlottesville, Virginia, he devoted most of his time not to expounding on legal doctrine but to defending his tea party activist wife Ginni against adverse press coverage. He also exhorted his young audience to be wary of the “fundamental changes” wrought by the left that aimed to distort the original meaning of the Constitution. In a 2016 commencement speech at Hillsdale, he went further, urging graduates “not [to] hide your faith and your beliefs under a bushel basket… in this world that seems to have gone mad with political correctness.”
Thomas is now unbound and unrestrained. In a speech on April 15 at the University of Texas, he went “full Monty” in an unhinged broadside against liberals and progressives. “Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government declaring,” he declared, continuing:
It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God but from government… [Progressivism] was the first mainstream American political movement—with the possible exception of the pro-slavery reactionaries on the eve of the Civil War—to openly oppose the principles of the Declaration.
He went on to blame progressives for the 20th century evils of racial segregation and eugenics, insisting that “Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao” were “intertwined with the rise of progressivism.”
All this from an angry and embittered ideologue who is also arguably the most corrupt justice in the Supreme Court’s history, having failed for 13 years to report his wife Virginia’s earnings on his annual financial disclosure forms, and who has been on the gimme end of lavish vacations funded by billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow.
Thomas celebrated his 78th birthday on June 23. He may not make it to his projected retirement date of 2034, but until he actually steps down, whether voluntarily or post mortem in the fashion of Scalia, there is no telling how much more jurisprudential carnage he will cause or how much more disgrace he will bring to the reputation of the world’s most powerful judicial tribunal.
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Colombians Voted Against Their Collective Memory on Sunday
But the support for Ivan Cepeda offers some hope for the country's future.
Jun 23, 2026
It’s still hard to swallow, almost 24-hours after one of the most intense, indeed stressful election days in Colombia that I’ve witnessed, albeit from here in New York.
Colombian right-wing candidate Abelardo de la Espriella does appear to have clinched a very narrow victory in Sunday's presidential election, at least according to the initial ballot count that still needed to be officially verified as of this writing.
De la Espriella had 49.66% of the vote while his rival, Senator Ivan Cepeda, trailed by roughly 250,000 votes at 48.70%, according to the national registrar's tally of just under 100% of ballots in the runoff election.
In trying to make personal sense of the closest presidential elections in recent Colombian history, I can’t help but think that the final results are a reflection of how Colombia has failed to acknowledge its stained history of state-sponsored, politically motivated violence, even ten years after a fragile peace accord was signed that put an end to one aspect of the decades-long conflict.
What we must not take away from this electoral outcome is that de la Espriella is an “outsider” who, by challenging the political status quo in Colombia, will bring something new in his approach to governing the country.
This latest election represents a national rejection—albeit by a very narrow margin—of the policies of “total peace” of the current administration of President Gustavo Petro. The results are an affirmation of and an open call for “total war,” reminiscent of some of the darkest days of the widespread regional violence that occurred throughout the country at the turn of the century and the early stages of this century.
A portion of the Colombian electorate—almost half—continues to view the country’s troubles through a fractured lens of national security, of unrepentant militarism, and of the firm belief in the need to apply the heavy hand of the state to confront criminality. These Colombians have essentially vetoed their collective memory of generational violence, of a civil war whose origins have always been traced back precisely to the lack of a state presence where it is most needed—in a sustainable public health system; in accessible housing and education; in the opportunities that come with equitable distribution of land, the protection of human rights, and universal support for robust democratic participation across the citizenry, regardless of race, class, or political affiliation.
Instead, they’ve voted for a person openly committed to gutting 40% of the already weakened state in all these sectors. De la Espriella has blamed Petro, the former M-19 guerilla leader and outgoing president, for the country's current economic and security troubles. The growth of these armed groups throughout the country in recent years are attributed to Petro’s attempt to negotiate directly an end to the violence during his time in office. Rarely are the policies of Petro’s predecessor, Ivan Duque, mentioned in this context, despite his deliberate efforts to jettison just about every aspect of the 2016 peace accords between FARC and the Colombian government, leading in many ways to the expansion of these groups.
And now, the president-elect has vowed to end all talks with the armed criminal organizations, while boosting the oil and gas sector, lowering taxes for the middle and upper classes, and building massive prisons to detain indefinitely all the criminals they can find in the process, a la strongman Nayib Bukele of El Salvador. He pledges to fortify the military and manage the state security forces with an iron fist, something that will be made much easier by a blank-check insurance policy granted to him by the Trump-Rubio-Hegseth Western Hemisphere doctrine of domination and control.
The opposing candidate of the left-of-center coalition known as Pacto Historico, Senator Ivan Cepeda, 63, had pledged to continue many of the policies of President Petro, the country's first leftist president. Those policies included state pension payments for the poor, union-backed labor reforms, a moratorium on new oil projects, and continued peace talks with armed groups to try to put an end of the ongoing violence. Some analysts think Cepeda should have distanced himself a bit more from Petro on the campaign trail, given how the media openly embraced the Kryptonite narrative that Petro represents for the left in Colombia. Instead, Cepeda, himself the victim of state-sponsored violence, stuck to a set of arguments tied to building peace through social justice, human rights, and most importantly, not returning to the past.
Despite the youthful energy and visible enthusiasm of the very diverse range of supporters who came out for Cepeda’s candidacy, it was not enough to put a pause on the establishment’s profound, almost religious hatred of left-wing leaders with social movement connections, who are almost instantaneously written off as puppets of guerrilla terror, branded threats to the Colombian homeland. In many ways, it’s much like the simplistic MAGA refrain for attacking their opponents as un-American or enemies of the people, except in the Colombian context, it is a recipe for extreme violence, death sentences for many of those on the receiving end.
Over 12 million Colombians did not vote for this reactionary, ahistorical vision for the country. More than 12 million voters placed their bets on a future of peace and dignity for all Colombians.
What we must not take away from this electoral outcome is that de la Espriella is an “outsider” who, by challenging the political status quo in Colombia, will bring something new in his approach to governing the country, a tantalizing myth that somehow caught traction during the campaign in the Colombian corporate press and their counterparts in the US media. De la Espriella may not have the privileged political pedigree of the openly nepotistic tradition that has characterized over a century of Colombian political history, but to call him an outsider in 2026 is to ignore the foundation of his success as a defense attorney, a businessman, and of the fortune that allowed him to fund his campaign independent of the “mainstream” power bosses of the Colombian political elite.
He is an entrenched insider within the right-wing, para-state apparatus that had metastasized like a slow-moving blood cancer into every part of the governing class in Colombia since the early 2000s. This para-state infrastructure was built on the backs of the millions of internally displaced Black, Indigenous, and peasant communities; tens of thousands of forcibly disappeared; and the many innocent civilians murdered in countless massacres that brought fear to the countryside for decades.
While FARC rebels were guilty of much of the violence in Colombia since the mid-1990s, it was the brutal reaction to FARC criminality carried out by the unholy alliance between large landowners, narco-traffickers, and the military that blew the lid open for the widespread terror we saw from 2000 to 2010.
Behind this was a public discourse framed by the term “democratic security,” coined by former two-term President Alvaro Uribe Vélez, and backed wholeheartedly by the US under its Plan Colombia project. It was followed by eventual “negotiations” between the paramilitaries and the Uribe government, as well as a major scandal where it was exposed that almost half of the elected members of Colombia’s Congress had direct ties with the paramilitary organizations that were responsible for the above-mentioned crimes. De la Espriella understood this when he defended many of the paramilitary leaders and narco-traffickers implicated in these crimes. This is an insider who made his mark in this process. There’s no denying this.
The tough-guy approach to national politics that the “Tiger” so openly declared on the campaign trail is the continuation of a long process of authoritarian, right-wing extremism that emerged in the early 1990s, one that sees any opposition to their political, economic, or territorial control of the country as the equivalent of terrorism that must be liquidated militarily. This is the profound danger I see right now in the days, months, and years ahead for Colombia.
Nevertheless, with all these dark clouds on the horizon, for the millions of people who supported Ivan Cepeda in these elections, there is room for some optimism, albeit with considerable caution.
That is the fact that over 12 million Colombians did not vote for this reactionary, ahistorical vision for the country. More than 12 million voters placed their bets on a future of peace and dignity for all Colombians. They hit the streets and attended rallies and posted online videos recalling the darkest days of the war, shouting the names of the victims of this violence, saluting the brave mothers who still demand justice for their sons killed by state security forces.
They did not vote against their collective memory.
They are a very powerful force today, and for the future of Colombia.
They will not be backing down any time soon.
For they’ve faced the barrel of many guns in the past, and they’re still here.
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Why the People of Bolivia Are Revolting
To understand why Bolivia is on the brink, we must understand a fundamental betrayal of the people by their political representatives.
Jun 18, 2026
For over six weeks now, Bolivia has been engulfed in a national revolt. What started as sectoral demands over public employee salaries, fuel subsidies, and land rights has metastasized into a full-throated cry for the resignation of Trump-aligned President Rodrigo Paz. The country is paralyzed by more than 100 road blockades that have severed the capital, La Paz, from the rest of the nation, cutting off food, fuel, and medicine. Ten people are dead, dozens more injured, and over 300 have been arrested. Journalists and activists have also been caught in the violence.
The government’s response has been a schizophrenic mix of hollow calls for peaceful dialogue and negotiation, and brutal repression. Paz has signed deals with some social sectors, and organized a Social Economic Council, while jailing the leaders of the groups he’s “negotiating” with.
Thousands of militarized police have been deployed, using tear gas, rubber bullets, and, according to persistent rumors the government denies, live ammunition. Leaders of various protest groups, including the Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB), the largest trade union in the country, and radical Aymara defense force Ponchos Rojos, have been jailed. The Wiphala, the sacred flag of Bolivia’s Indigenous majority, has been burned in public squares by counterprotesters while the state itself no longer displays it publicly.
As Argentinian President Javier Milei’s expatriated adviser Fernando Cerimedo put it, this government is fighting against “dirty leftists.” Cerimedo was reportedly crucial in deporting a human rights mission from Argentina this week. Protest leaders and politicians have been kidnapped in broad daylight, including one senator with the Movement Toward Socialism, taken by police in plain clothes.
When a government disregards the voting blocs that got it into office, blocks every avenue for democratic change, criminalizes dissent, and rules on behalf of a foreign-aligned racist elite, it leaves the people few political options for engagement and representation.
Far-right groups and “The Resistance” have re-popularized the slogan, “Make the homeland, kill an indian,” which had become a popular rallying cry in the 2019 coup. Those same far-right groups were also seen in San Julian, near Santa Cruz, using illegal weapons and explosives against protesters, alongside state security forces. The Paz government has not rebuked any of these figures, statements, or actions, and instead cracked down further on the left.
Internationally, the reaction maps perfectly onto the new ideological conflict dividing Latin America. The right-wing autocrats, from Argentina’s Milei and Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado to the Trump administration, have been unequivocal. They have labeled the protesters “narco-terrorists” threatening democracy itself, with the government applauding their solidarity.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth declared that the US “will reject all attempts to overthrow the legitimate government.” President Donald Trump himself expressed solidarity for Paz at the Shield of the Americas, held at his very own Trump Resort in Miami. This support has emboldened the Bolivian far-right, which is openly pushing for a full “state of exception,” a euphemism for martial law that has been developed by various autocrats including Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, to crush democracy and opposition in the name of a “war on drugs.”
That scenario is likely for Bolivia, too, where protesters labeled “narco-terrorists” would be the subject of that war on drugs. Paz and the government coalition in the Plurinational Assembly have already passed and signed a law modifying the state of exception law. The old law was passed in 2020, after the pro-US unelected government of Jeanine Anez committed multiple massacres against opposition in that state of exception, to try to tamper state abuses.
Now, many safeguards have been removed, with the law giving carte blanche to state agents to kill, seize property, shut down telecommunications, and suspend political rights. The president has also declared a 90-day humanitarian emergency, which allowed for the deployment of militarized forces in El Alto, leading to the death of one protester and multiple injuries.
To understand why Bolivia is on the brink, we must understand a fundamental betrayal of the people by their political representatives. Rodrigo Paz ran under the banner of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), a big-tent coalition with Indigenous currents previously aligned with the left, populist anti-corruption crusaders, and hard-right figures from the Santa Cruz elite. Voters, exhausted by the chronic crises of the Luis Arce administration and facing a nightmare choice against the far-right former president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga (who was vice president to former pro-US dictator, Hugo Banzer), held their noses and voted for what they believed was the least destructive option.
They were promised “Capitalism for Everyone,” a softer, more competent alternative that would see public programs and social rights protected while opening up the country further.
Instead, Paz’s first months have been a masterclass in neoliberal shock therapy, looking to privatize energy, cutting public services and subsidies, restructuring debt with American financial institutions, and proposing to reform Indigenous land tenure, which communities correctly interpreted as a prelude to opening communal lands to private extraction. Key subsidies ensuring many citizens’ very survival, including fuel and food subsidies, have also been cut, jump kicking the cost of living for the most vulnerable.
The result is the political destitution of the Bolivian left, which represents the vast majority of the country. The old vehicle, Evo Morales’ MAS, is decapitated and adrift. Evo himself is practically in exile with an arrest warrant hanging over his head. His protege, Andronico Rodriguez, has been a ghost in public life, and his Alianza Popular has not been able to build much momentum.
Former President Luis Arce, Evo’s former minister and now sworn enemy, is in prison, in preventive detention. Other socialist leaders, politicians, and activists have been jailed, while the cabinet has ironically vowed to continue crackdowns “against lawfare.”
The Paz government has been jailing the key leaders of the socialist era while releasing convicted terrorists and far-right racists linked to the 2019 coup government and its subsequent massacres, like Jeanine Áñez, Luis Fernando Camacho, and leaders of far-right youth groups deemed the equivalent of the Proud Boys. It has also brought back the Drug Enforcement Administration, which had been kicked out by the Morales government over alleged election interference.
Despite running as the left’s only option, and as the counter to the right, since taking office, Paz’s policy proposals, rhetoric, and platform have mostly been directed at the white, Christian, conservative elite in the tropics, rather than to the Indigenous majority in the Altiplano.
This betrayal is creating a crisis of representation in a country where trust in institutions and democracy is already very low—and in the poorest country in South America. Most of the activists in the streets voted for Paz, while many unions endorsed the PDC, but are now expressing their discontent at their interests being disregarded. One protester in La Paz told me, “We have to remind these oligarchs who the Casa Grande del Pueblo is for, and reclaim it.”
The government and its allies have worked overtime to criminalize the rage that has come from this betrayal. In the face of this repression, some groups have decided to fight fire with fire, arguing Paz’s repression has made negotiation unviable. The COB itself said it would be willing to do anything, “as in a war,” and has vowed to “increase radical pressure measures.”
As Quya Reyna, a writer, activist, and social leader argued in a manifesto for the protest movements, repression will only bring further suffering, and, if the government refuses to negotiate, this is the social cost it will bring. Another manifesto signed by some indigeneist protest groups now explicitly endorses armed resistance.
When a government disregards the voting blocs that got it into office, blocks every avenue for democratic change, criminalizes dissent, and rules on behalf of a foreign-aligned racist elite, it leaves the people few political options for engagement and representation.
The state is using its monopoly on force not to protect its citizens, but to protect the privileges of the few against the many. It cannot, then, be surprised at the rage it engenders by doing so. As Reyna added, “if you want peace, listen to the people and negotiate, don’t repress.”
Faced with this brick wall, the social movements are left with little choice but to play outside the system. In the long term, this is a terrible development for peaceful, stable, social democracy, as it may create a vicious cycle between faith in political institutions, and political violence. As one piece of graffiti scrawled in La Paz by protesters declares, “Let there be no peace for the oligarchies if there is no bread for the majority.”
Vice President Edmand Lara, a populist former police officer who was crucial to Paz’s election, has broken dramatically with the president, condemning the repression and inviting the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to monitor the country.
The vice president has also denounced the cabinet’s own links to drug trafficking, though he has called for further crackdowns on crime, and Evo Morales. On the right, former president Tuto Quiroga, billionaire Marcelo Claure, Áñez allies, and others have pushed for Paz to step aside and allow security forces to rule, through a state of exception (essentially, martial law), while continuing economic “liberalization.”
Some reports have also indicated the military is interested in pushing Paz out, while embracing further right-wing figures. To satisfy them, Paz has given even more power to the hardliners like Ernesto Justiniano, the anti-drug czar, now minister of defense, while further alienating social sectors and moderate progressives within his cabinet, like José Luis Lupo, Lara, and billionaire Samuel Doria Medina, all of whom have urged for dialogue over repression.
This government is eating itself, while Bolivian democracy has perhaps never looked weaker.
The hard-fought promise of the Plurinational State, a multiracial social democracy with strong rights and constitutional protections, has been hollowed out by a new form of external rule for the elites, far-right racists, foreign states, and the security state. The majorities, meanwhile, have felt betrayed, and are using every means at their disposal to regain representation.
That popular movement now believes the only way forward is a fresh start—calling for Paz to resign, and for fresh elections. Until then, they will continue blocking the country, and forcing the government’s hands, to remind them of their power. Though, the right will continue blaming “dirty leftists” and “indians” for “destroying the country” and “stopping progress,” instead of blaming themselves.
To move forward, the country's leaders will have to realize that, whether in a democracy or dictatorship, they will have to govern with, and for, the Indigenous majorities, not without and against them.
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Faith Leaders: Transgender People Are a Gift from God
As scholars who have studied the Bible for decades, we believe transgender people—just like all people—are our sacred, precious, divinely cherished neighbors.
May 29, 2026
Far-right leaders in the United States are fighting tooth and nail to eliminate rights for transgender people.
Many couch their claims in language like “protecting children” and “freedom of religion.” But buried beneath these rhetorical flourishes is another pernicious philosophy: that being transgender is a sin, and that the government should punish it.
Case in point: Conservative Christian organizations like the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and the Liberty Council are pushing the Supreme Court to allow states to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports.
In a press release defending ERLC’s position, interim president Gary Hollingsworth proclaimed: “We serve an infallible God. The same God who made the universe made humanity in His image with intentionality and purpose. He gave humanity two immutable genders, man and woman, as gifts reflecting His own nature.”
There are conflicting, even incompatible interpretations of the Bible. But for us, the consistent messages of love, care, humility, and equity shine brightly.
Meanwhile, at the state level, far-right evangelicals in Colorado recently secured enough signatures to put anti-trans legislation on the ballot. And in Idaho, due to pressure from conservative legislators and organizations, the state is poised to implement one of the most extreme anti-trans bathroom laws in the nation.
If all one read were these stories, it would appear that the Bible is unequivocal in its condemnation of gender expansiveness and that all of Christendom is unflinching in its interpretation of that scripture.
Nothing could be further from the truth. As scholars who have studied the Bible for decades, we believe transgender people—just like all people—are our sacred, precious, divinely cherished neighbors. There’s no reason that one narrow religious interpretation should be able to dictate policy and structure our community.
The author of Genesis writes that “male and female [God] created them” (1.27). While some point to this scripture as confirmation of a gender binary, others identify it as a rhetorical device known as a merism, used frequently throughout the Bible to describe an expansive concept. For example, in Genesis 1:1, the Bible describes making “the heavens and Earth.” But this is widely understood to represent the entire cosmos—stars, comets, planets, and beyond—not just the heavens and Earth. Later in Genesis, the Bible uses both “evening and morning” and “night and day” to represent an entire day—including dawn and dusk. Similarly, male and female do not exhaust the diversity of gender identities and sexualities, all of which God blesses as good.
Moreover, the work of many Biblical scholars such as Dr. Esther Brownsmith, Dr. Joseph Marchal, and Dr. Linn Marie Tonstad has critically improved and expanded Christian theological studies by demonstrating that, as Brownsmith recently said, “We can’t do Biblical scholarship without [transgender people].”
Brownsmith’s scholarship on nonbinary readings of Hebrew Bible figure Mordechai, Marchal’s work on ancient conceptions of gender in Paul’s letters, and Tonstad’s formulation of the Holy Trinity as a framework for considering gender expansively—and vice versa—are just a handful of recent examples in a rapidly expanding discipline of thinkers helping us read scripture in more rigorous ways.
As Christians, we believe that, as the scripture tells us, humanity is created in God’s image. Our glorious variety and multitude is reflective of God’s own limitlessness. Indeed, transgender people’s embodiments and expressions mirror God’s intentional and enduring refutation of definition, binaries, and subjective stability. And they offer us a precious gift—the ability to look beyond strict structures and appreciate humanity in all its diversity and complexity. So, too, as theologian Virginia Mollenkott suggests, because God created humanity in God’s own image, we might well speak of God as gender nonconforming or “omnigender,” the God of all genders and of none.
For some, the Bible mandates a strict gender binary, and that belief guides their participation in public life. However, that interpretation is not the only one—and hardly the only one rooted in history and theological tradition.
As Jesus proposed in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the question we must ask is twofold. First: who is my neighbor, whose rights I am obligated to affirm and defend? Second: Who is the one who proves neighborly, the one who acts in loving, compassionate, and just ways?
There’s no question: There are conflicting, even incompatible interpretations of the Bible. But for us, the consistent messages of love, care, humility, and equity shine brightly. To love the neighbor—including our trans family members, friends, coworkers, and congregants—means to advocate for that neighbor’s right to be; to love and be loved; and to enjoy a healthy, fulfilling life in dignity and safety.
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'Hondurasgate': A Symptom of Deeper Crises in Honduras and a Warning for Latin America
If no-holds-barred measures were deployed in the Honduran elections, they might be anticipated on a much bigger scale, again with little restraint, when the prizes could be Latin America’s biggest economies.
May 25, 2026
Governance in Honduras shifted sharply to the extreme right within months of National Party’s Nasry Asfura taking office on January 27, succeeding the Libre party’s progressive Xiomara Castro. In November 30 elections, the National Party was trailing a poor third before US President Donald Trump threatened to end all aid to Honduras unless Asfura won. Even then, Asfura had only a wafer-thin plurality, which might well have disappeared had the electoral council not broken its mandate by halting the count before all the votes had been tallied.
Compounding this blatant interference, Trump announced just two days before the election that he was pardoning former Honduran President and National Party stalwart, Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been extradited to the US and was serving a 45-year sentence for narco-trafficking. Corporate media treated Trump’s pardon as just a typically blatant political maneuver. Yet they have since largely ignored what appears to be a much bigger element of the same plot.
The Emerging Regional Offensive
The wider conspiracy has been revealed in a trove of leaked audio recordings, now dubbed “Hondurasgate.” The 37 recordings appear to show that Hernández—still in the US—is preparing a return to Honduran politics and, in league with Republican Party officials, is actively producing propaganda directed against progressive governments across Latin America.
Claims by Hondurasgate investigators that the recordings have been independently verified now appear to be at least partially substantiated by a separate investigation commissioned by Drop Site News. BBC Mundo recently interviewed Hernández and asked for his response to the controversy, but received no response.
The blatant US intervention exemplified by Hondurasgate may be an ominous foreshadowing of likely interference in the upcoming elections in Colombia (this month), Brazil (October), and Mexico (2030), all currently governed by progressives.
Shocking as the revelations are, Hondurasgate is symptomatic of a much more ambitious project to exploit Honduras and impose the “Donroe Doctrine” across the region. Whether or not the recordings are all genuine, the wider project is very much alive.
Power Consolidation Through Lawfare and Repression
Since taking office, Asfura wasted no time consolidating control over Honduran institutions. The elections left the Libre party with fewer than one-third of the seats in the National Congress, reverting to the historic pattern in Honduras in which the National and the Liberal parties—both neoliberal and subservient to Washington—swap power. This has enabled Asfura to move quickly against his enemies.
Marlon Ochoa, Libre’s representative on the electoral council and the first official to call out the electoral fraud, was impeached by Congress on fabricated charges, received death threats, and fled the country.
The sitting attorney general, also from Libre, was dismissed. The Supreme Court president was forced to resign, while other leading congressional members were impeached. Many of those kicked out of their jobs also had their US visas revoked.
“It is a political lawfare operation in which Honduran institutions are acting against the country’s own legal framework to eliminate political opponents,” wrote Diario RED. Carmen Haydeé López, Libre’s press officer, describes the moves as “state capture” by the ruling National Party.
Worse may follow: “If we have to kill people so we can have peace of mind, we’ll do it,” Hernández says in the Hondurasgate audios. Further, “If we have to resort to repression to control the country, we’ll do it.”
Far-right operative Roger Stone—a Trump associate said to have orchestrated Hernández’s pardon—even called for the US to kidnap Xiomara Castro and her husband, former president “Mel” Zelaya, “like they did with Maduro.”
Return to the Narco-State
These developments signal Honduras’ return to the corrupt and criminal neoliberal order that prevailed after the 2009 military coup and lasted until Xiomara Castro’s presidency in January 2022.
For most of this earlier period, Juan Orlando Hernández dominated politics, transforming Honduras into a “narco-state.” Over the years, he facilitated the trafficking to the US of at least 400 tons of cocaine, accepted huge bribes (including $1 million from Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán), and ran a regime marked by extreme violence.
The leaked recordings show Hernández expects a reconfigured judiciary to clear him of outstanding charges in Honduras. This would pave the way for his return and even to make a run for president again in 2029.
Rolling Back Social Gains and Imposing Austerity
In the meantime, Asfura has moved rapidly to dismantle the Libre government’s modest achievements. Castro had begun to invest heavily in a public health service that fell apart during the Covid-19 pandemic. Asfura halted construction of three hospitals her administration had partially completed. He also withdrew a popular subsidy for electricity bills benefiting 600,000 low-income families.
In the last few weeks, Honduras has witnessed widespread protests against the weakening of workers’ rights, a march organized by 30 campesino movements against legislation that strengthens the hands of big landowners, and student demonstrations over cuts in university budgets.
Another worrying hint of a return to the narc-ostate has been a sharp increase in homicides, extortions, kidnappings, and femicides. Violence peaked on May 21, with 24 violent deaths in two incidents: 19 peasant farmers murdered in a land conflict and five people killed in a gang assault on a police vehicle.
Cuts in public spending and attacks on the rights of the 60% of Hondurans living in poverty constitute Asfura’s austerity program. But Asfura’s and Hernández’s aims are for a much wider transformation of the country.
One of Castro’s reforms was to declare illegal the private model cities or “ZEDEs,” which Hernández and his predecessor initiated in the face of community protests. Asfura has reversed her decisions, thus neutralizing huge pending lawsuits filed against Honduras by the libertarian investors in two ZEDEs, Próspera and Morazán. US investor and billionaire Trump adviser Peter Thiel is a key figure behind Próspera. The congress is now exploring how to promote more of these libertarian “states within a state” that ride roughshod over the rights of local communities.
Militarization and Reassertion of US Hegemony
Another payoff for Trump in return for Hernández’s pardon is the promise of a second US military base in Honduras. Because of its strategic position in Central America, the US already has the huge Soto Cano base, which Castro threatened to close. Soon, according to Marlon Ochoa, the US will install another base on the island of Roatán, further strengthening Washington’s naval domination of the Caribbean.
If built, it will be part of a wave of US militarization in the region, with a strengthened base in El Salvador and US troops newly deployed in Panama.
Another dramatic change is the restoration of close ties with Israel. During Castro’s presidency, Honduras (along with Colombia and Nicaragua) was one of Latin America’s fiercest critics of the Gaza genocide. Hernández, when president, had close links with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who (according to the Hondurasgate recordings) had "everything to do" with Hernández’s pardon.
This month, Israeli President Issac Herzog embarked on a diplomatic tour of Central America, stopping in Panama and attending the inauguration of Costa Rica’s new President, Laura Fernández. While in San Jose, Herzog met Chile’s new right-wing President José Antonio Kast and Honduras’s Nasry Asfura who, despite his Palestinian ancestry, identifies as a Christian Zionist. Asfura’s administration is part of a broader regional trend in which Trump-aligned governments (such as Bolivia’s) restore ties with Israel that were severed by their predecessors.
Asfura is reportedly planning legislation to encourage investment by US and Israeli AI firms. Honduras’s abundant water resources and renewable energy infrastructure would be central to such projects. Yet several of these developments have proven highly controversial with rural communities, including the notorious hydro project which led to the murder of Berta Cáceres.
Testing Ground for the “Donroe Doctrine"
Gerardo Torres Zelaya says that “Honduras is not an isolated case: It is a testing ground for a new offensive against our democracies.” Torres Zelaya, a former vice minister in Castro’s administration, believes that what is at stake is not just the outcome of an election, but progressive Latin American governments being subjected to offensives that “no longer operate according to traditional rules.”
He adds that the region now faces hybrid warfare, strategically combining disinformation, economic coercion, criminal networks and, if required, military force. Trump’s intervention in Honduras raised the stakes further when compared with previous electoral interference. Yet even that was soon surpassed by the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
In March, Trump assembled his regional allies in pursuing his “Donroe Doctrine” to create the “Shield of the Americas.” Nasry Asfura was there, of course, along with his opposite numbers in El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Panama.
The blatant US intervention exemplified by Hondurasgate may be an ominous foreshadowing of likely interference in the upcoming elections in Colombia (this month), Brazil (October), and Mexico (2030), all currently governed by progressives. If no-holds-barred measures were deployed in the Honduran elections, they might be anticipated on a much bigger scale, again with little restraint, when the prizes could be Latin America’s biggest economies. Hondurasgate signals that Trump will not act alone; his accomplices will be the 12 members of his “Shield of the Americas.”
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Is the Defeat of Hungary’s Orbán the End of International MAGA?
Viktor Orbán and Fidesz' loss in the April 2026 elections serves as a warning to right-wing autocrats that corruption, poverty and authoritarianism do not sell.
Apr 29, 2026
The defeat of Viktor Orbán and the Fidesz Party in Hungarian national elections on April 12 signaled a turning point for right-wing movements across Europe and in the United States. Orbán, having used quasilegal to tools control the electorate, enrich himself and his cronies, and align the country with Russian interests, was soundly beaten, with a centrist, Peter Magyar and the Tisza Party, winning a supermajority in parliament. Magyar promised to abandon the corrupt rule of Fidesz, its close ties to Russia, and its connections with the international MAGA movement. How could Orbán have failed so spectacularly; after all, US Presidnet Donald Trump put his influence on the line to support him by ordering Vice President JD Vance to appear at a Budapest rally on the eve of the elections?
Over 16 years Orbán had established stricter and stricter control over Hungarian society. He came to power on a wave of voter resentment over the 2008 global financial crisis that forced many people into poverty, and because of the belief that Hungary had lost sovereignty to European Union interests in Brussels. New laws enabled Fidesz to manipulate voting. Police actions and surveillance helped to intimidate alternative voices. Endemic corruption gave financial advantages to Fidesz politicians and their allies. The party used government-owned media to identify immigrants, minorities, and other enemies as threats to the traditional family as the foundation of society. Yet, in the end, Orbán’s turn away from Europe, toward Moscow, and against Ukraine in the war with Russia, along with a foundering economy, proved too much for Hungarian voters.
There had been almost universal support for democratic reforms among Hungarian voters after the collapse of the USSR. Throughout the 1990s the expat financier, George Soros, invested heavily in Eastern Europe to establish educational institutions and programs dedicated to human rights, in particular in Hungary. Eventually, however, Fidesz politicians came to accuse Soros of being part of a “globalist” conspiracy to control the country. The conflict between the vision of Orbán for authoritarian rule and that of people like Soros for an “Open Society” gained traction in the run-up to the April 2024 election. The catastrophic loss of Fidesz in the elections has now triggered concern among right-wing politicians across Europe—and in the MAGA movement in the US—that voters have finally rejected their heavy-handed, authoritarian rule.
From Open to Closed Society
A symbol of the bankruptcy of socialism was the East German Trabant, an automobile with a smoke-belching two-cycle engine made available for the working class consumer. Before the Wall fell in November 1989 in Berlin, pro-democracy movements had opened the borders in Hungary and Poland. East Germans, as yet unable to travel directly to the West, drove some 20,000 Trabants into Budapest, abandoned them with their keys in the ignition for anyone to claim, and took trains to Vienna and thence to the Federal Republic of Germany to reunite with friends and family.
In general, the Orbán-Putin-MAGA countries underperform the world in life expectancy and infant mortality.
In sharp contrast with the clunky, polluting Trabants were nascent institutions of democracy, some of which were supported by George Soros. Soros (b. 1930) has become the bugaboo of right-wing ideologues and antisemites who are convinced he represents an international conspiracy of bankers, a conspiracy theory that Orbán brought to the fore in Hungarian elections. In the mid-1940s the Soros family used forged documents to escape the mass deportation of Jews from Hungary to the Auschwitz death camps as organized by Adolf Eichmann. Soros moved to London to pursue university, began work in finance, and developed highly successful hedge funds. Soros’ philanthropic efforts date to 1979 and the award of scholarships to Black South Africans under apartheid.
Soros established the Central European University (CEU) in 1991 to rebuild “open societies” in East Central Europe after the collapse of the USSR. He created the CEU “to foster critical thinking—which at that time was an alien concept” in socialist universities. He endowed CEU with $250 million in 2001. Soros’s vision was of a university dedicated to examining the contemporary challenges of "open societies” and human rights.
Soros also funded the Open Society Archive (OSA) from 1995. At the end of the Cold War, OSA secured the collections of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) from its Munich offices. The archive, totaling over 3 kilometers of materials on the history of the Eastern Bloc, documented the murderous Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 during the so-called Prague Spring. The materials reveal the essence of the closed socialist system; the failure of central economic planning; the endemic corruption of party officials; and the damage to culture, literature, and the arts of ideological interference. Communist officials felt so threatened by RFE/RL that they bombed the Munich offices in 1981, injuring seven people and causing $1 million in damage. I was honored to receive one of the early OSA grants in 1996 to work in the Budapest archive—and consider the socialist detritus of Trabants.
Having quickly established an international reputation for academic excellence, CEU ran afoul of the illiberal Orbán regime because of its pro-democracy stances and pedagogy; CEU had opened leading women’s and environmental studies departments, for example. In the 2010s the government forced CEU into exile in Vienna as part of its effort to close civil society groups. Fidesz instead promoted culture wars through Christian, nationalist, anti-immigrant, and homophobic programs and propaganda that served as a template for similar political impulses as far away as the United States.
The attack on the CEU further resembled Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing battle against scientific freedoms. After a brief period of reform and internationalization, the Kremlin centralized control over university curricula and personnel appointments. It has arrested researchers for public lectures under charges of treason for revealing “state secrets.” It opened offices of state security police, the FSB, on every campus. It is no coincidence that, in the battle against critical thinking, Trump and his allies are carrying out an assault on academic integrity by withholding funds, threatening academic programs that celebrate diversity, and insisting on teaching “patriot,” ahistorical education.
But incoming Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar intends to reverse this heavy-handed interference. After the elections, he promised to end state funding of the Matthias Corvinus Collegium, a university breeding ground for elites aligned with the Fidesz political party whose faculty felt pressure to write promotional articles for Fidesz. He is seeking to rekindle Hungarian academic excellence to spur economic growth.
Orbán’s Illiberalism and Economic Stagnation
With a population of 9.5 million people, Hungary’s economy ranks much higher in global output than in population. The country’s high economic performance was noteworthy even under socialism with the NEM (New Economic Policy, 1968-1991), a turn to market mechanisms and away from central planning that led the country to outperform other economies in the socialist bloc, something called “Goulash Socialism.” But like Donald Trump who falsely claims that his policies enable the US economy to thrive in the growing, self-imposed isolation of tariffs and other questionable macroeconomic policies, Orbán came to power in part by condemning the global economic system that led to the 2008 financial crisis. He promised to overcome Hungary’s embarrassment at having to accept a €20 billion European bailout to avoid bankruptcy. He promised to break with the “liberal paradigm" and build a "sovereign" economy free from the EU dictates. These were strange claims given the fact that Hungary relies significantly on EU market access, EU investments and imported energy, and EU institutional rules that it uses as leverage for its economy.
After a brief recovery in the 2010s, owing precisely to the influx of foreign capital and EU funds, Hungary’s economy faltered. It stagnated because of underinvestment in education and innovation that led to stultified growth, and because of the sloughing off of benefits and privileges to party loyalists. The shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an energy crisis, and growing conflict with the EU that led to the suspension of EU funds “were not the source of these problems but rather sharply exposed pre-existing structural weaknesses.” The practice of funneling contracts to friends, family, and chosen oligarchs, which resembles the selling of crypto and stock deals out of public view and the awarding of government contracts that are so prominent in the US under Trump and Russia under Putin, contributed to public disgust.
Growing poverty, the collapse of healthcare, and universal corruption damned Orbán to lose. In general, the Orbán-Putin-MAGA countries underperform the world in life expectancy and infant mortality. In Hungary severe doctor shortages due to emigration, longer patient waiting times, and shortages of such basic supplies as toilet paper turned off voters. To balance budgets on the poor, the country’s healthcare spending fell to among the lowest in the European Union. (In the US, ahead of the midterm elections in November, a healthcare crisis has unfolded. It is caused by MAGA policies that have sent costs skyrocketing, cut insurance programs, removed safety nets, forced people into bankruptcy, yet have seen industry profits increase to $54 billion in 2025. This has triggered backlash among voters.)
Identifying Internal Enemies
On top of rigging the electoral system, media, and economy to hold onto power, Orbán advanced a pro-family, anti-immigrant, and antisemitic message to cement his grip. Since 2013 Fidesz has used Soros’ face on billboards and in other campaign materials to suggest that the Jewish financier had a secret agenda to destroy Hungary. In 2026, the billboards carried the same messages, but with photographs of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who is also of Jewish descent. Other rightists employ the same tactics. Putin accuses Jews of being godless people who try to tear apart the Russian Orthodox Church, and he frequently distorts the history of the Holocaust to lay some of the blame for Nazism on Jews. Trump has accused Jews of being disloyal; he calls bankers “Shylock” to tie them to the stereotype of the evil Jewish moneylender, Shylock, in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice; he consorts with racist, antisemitic extremists and claims that some Nazis are “good people”; and he calls Soros and other Jews “globalists,” a code word for claiming that they conspire to control the world’s economies. Trump seeks nothing less than the prosecution of Soros in US courts.
Like other illiberal societies, Fidesz has promulgated anti-LGBTQ legislation. In its rejection of human rights agendas advanced by Soros and others, the party claims to defend the family from decadence and immorality. In the early 2020s, Fidesz banned same-sex couples from adopting children, ended legal recognition of transgender people, and prohibited speech about homosexuality. The European Commission recently rejected these laws as contrary to the values set forth in the Treaty on European Union and the principle of non-discrimination in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. Not to be deterred, in March 2025 the government banned a Budapest Pride event and authorized city authorities to use facial recognition software to identify—and fine —participants. The parade drew 100,000 marchers—a harbinger of the election failure. All of this was in the name of championing the values of Christian civilization which were threatened by what Orbán called “gender madness.”
In all these ways Fidesz set an example for the feckless Trump who appoints MAGA loyalists as the heads of regulatory agencies and seeks the consolidation of major communications companies under sycophantic billionaire businessmen.
Putin had shown Orbán the way. In June 2013 the Russian parliament passed a law to punish LGBT individuals with fines and imprisonment for even speaking about “non-traditional” relationships. The law encouraged police to ignore rising violence against the community. In the US, conservative states have long agitated against equal rights for the LGBTQ community through laws limiting bathroom access, denying driver’s licenses, making hormonal therapy illegal, and other discriminatory practices. Under Trump the federal government has ratcheted anti-trans propaganda, misinformation, and discrimination; blocked gender-affirming care, stifled research; and banned trans people from serving in the military.
In its programs and initiatives, the Open Society organizations stand in solidarity with gays, lesbians, Roma, and other people. For George Soros this was a personal quest. “In every country I visited,” Soros recalled, “I saw the same pattern. Roma communities were denied access to decent housing, employment, healthcare, and education.” Pointedly, in 2023, Alex Soros, who succeeded his father as chair of Open Society, announced the launch of the Roma Foundation for Europe, supporting a new generation of Roma leaders working across the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, Spain, Italy, and Germany.
Control of Media to Disseminate Fear
If Soros and Fidesz had cooperated in the 1990s in the effort to rebuild Hungary from socialist stagnation, the relationship grew hostile after Orbán lost in 2002 elections. In the 2010s, after Orbán returned to office, Fidesz, with a two-thirds majority of seats in parliament, amended Hungary’s constitution to ensure future victories. In 2013 it passed rules to limit pre-election political advertising to broadcasters controlled by Orbán’s allies. Ownership of the media shifted to these oligarchs through inexpensive loans from state-owned banks that enabled them to buy up media outlets. The state, the biggest advertiser in Hungary’s media market, pulled advertising from outlets deemed hostile to Fidesz, starving them; for example, Klubradio was forced off air in 2021. State-controlled media spread absurd messages of fear that included the claim that Ukraine was ready to invade Hungary. They depicted Magyar “as a reckless enemy of peace, bent on dragging Hungary into the war in neighboring Ukraine.”
In all these ways Fidesz set an example for the feckless Trump who appoints MAGA loyalists as the heads of regulatory agencies and seeks the consolidation of major communications companies under sycophantic billionaire businessmen. He rails against fake news. Showing allegiance to Orbán, Putin, and other authoritarians, he attempted to shutter the Voice of America and RFE/RL, perhaps because they provide an alternative to Kremlin, Chinese, and other misinformation efforts. He tasked conspiracy theorist Kari Lake to cut programs; fire employees; and stop broadcast, investigation, and reporting activities. Overnight, such shows as “Current Time” that provided information beyond Kremlin control were cancelled and journalists were fired. In this way, Trump cemented Kremlin dominance of messages at home: Putin’s government controls six national TV networks, two national radio networks, two news agencies, two national newspapers, and over 60% of the remaining press.
In the end Orbán was unable to fix the recent election. A huge turnout of 74% of voters who were angry about failed economic policies and overly friendly ties with Russia—the nation that had murdered hundreds of Hungarians in the 1956 invasion—ensured a landside loss. When he was interviewed after his victory on the state-controlled M1 television network by a still-hostile newscaster, Magyar reprimanded her for spreading “lies” about his family and compared the channel’s coverage to propaganda from North Korea and Nazi-era Germany.
International MAGA Networks from Washington to Budapest
Illiberalism has had significant international ramifications, notably in bringing together such unlikely conservative bedfellows as Orbán, Putin, and Trump into the effort to foment rightist victories across the globe. The cast of international right-wing characters who endorsed Orbán did not help him to victory. The last minute, highly publicized visit by US Vice President JD Vance, and increasingly vocal endorsements from Trump on Truth Social, backfired with an electorate fed up with Orbán. He had become synonymous with democratic backsliding: a gangster-driven authoritarianism that weakened judicial independence, degraded media pluralism, entrenched patronage networks, and sought out repeated battles with Brussels, not only as a Hungarian leader but as “a transnational symbol for the authoritarian and nationalist right.” JD Vance parroted this litany of complaints about “bureaucrats in Brussels” trying to “destroy the economy of Hungary.”
Russian election interference, consisting of disinformation campaigns and direct financial support, has been far more dangerous, intrusive, and long-term. Between 2014 and 2022 Moscow spent over $300 million financing foreign political parties. As of 2023, more than 900 political parties and organizations in 19 European countries were promoting pro-Russian narratives, for example, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party whose members sabotaged arms deliveries to Ukraine and seek to block military assistance to Kyiv. In addition, Putin hosts far-right gatherings and uses covert tools, threats, and violence to achieve foreign policy ends.
Against this history of the rise and fall of Hungarian socialism; the rise and fall of Hungarian illiberalism, Russian interference, and invasion; and the overlap of rightist groups and interests from Europe to the US, Orbán’s electoral failure may represent a turning point.
In exchange for Russian support, Orbán stalled Ukrainian EU accession negotiations. He blocked a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine over the latter’s refusal to allow Russian oil to transit to Hungary through the Druzhba pipeline (recently opened). Russian front organizations produced memes, graphics, and videos for Hungarian social media that were designed to incite hostility between Hungary and Ukraine. A Kremlin-linked bot network, “Matryoshka,” shared fake posts on X that portrayed Orbán as “a peacemaker” and a victim of warlike Ukrainians. Even worse, reminiscent of Trump’s clumsy efforts to coerce Ukraine into providing “dirt” on his 2020 election opponent, Joe Biden, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó established a hotline with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to give Moscow strategic information on critical EU issues. Szijjártó acted on behalf of the Kremlin to remove sanctioned oligarchs from EU blacklists. It appears that Orbán put his chips in with Putin and Chinas Xi Jinping because he believes that the European Union was doomed to collapse.
The rightist connections are deeply incestuous. Incoming Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar accused Orbán of diverting taxpayer money to the US’ CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference). Indeed, CPAC has “deep roots in Hungary,” its website is filled with positive reference to conservative Hungary, and it “stood firmly” with Orbán during the recent election campaign. CPACHungary spreads the same kind of disinformation as CPAC. Attempting to frighten Hungarian voters into thinking seeing the Tisza party as anti-Hungarian, CPACHungary claimed that “Brussels and Kiev may be on the side of Tisza, but Europe and the world stand by Viktor Orbán.” CPACHungary shares with CPAC anti-immigrant and homophobic positions, insisting that the “Hungarian right clearly stood in favor of border protection, family, and peace policies.”
Soros and Democratic Transitions
But Hungarian voters had clearly had enough of the corrupt Fidesz regime. It did not help that Orbán and his circle had made money through corrupt deals, as became shockingly visible after the release of drone footage of Orbán’s estate with manicured gardens, underground garages, and zebras grazing on the grounds at a kind of Hungarian Mar-a-Lago, Hatvanpuszta. Orbán claimed it was his father’s property and had nothing to do with him or Fidesz.
With Orbán defeated, the potential for a return to Hungary’s commitments to the EU has been renewed. These commitments include a Hungarian vote on EU sanctions against Russia. Already a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine has been approved, while a project between Orbán and Putin to build two Rosatom 1,200 megawatt reactors at Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant on the basis of 40 year loans and technological dependencies—against EU and local interests—has been put on hold.
There has been an alternative vision to Fidesz illiberalism since the 1990s in the Open Society programs. For his efforts to support human rights, establish a new university, build a research archive on the history of socialist repressions, and create “open” institutions, George Soros has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize a number of times, including by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1992 Soros established the International Science Foundation (ISF) with a $100 million grant to support scientists in the former Soviet Union during economic and political crises that saw research programs collapse. Russian security agents tried to stop the ISF in the 1990s, claiming that the West (and a Jewish banker, Soros,) were buying Russian science on the cheap. In 2017, the Soros Open Society Foundations announced that he had transferred $18 billion for the future work of the foundations, bringing the total since 1984 to over $32 billion. These amounts likely make Soros the world’s most generous donor based on the percentage of his net worth donated.
Against this history of the rise and fall of Hungarian socialism; the rise and fall of Hungarian illiberalism, Russian interference, and invasion; and the overlap of rightist groups and interests from Europe to the US, Orbán’s electoral failure may represent a turning point. His loss in the April 2026 elections serves as a warning to right-wing autocrats that corruption, poverty and authoritarianism do not sell. Indeed, the Hungarian results may be a bellwether for the midterm elections in the US.
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JD Vance's Ambition Is Destroying Him
Vance had followed Trump into Orbán’s abyss, and now Trump is taking him on another losing journey.
Apr 16, 2026
As Prime Minister of Hungary for 16 years, Viktor Orbán became a beacon for the right and one of President Donald Trump’s favorite authoritarian role models. A self-described populist, Orbán’s conquest of democracy’s three pillars—the media, institutions of higher education, and the justice system—became Trump’s template.
Another Orbán characteristic attracted Trump: His regime consistently ranked No. 1 as the most corrupt country in the European Union. He abused political power for self-enrichment. He installed friends and family members in positions of influence and power that made him (and them) wealthy. He used his majority in the legislature to enhance his power. A persistent critic of Ukraine, Orbán also enjoyed the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Sound familiar?
Trump embraced and praised Orbán, which meant that his Vice President JD Vance embraced and praised him too.
Vance Surrendered to Ambition
In 2016, Vance had called himself a “Never Trump Guy” and wrote a New York Times op-ed titled, “Mr. Trump Is Unfit For Our Nation's Highest Office." But he reversed course in 2021 when he ran for the US. Senate and sought successfully to gain Trump’s endorsement.
As a junior senator, Vance could have refrained from voicing an opinion about Orbán. But ambition required otherwise. In a February 2024 interview with European Conservative, Vance was well aware of Trump’s views as he lobbied to become the vice-presidential pick on the Republican ticket. He held out Trump’s Hungarian idol as an example to emulate:
The closest that conservatives have ever gotten to successfully dealing with left-wing domination of universities is Viktor Orbán’s approach in Hungary. I think his way has to be the model for us: not to eliminate universities, but to give them a choice between survival or taking a much less biased approach to teaching.
Of course, Vance—a Yale Law School graduate—knew that Orbán did not offer a “much less biased approach to teaching.” He demanded instruction centered on his view of history and the world.
In the same 2024 interview, Vance previewed what would also become some of Trump’s tactics:
And whether it’s the incentives that you put into place, funding decisions that are made, and the curricula that are developed, you really can use politics to influence culture. And we should be doing more of that on the American Right.
In a July 2024 interview on Face the Nation, Vance reaffirmed his praise for Orbán’s approach:
What I do think is on the university—on the university principle, the idea that taxpayers should have some influence in how their money is spent at these universities. It’s a totally reasonable thing. And I do think that he’s made some smart decisions there that we could learn from in the United States.
It was only the beginning of Vance’s “awakening.”
Vance Carried Trump’s Message and Now Bears His Baggage
As vice president, Vance used his speech at the Munich Security Conference in February 2025 to attack many of Europe’s democracies by name—but not Hungary. He said that actors from within posed a greater threat than China or Russia: “In Britain, and across Europe, free speech, I fear, is in retreat.”
To a stone-faced audience of European leaders, Vance complained about “old, entrenched interests hiding behind ugly, Soviet-era words like ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,’ who simply don't like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion…”
In fact, what responsible leaders don’t like is misinformation and disinformation pervading the political landscape. Orbán relied on both, as have Trump and Vance.
And Vance declared that mass immigration was Europe's most significant problem, noting record levels of foreign-born residents in Germany and increased EU immigration from non-EU countries caused by “conscious decisions” from certain European leaders.
For Trump and Vance, leaders like Orbán were the antidote to the decline of Western civilization. But heading into the April 2026 election in Hungary, Orbán was down by double digits in the polls.
On April 8, Trump dispatched Vance to Budapest where he held a rally for the embattled leader. Vance portrayed Orbán as a hero:
I’m here because of the moral cooperation between our two countries. Because what the United States and Hungary together represent under Viktor’s leadership and under President Trump’s is the defense of Western civilization… The defense of the idea that we are founded on a certain Christian civilization and Christian values that animate everything from freedom of speech to rule of law to respect for minority rights and protection of the vulnerable.
Vance continued:
Will you stand for sovereignty and democracy? Will you stand for Western civilization? Will you stand for freedom, for truth, and for the God of our fathers? Then my friends, go to the polls in the weekend, stand with Viktor Orbán because he stands for you and he stands for all these things.
In fact, Orbán stood for none of those things.
The closest Trump got to the rally was a speakerphone call via Vance’s cellphone through which he said, “I love Hungary and I love that Viktor.”
Vance’s Reckoning Has Only Begun
On April 12, 2026, three days after Vance’s rally for Orbán, a reckoning arrived for all three men—Orbán, Trump, and Vance. In a landslide, Hungarian voters threw Orbán out of office. The populist had become unpopular, and Hungary’s citizens reclaimed their country.
Vance had followed Trump into Orbán’s abyss, and now Trump is taking him on another losing journey. Vance is the highest-ranking Catholic in the Trump administration, and he has joined Trump in attacking the Pope.
Sometimes ambition makes a person not only blind, but also deaf and dumb.
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