Thank you to everyone who tuned into the live video! This slightly edited version of show begins with Peter Magyar’s Tisza party, which won a resounding victory in Sunday’s national elections in Hungary, and will become Prime Minister with a more than 2/3 majority—enough to allow him to return that nation to liberal democratic governance.
I brought in my friend and New School for Social Research colleague Julia Sonnevend, who is Associate Professor of Sociology and Communications and Co-Director of the Center for the American Experience, to talk to us about the significance of Magyar’s victory in the erosion of what has been a global populist movement. Born, raised and educated in Hungary, Sonnevend is a longstanding observer of Central European politics. She is the author of Charm: How Magnetic Personalities Shape Global Politics (Princeton, 2024), named one of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2024, and Stories Without Borders: The Berlin Wall and the Making of a Global Iconic Event; and co-editor of Education and Social Media: Toward a Digital Future (Oxford, 2016.) Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Time, NPR, BBC Newshour, The Times Literary Supplement, Teen Vogue, Times Higher Education, and Bloomberg News.
You can listen to an earlier conversation about Charm here. Today’s theme is The News Tonight by Shimmer.
Two peas in a pod: President Donald Trump hosts a bilateral meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, November 7, 2025. Photo credit: The White House/Wikimedia Commons.
Learn more about this turning point for Hungary and the future of democracy in the United States:
Luke Johnson, “Too Big to Rig: Hungary’s lessons for the U.S. midterms,” Public Sphere, April 13, 2026.
Michelle Goldberg, “What Orban’s Defeat Means for the Rest of the World,” New York Times, April 13, 2026.
Kellen Browning and Shane Goldmacher “MAGA Absorbs the Loss of Orban, a Kindred Spirit to Trump’s Movement,” New York Times, April 13, 2026.
Michael Birnbaum, “Orban’s defeat offers warning signs for Trump allies,” April 13, 2026.
Julia Sonnevend, “Viktor Orbán’s loss in Hungary shows how a strongman can be defeated,” MS NOW, April 13, 2026.
Editorial Board, “Hungarians Oust Viktor Orbán:The Putin-Trump ally loses in a landslide as statist policies fail,” Wall Street Journal, April 12, 2026.
Paul Hockenos, “Orbán Is a Loser: Hungary shows how to beat an autocrat at the ballot box,” The Nation, April 13, 2026.
Anne Applebaum, “Illiberalism Is Not Inevitable: If Viktor Orbán can lose, then his Russian and American admirers can lose too,” The Atlantic, April 12, 2026.
Lydia Polgreen, “It’s Not Trump. It’s America,” The New York Times, March 26, 2026.
Jamelle Bouie, “A Minor Strongman, Some Conservative Populists and Tucker Carlson Went to a Conference,” May 24, 2022.
