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As a neighbor, Hungary should, of course, pursue good relations with Russia, which provides most of its energy, Mr. Jeszenszky said, but NATO and the European Union are the countrys natural allies and the guarantee against any aggressive tendency by Russia. Mr. Orban, he said, is tying Hungary too closely to Russia; one deal, to buy a costly new Russian energy plant, will indenture Hungary to Russia for years to come.

The meeting in Pecs was spirited and generally well mannered, even as a few audience members expressed anti-Western sentiments. Mr. Sermer, the Liberal Partys chief organizer, envisioned it as part of an effort to nudge Hungarians disaffected by the venality of Orban-controlled politics back into the political dialogue and eventually to vote. Many young Hungarians, including some of his friends, are moving abroad, Mr. Sermer said. But he believes that there is still hope for democracy, and, for now, he plans to stay and fight for it.

There are many reasons to be concerned about Hungarys eroding democracy, with its echoes of the populism and creeping authoritarianism infecting the other parts of Europe and even the United States. Mr. Orban has altered the political system to make it easier for his Fidesz Party to stay in power, enabled corruption, cracked down on independent media and civil society groups, and refused to share the burden of accepting migrants arriving in Europe. Although Hungary receives billions of dollars annually from the European Union, his government regularly demonizes the bloc, even spending tax dollars on anti-E.U. billboards.

Mr. Orbans campaign to shut down Central European University in Budapest, the school founded in 1991 by the Hungarian-born American billionaire George Soros to bring Western-style education to his homeland, has become obsessive. The government recently passed a law requiring that the school have a branch in the United States; it doesnt and may have to close.

However, unusually large street protests in Budapest and international criticism have forced the government to at least pretend to seek a compromise. In June, its representatives met in New York, where the university is registered, with officials from Gov. Andrew Cuomos office. The school is being allowed to operate during the 2017-18 academic year, but its future remains uncertain.

It should not be forgotten that Mr. Orban, once a liberal, was educated at Oxford with scholarship help from the same George Soros he now pillories as a foreign agent intent on fomenting dissent against the government. Mr. Soros, a benefactor of pro-democracy groups in Hungary and elsewhere, accused Mr. Orban in a recent speech of presiding over a mafia state.

Hungarians who want to see Mr. Orban replaced in the 2018 election know they face stiff odds. Everything is stacked against them: the structure of the political system, the heavily controlled media, the corruption, the fact that opposition parties are weak and unlikely to maximize their leverage by uniting behind a single candidate.

But many also ask a fair question: Why havent NATO and the European Union, which accepted Hungary to ensure its pro-Western future, reacted more strongly as those core values are eroded?

An earlier version of this Editorial Observer misspelled the name of a Liberal Party activist. She is Anett Bsz, not Annett Boesk.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

A version of this editorial appears in print on July 2, 2017, on Page SR10 of the New York edition with the headline: A Democracy Road Trip Through Hungary.

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A Democracy Road Trip Through Hungary - New York Times

This week the United States is celebrating its birthday. While the focus of the Fourth of July has become fireworks, family, friends, food and a midsummer holiday, it is important to remember why we celebrate.

The United States of America is a beacon of hope and possibility for people around the world. As a government of the people, by the people and for the people, we are imperfect because we are people. We make mistakes, we disagree and we debate, but like any other family, we have always pulled together and united whenever confronted or threatened.

I realize the latest election cycle has left a lot of Americans disappointed and disillusioned. It is important in America that we focus our feelings of discontent into positive and productive pursuits. If you are among those who did not like the last election, the midterm campaigns are already organizing, and they will provide you with an outlet for your efforts and energy.

Democracy is an exercise in compromise which inevitably means that no one gets all of what they want, but all of us get some of what we want. Just as in our legal system, we derive our closest version of truth and justice by having a jury of citizens evaluate and decide between two opposing positions. Our government functions best when the various factions work out their differences in the public forum.

Democracy is never efficient, clean or streamlined, but it is the best chance we humans have to provide everyone with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You can find a smooth, efficiently running government in North Korea. A completely new policy can be imagined in the morning, drafted during the day and implemented by nightfall.

There will be no debate, dissent or dispute, but I cant imagine any of us here in America wanting to trade our turmoil for that brand of false tranquility.

Even in the midst of the most turbulent political process in recent memory, this grand ideal we call America worked well. Our greatness is symbolized and lived out when one administration relinquishes control and voluntarily turns it over to an incoming administration even though the two groups may be polar opposites and diametrically opposed to one another. Our system is not always comfortable or attractive. It is simply the best one the world has ever known.

As you go through your day today, celebrate what America is and what it can be.

Todays the day!

Jim Stovall is the president of Narrative Television Network and a published author of many books. He may be reached at 5840 South Memorial Drive, Suite 312, Tulsa, OK 74145-9082; by email at Jim@JimStovall.com; on Twitter at @stovallauthor; or on Facebook at facebook.com/jimstovallauthor.

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Jim Stovall: Despite the turbulence, democracy has served America well - Tulsa World

When it comes to our democracy, the best insight I ever received was not from a book or lecture. Rather, it came from a merchant I was haggling with over a souvenir as I traveled in the Middle East some 20 years ago.

The old, haggard man said, "Why do you Americans complain about your government? It is actually your government. You own it. You can change it. We can't do that here."

Though voiced as a complaint, the man's comments are profound.

In much of the world, there is no democracy. Or if there is "democracy," it is democracy in name only.

Just check out Freedom House's annual survey that objectively tracks and ranks freedom around the globe. It classified countries as either "free," "partly free" or "not free." And one look at its world map shows that more real estate on our globe is still classified as "not free" or "partly free" than "free."

As we learn in grammar school, the opening words of the U.S. Constitution say it all: "We the people of the United States ..."

Note how it does not begin. It does not begin with "I, the King," or "Me, the dictator," or "They, the corporations," or even "Lord, our creator." But instead, "We the people."

The old man had it right.

"We the people" actually have the power to change our government. Though we've done our best to gum it up at times, the structure is all there for change. All it takes is "we the people."

Americans can actually sue their own government, and win! And openly protest the government. Try doing that in much of the rest of the world and let me know how it turns out.

It is why the U.S. has such an immigration problem: No matter all of our problems, more people want to come here it's still the land of opportunity than anywhere else.

Of course, some might dismiss this thought as naive. After all, have you seen how special interests, corporations, computers, the press, "fake news," foreign countries and even Kim Kardashian control so many aspects of our lives?

But they only control us to the extent we allow them to do so. That, too, is a choice.

Our democracy is hardly perfect, but it was never intended to be. What makes it unique and enduring is that it was set up with the ability to adapt, to change. No coups or revolutions required.

Just as Barack Obama came out of virtual nowhere to lead our democracy, so, too, did Donald Trump. One was born of modest means and the other massive means, but so what? In both cases "we the people" elected them and made it happen. No party or person has a monopoly on our government. Instead, "we the people" do.

And therein lies the beauty. Whether it's voting, fighting a bogus parking ticket, attending a local zoning meeting or running for president, if Obama and Trump could do it, so can you.

So no matter where you may fall on the political spectrum, and no matter how frustrated you might grow at times, remember the old man, who today still could say: "It is your government. You actually own it. Or can."

William Choslovsky, a Chicago lawyer, loved democracy until he was recently defeated in his run for a third term on his local school council.

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We the people have a democracy to celebrate - Chicago Tribune

On Friday June 16, a St. Paul, Minn., jury acquitted police Officer Jeronimo Yanez of Philando Castile's murder. Tuesday is July Fourth. I hope the connection and contradiction are obvious.

July Fourth commemorates U.S. independence, but more importantly it celebrates America's claim to democracy. Thus, July 4, 2017, is an excellent time to seriously contemplate this assertion.

Over the last eight months, liberal pundits have routinely commented on the state of "American democracy." They largely lament the fascist Donald Trump's impact on America's "democratic" ideals and institutions. Most, like the New York Times' Steven Livitsky and Daniel Ziblatt stress Trump's authoritarian tendencies. Because of his propensity to place self-interest above the common good, they see Trump as a threat to U.S. "democratic" institutions and traditions. Given Trump's refusal to comply with accepted norms and his attacks on the First Amendment, he certainly is dangerous.

A few commentators, like the Atlantic's Eric Liu, counterintuitively speculate that Trump's anti-democratic behavior is the best antidote to Americans' apathy. Liu believes Trumpism will revitalize civic organizations and revive citizenship among a dispirited and indifferent population. The upsurge in marches and civil disobedience against Trump's further erosion of democratic procedures suggest Liu is right, at least in the short run.

Yet, it seems to me that both views skirt the serious issues surrounding America's declaration of democracy. Pundits erroneously discuss the danger Trump poses to democratic processes without critiquing the defective nature of those "democratic" principles and practices. To a huge extent Trump's authoritarianism helps expose the myth. The country's collective historical amnesia or willful mystification facilitates Americans' unawareness or rejection of the truth about the red, white and blue.

African-Americans and other oppressed people have never had that luxury. We live on the underside of U.S. society, at the bottom of the well. From our vantage point, American democracy is a lightly scented perfume that fails to camouflage the US' putrid odor. At best the U.S. is a Herrenvolk democracy (a democracy for the white majority). But as the history labor and the poor attest this is a generous assessment. Knowing the hypocrisy of America, we darker people have made critique of its democratic pretensions a cottage industry.

In the title song on her 2016 CD, "Red, White and Blue," the neo-blues artist Sunny War sings, "Red, White and Blue/They are coming for you/From sea to shining sea/Jesus sings democracy/Been running our world like a business/Leaving our earth buried in sin/Doing it all for the dollar/Killing our world and dying with it/Red, White and Blue/They will get you too."

War's lyrics reflect the African-American tradition of critically appraising America's claim to democracy and prophesying its future punishment. Her lyrics link her to a line of African-American freedom fighters that includes people like David Walker, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ella Baker, Paul Robeson, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, Assata Shakur and Jamil Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown).

Perhaps more than any other commentary, War's song, "Red, White and Blue," recalls Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?" In that talk, Douglass answered for enslaved African-Americans. He replied, July Fourth is "a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham ... your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery ... your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages."

Douglass' response is as relevant today as it was in 1852. The form of racial oppression has changed but contemporary U.S. blacks remain subjugated.

Some of you will applaud Douglass' assessment of the U.S. during antebellum slavery but most of you will find my connecting his evaluation to the present unnuanced, harsh, perhaps ungrateful, and maybe even absurd. Yet, if the measure of America's limited notion of liberal democracy is the equal protection of human and civil rights, especially the right to choose one's elected officials without restriction. If that's the criteria, then African-Americans have and continue to exist under a form of tyranny.

Contemporary voter suppression is eerily similar to the "colorblind" policies and laws used to disfranchise blacks during the nadir (1877-1920s) and well into the 1960s.

The 115th Congress is the most diverse in US history; yet, the African-American members (49 representatives and three senators) still constitute only 10.5 and 3 percent, even though black folks comprise over 13 percent of the U.S. population.

Meanwhile, the police kill more blacks yearly than were lynched in any given year.

A jury acquitted police Officer Jeronimo Yanez of Philando Castile's murder and Tuesday we celebrate American democracy.

For me, July Fourth 2017, will remind me that the U.S. continues to perform crimes of control that would dishonor a totalitarian society.

Sundiata Cha-Jua is a professor of African-American studies and history at the University of Illinois and is a member of the North End Breakfast Club. His email is schajua@gmail.com.

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Sundiata Cha-Jua/Real Talk: July 4: Commemoration of democracy? - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette

Photo: James Kegley, Photographer

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post Writer's Group

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post Writer's Group

WASHINGTON - "Some of the Fake News Media likes to say that I am not totally engaged in healthcare," President Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday. "Wrong, I know the subject well & want victory for U.S."

Fine, Mr. President, there's an easy way to prove your asserted knowledge: Have a news conference. Answer questions that aren't softballs tossed by your friends at Fox News.

In the age of Trump, some of the president's deviations from democratic and political norms slap you in the face. Attacks on federal judges for decisions that don't go his way. Attacks on news organizations for stories that portray him in a bad light. Misstatement piled on misstatement. Nepotism run amok. Transparency abandoned, from disclosure of tax returns to release of White House visitor records.

But other shifts, equally audacious and equally troubling, take a more subtle form. They unfold slowly until, perhaps too late, the change becomes blindingly apparent. So it is with Trump's dealings with the media, and the effective disappearance of public accountability. Authoritarianism does not announce itself. It creeps up on you.

The president has had a single formal news conference - in February, 168 days after his previous such encounter with the media. At this point in their presidencies, Barack Obama had held seven; George W. Bush three; Bill Clinton seven; George H.W. Bush 15.

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Like his predecessors, Trump has also answered a few questions at joint news conferences with foreign leaders - although Trump has had a smaller number of such events than his predecessors and, unlike them, has made a habit of directing questions to friendly conservative news outlets. Until, that is, Monday's joint appearance with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at which the leaders of the world's two largest democracies took zero questions.

And so, all the fuss over whether the regular White House press briefing will be televised misses the more fundamental point of presidential inaccessibility. The practice of live on-camera briefings is far better, but it's not as if this practice is chiseled in stone; it didn't start until the Clinton administration.

The medium is not the message - the message is. What's more important than video is having spokesmen capable of speaking with authority on the president's positions - not the relentless incuriosity of Trump's flacks, who seem never to have gathered his thoughts on topics from Russian hacking to climate change.

What's more important is having spokesmen who use the briefing as more than a platform for irresponsible media-bashing, such as Sarah Huckabee Sanders' magnificently ironic complaint about "the constant barrage of fake news directed at this president," followed by approvingly citing ("whether it's accurate or not, I don't know") an anti-CNN video by fake news huckster James O'Keefe.

And what's most important is the opportunity to question the president himself. A president automatically commands airtime; this president, through his Twitter feed, automatically commands attention. But publicity without accountability is the antithesis of democracy. Reporters questioning elected officials serve in this sense as surrogates for the public.

Remember back when Trump and his campaign were busy blasting Hillary Clinton for failing to hold a news conference.

As for other ways in which Trump has made himself accessible, or not? Well, he went 41 days between interviews - from May 13 with Fox News' Jeanine Pirro ("Your agenda is not getting out, because people are caught up on the (James) Comey issue, and ridiculous stuff") to June 23 with Fox News' Ainsley Earhardt (on Trump's bogus suggestion there might be tapes of Comey, she said, "It was a smart way to make sure he stayed honest in those hearings").

But Pirro and Earhardt looked like Woodward and Bernstein compared to "Fox and Friends'" Pete Hegseth, who pummeled Trump on June 25 with questions like "Who's been your biggest opponent? Has it been Democrats resisting, has it been fake-news media, has it been deep-state leaks?"

Wow. Who's a snowflake now?

This isn't journalism - it's a pillow fight. And the beauty of submitting to this faux-interviewing is its perfect circularity: Trump gets to make his remarks, coddled by Fox. Then White House press secretary Sean Spicer, with the cameras not rolling, gets to cite them as a shield against providing further information: "I believe that the president's remarks on 'Fox and Friends' this morning reflect the president's position."

Is this what our democracy has been reduced to? We in the media can't make Trump take our questions. But supinely accepting his silence threatens to normalize the distinctly abnormal.

Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.

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Marcus: A healthy democracy demands transparency - Houston Chronicle