Mediaboss Marketing

Brussels and Western college campuses overreach enough to give Orban and his ilk the ammunition to paint liberal democracy as woke authoritarianism being thrust upon them, which they use to conceal their dismantling of independent institutions

By Marc Champion / Bloomberg Opinion

Why are former US president Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) Republicans so fascinated by Viktor Orban, the prime minister of a small, landlocked central European nation that many of them likely could not find on a map? Because, as he said in 2022 when he addressed a US Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas, Hungarys leader just keeps winning and winning and winning.

Orban has created a model MAGA country. In a speech to the conferences only European franchise in Budapest on Thursday, he offered himself up as living proof that conservatives can survive in an ocean of liberal pretense, to make Europe great again.

Others due to speak included US Republicans such as Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, and US representatives Andy Harris of Maryland and Keith Self of Texas, as well as former presidential hopefuls Vivek Ramaswamy and Rick Santorum.

Illustration: Mountain People

After a recent visit to Hungarys capital, still elegant and redolent of the days when it ran a small empire, I think liberals have even more to learn.

Orban wants to change the world in his image. That is not a metaphor or hyperbole. You do not have to like him or his goals, but do not discount the 60-year-olds voracious ambition, political talent and sheer chutzpah.

Hungarys experience under Orban offers at least two takeaways for liberals: First, build a united opposition and do not wait to fight back. Second, focus that fight tightly around the rule of law and democratic institutions. Mix it up with the culture wars and you will play into populists hands.

Orbans a lot smarter than his clownish British counterparts. He does not want to leave the EU, which would only make his country poorer and him less influential, but to occupy it. He wants to stoke a revolution of like-minded populists across the bloc that would capture EU institutions, including the European Parliament, which opinion polls suggest would have an expanded far-right contingent after elections this summer.

He is also openly rooting for a Trump victory in November and makes no secret of his preference for the political systems of countries such as Singapore, Turkey, India or Russia, over so-called liberal democracies.

At the beginning of the year we were alone. By the end of the year, we will be the majority in the Western world, Orban told supporters in a March address to mark Hungarys heroic, but ultimately failed, 1848 revolt against the Habsburg Empire.

Everyone would be welcome in his new world of nationalisms, Orban said except for traitors who worked with the EU institutions in Brussels (in his eyes, a new incarnation of the Habsburgs), and those who want to open the floodgates to migrants, or hand our children over to unhinged gender activists.

You know you are in Orbans new order from the moment you get off a plane. Ads promoting Hungary as family friendly line the walls of the jet bridges. The borders are proudly resistant to (non-European) refugees and migrants.

The government has forced out academically free universities, or simply starved them of funding. Meanwhile, the prime ministers chief ideologue, Balazs Orban (no relation), took charge of a private academy called the Mathias Corvinus Collegium and supersized it, endowing it with US$1 billion and an overtly Orbanist agenda.

He can do that, because Viktor Orbans friends and loyalists control much of the economy, including advertising and media, where they bought up 500 outlets and bundled them into a single government-friendly entity. In the deepest of ironies, the whole project has been funded with the help of EU aid that at times accounted for close to 5 percent of GDP.

Driving into the city, billboards show Viktor Orbans main political opponents daubed with dollar signs as if it were graffiti, to portray them as the unpatriotic, paid lackeys of the US. Previously, the same billboards had attacked European Commission President Ursula Van der Leyen. Before her it was George Soros, the Hungarian-born billionaire and philanthropist whom Viktor Orban has sold to his voters as a Bond villain. Keeping voters mobilized against enemies, real and imagined, has been critical to Viktor Orbans success.

US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who is gay, is also on the hit list. In a remarkable speech last month, Pressman warned against Viktor Orbans backsliding on democracy under cover of rhetorical shell games that tell you to look anywhere other than where the actual ball is hidden. That was typical of Soviet bloc countries during the Cold War, and in Russia still, he said. But this is not something we expect from allies.

Other populists cannot copy Viktor Orbans playbook wholesale, because it has depended on a unique weakness in Hungarys electoral system that easily grants a supermajority of parliamentary seats. That gave Viktor Orban a free hand to legislate and change the constitution from the day he took office. He used the power to create a de facto one-party state he has called it illiberal democracy without having to jail opponents, as in Turkey, or kill them, as in Russia.

What matters is whether Hungary is still a democracy, 10 years into this illiberal project, said Agoston Samuel Mraz, chief executive of the government-friendly Nezopont Intezet think tank and polling agency. Clearly it is, because the most important question is whether the opposition has a possibility to win the election.

It does, Mraz said. It is just that Viktor Orbans opposition is divided and not very good.

Maybe. Technically, Mraz is right. Most Hungarians can watch TV commentators criticizing the government if they try. They could also vote for opposition parties if they wanted to. It is just that the field is so sharply tilted in favor of Viktor Orban in terms of money, media coverage and gerrymandered electoral districting that it would take a minor miracle to unseat him. (The next elections are scheduled for 2026).

There are signs of fatigue with Viktor Orbans Fidesz party, which for the first time since 2010 is overseeing a declining economy that is not easily explained away, with growth negative and inflation at 17 percent last year. The open question is whether it is too late to unravel Orbanism, because a lot of damage has been done.

Take the rule of law, a sine qua non for any genuine democracy. Viktor Orban brought the prosecutors office, constitutional court and ombudsman under his control early, before moving on to the Supreme Court and making a new position, filled by the wife of a Fidesz lawmaker, to take charge of all judicial appointments and training budgets for the lower courts.

Tamas Matusik was among those elected in 2018 to the judiciarys existing governing body, the Hungarian National Council of Judges, who first took a stand for its independence.

We were hunted down, he said.

Some members resigned under pressure. Others were subjected to public smear campaigns. Matusik personally was the object of more than 400 negative TV and press items in a single month, as he went to seek European support.

I told colleagues there, this can happen to you, he said. Some laughed at the idea, said Matusik, who eventually became president of the council and whose term has since ended. They arent laughing anymore.

In the end, it worked and Viktor Orban backed down. His appointee resigned and, under intense pressure from the EU, which withheld more than 10 billion euros (US$10.71 billion) of funding to press for the reversal, powers were restored to the council to run the lower court system. That secured release of the EU funds, but Hungarys highest courts remain captured.

The original sin of our judiciary was that no one stood up and protested when it all began, Matusik said.

That is one key Viktor Orban lesson for liberals: To push back early where it really counts. Another is to define much more tightly where that is, focusing exclusively on what is required for membership in the club of Western democracies, including the EU and NATO, and is therefore open to legitimate international pressure.

It is vital to resist the overreach that has helped Viktor Orban sell his shell game to voters by eliding issues of democracy with identity politics. After all, if illiberalism just means having a democracy stripped of woke diktat, what is not to like for a conservative?

The EU, for example, is still withholding 20 billion euros of funding for Hungary, with the bulk of criteria for the moneys release focused on measures to prevent fraud and corruption. When he attacks these conditions, the prime minister invariably talks about demands to repeal a law banning the exposure of minors to material that refers to homosexuality, and a requirement for asylum seekers only to apply from outside the country.

His complaint resonates. I disagree with these laws, as does the European Commission, but many Hungarians do not.

The EUs attempt to police the area has proved a political gift to Viktor Orban, diverting attention from his erosion of the rule of law, and from the losses to Hungary including tens of billions of euros in EU aid that are being caused by corruption among his business allies. It also raises reasonable questions about whether policies on LGBTQ+ rights and immigration should be decided in Brussels or national parliaments.

Viktor Orban and his like succeed in part because there is enough overreach in Brussels, Western college campuses and elsewhere that he can use it to paint liberal democracy as a woke authoritarianism that is being thrust down Hungarian throats, concealing his destruction of independent institutions. So let us stop talking about liberal and illiberal democracy altogether. It is just democracy, it is under severe threat in Hungary and that is nothing to admire or emulate.

Marc Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East. He was previously Istanbul bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Comments will be moderated. Keep comments relevant to the article. Remarks containing abusive and obscene language, personal attacks of any kind or promotion will be removed and the user banned. Final decision will be at the discretion of the Taipei Times.

See more here:
MAGA is obsessed with Viktor Orban; liberals should be, too -

Political careers often end in failure a clich that exists because it too often happens to be true. Justin Trudeau, one of the worlds great progressive leaders, may be heading toward that moment. In a recent interview he acknowledged that every day he considers leaving his crazy job as Canadas prime minister. Increasingly, the question is not if he will leave but how soon and how deep his failure will be when he goes.

At stake is something that matters more than one politicians career: Canadas contemporary liberal and multicultural society, which just happens to be the legacy of the prime ministers father and predecessor, Pierre Trudeau. When you fly into Montreal, you land in Trudeau airport, and thats because of Pierre, not Justin.

The threat to that liberal tradition is not all Justin Trudeaus fault, of course. The right-wing tide overwhelming global politics has come late but with pent-up vigor to Canada. For several years now, polls have shown Mr. Trudeaus Liberals at lows from which no Canadian political party has ever recovered in elections. In a recent by-election, in a key suburban district of the Greater Toronto Area, the Conservative Party beat the Liberals by a lopsided 57 percent to 22 percent, a swing of nine percentage points to the Conservatives.

But polls and by-elections can be poor predictors of election viability. A better indicator is the flummoxed figure of Mr. Trudeau himself, who seems increasingly out of touch in the new world of division and extremism.

Part of Mr. Trudeaus problem is simple exhaustion, both his own and Canadian voters. He has been in government for almost eight and a half years. During that time, he has been one of the most effective progressive leaders in the world. His government cut Canadas child poverty in half. He legalized marijuana, ending roughly 100 years of nonsense. He made large strides in reconciliation with Indigenous Canadians. He renegotiated NAFTA with a lunatic American president. He handled Covid better than most. You dont have to squint too hard to recognize that he is one of the most competent and transformative prime ministers this country has ever produced.

But an era has passed since the start of that halcyon time, when Mr. Trudeau stood in front of his first cabinet and, when asked why it was half female, answered, Because its 2015. Now a new generation has emerged, for which the liberal technocratic order his government represents has failed to offer a path to a stable, prosperous future and the identity politics he once embodied have withered into vacuous schism. The growing anti-Liberal Party sentiment of young people is the biggest threat to his electability.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit andlog intoyour Times account, orsubscribefor all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?Log in.

Want all of The Times?Subscribe.

Read more from the original source:
Opinion | Justin Trudeau May Be No Match for the New World of Polarization - The New York Times

The federal governments payment program for the vaccine-injured is getting a $36 million top up from the feds, but accessing that money is proving difficult.

Of the 2,233 claims made to the Vaccine Injury Support Program, just 138 a little over 6% have been approved by the medical review board for the program, which has paid out $11.2 million so far.

The Liberals have allocated an additional $36 million in the recent budget to the Vaccine Injury Support Program, over the next two years.

Oxaro administers the Vaccine Injury Support Program for the feds for all provinces and territories, except Quebec, which has itsownprogram.

Ross Wightman, who was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre system after receiving a COVID vaccine, was one of the recipients, getting a one-time payout of around $250,000, the maximum offered by the program. He also receives $90,000 annually in income replacement.

I dont know if theres even an amount that would ease the pain, said Wightman.

Despite being poked, prodded, and tested for months, doctors were fearful of the consequences they might face from superiors if they officially declared that the vaccines caused Wightmans injuries.

He has permanent nerve damage in his hands from the Guillain-Barre. He can no longer work or do simple tasks around the house, resulting in his wife no longer being able to work, as she needs to take care of the household tasks and children.

Given the extent of the permanent life-changing injuries, a couple hundred thousand dollars isnt much, thats for sure. No. Its just a wake of destruction thats left behind for family and all that stuff, he added.

It took months of struggle and jumping through hoops for Wightman to get paid. Even still, hes struggled with being reimbursed for expenses. He said that he finally received $15,000 for his expenses after hounding them for four months, but it was only a quarter of what hed had to spend.

Waiting years for payment from the vaccine injury program is the best some could hope for.

Julie Gamble has been dealing with the program for years, only to face being hung up on by the phone and not getting replies to her emails.

Shes connected with many others through various vaccine-injured support groups, only to find that theyve faced the same struggles having submitted all of their medical records and hearing nothing but excuses as to why theyre not getting back to us.

Our families have been destroyed. We stepped up to the plate and did what was asked of us. Nothing about this is fair to any of us, said Gamble.

Gamble says she was permanently injured by the vaccine with polyneuropathy, estimating she has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses and lost income.

She said that her short-term memory is very poor, and she has almost no muscle remaining in her hands. She does not think she will ever work again.

Its the biggest regret of my life that I got this vaccine, she said.

She almost didnt get her second shot. After having a horrific reactionto the first dose, she said her pharmacist did not want to give her the second. She went to see an immunologist at the pharmacists recommendation. Instead, she was admitted to the hospital waiting room and consulted by a doctor, who encouraged her to get the second shot, which she did.

On my way home, I knew Id made a mistake, she said. That night, I ended up blind in my right eye. My bladder let go. My eyeswere swollenlike eggs. I had a rash all over my body, and I couldnt stay awake. I tasted metal in my mouth.

Since her injury, Gamble has been trying to connect with people in similar situations online. Any time she posts about vaccine injuries, she said she gets suspendedfrom Facebook and other social media platforms for false and misleading information.

Despite her husband working as much as he can and receiving CPP disability payments, Gamble has had to use food banks to get by.

True Northreached out toHealth Canada, the Vaccine Injury Support Program, and Oxaro but received no response.

View post:
Only 6% of vaccine injury claimants have been paid as Liberals earmark $36 million for program - True North

PC leader Tony Wakeham focused Mondays question period on how the provincial government has handled mental health and addiction problems.

PC Leader Tony Wakeham focused Mondays question period on the provincial governments handling of mental health and addiction problems. (Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly)

The Progressive Conservatives hammered the Newfoundland and Labrador government over ongoing drug overdoses Monday, arguing it's a health-care problem that has people slipping through the cracks to become a criminal justice problem.

PC leader and Stephenville-Port au Port MHA Tony Wakeham said the province has seen number of overdose deaths accelerate in recent years and asked Premier Andrew Furey if he thought the government was doing enough to address them.

Wakeham said 51 people died last year due to overdoses, a 143 per cent increase over 2019, when 21 people died, according to an access-to-information request filed by his party.

"In September it was reported that in eight months 24 Newfoundlanderand Labradorianresidents had died due to overdose. Four months later, that number more than doubled to 51," said Wakeham.

Furey said everyone in the province has been touched in some way by mental health and addiction problems and his government was doing its best to support people.

"Mr. Speaker, this is a problem that has gripped the entire nation, starting west and moving east. And we're not immune here," said Furey during question period in the House of Assembly.

Furey said it's an "evolving crisis" and drugs have gotten stronger. He said his government is focused on education and mental health and addiction strategies.

Mobile units timeline

Noting the 2024 budget allocated $1 million for seven mobile crisis teams, Wakeham said one unit is up and running in his district, but he wanted to know whether the others would be running by the end of the year and whether staff had been recruited.

Health Minister Tom Osborne said they're being held up because the budget still isn't official.

"As soon as the budget is passed, we can get on with that work in earnest," he said.

Health Minister Tom Osborne says his government is acting to address the problems but more can be done. (Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly)

Osborne defended the Liberal government's record, saying they were focused on increasing health-care positions, and accused Wakeham of being focused on cutting positions when he was CEO of the Labrador-Grenfell health authority.

"Mr. Speaker, that is the contrast between this side and that side," said Osborne to applause from his colleagues.

Wakeham shot back, "Speaker, I'm not even going to respond. Not even going to respond."

He then suggested the provincial government isn't acting with urgency to address the problem.

From health care to justice system

Harbour Main MHA Helen Conway-Ottenheimer said the number of files assigned to the drug investigative unit rose from 80 to 112 to 141 between 2021 and 2023, according to information obtained from the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary.

"Does the justice minister acknowledge that the drug crisis in this province is only getting worse?" she asked.

Justice Minister John Hogan acknowledged it's getting worse and said it's being taken seriously.

"I think it is fair to say and it's obvious to say that it is getting worse," said Hogan.

Conway-Ottenheimer also said information from the RNC says charges laid by the drug enforcement unit had also risenmore than sevenfoldin two years,from 25 in 2021 to 181 in 2023.

"The drug problem in our province is spiraling out of control. When will this government treat the underlying addictions crisis as a health crisis and not leave it to our police to pick up the pieces for this government's failure to act?" she said.

Osborne said health professionals and law enforcement work together, and get training to handle mental health issues.

"There is training and so on in place for those that are involved in responding to individuals with mental health crises or mental health issues. That will continue. Mr. Speaker, this is an issue where all individuals, all agencies, all groups are working together and must work together to ensure that we respond in the most appropriate way," he said.

Harbour Main MHA Helen Conway-Ottenheimer says there is a link between untreated mental health conditions and crime, and people go untreated when they have no access to health care. (Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly)

Conway-Ottenheimer said there's a clear link between untreated mental health conditions and crime, but people go untreateddue to a lack of access to health care.

She asked if Hogan knew how many people are incarcerated or facing charges who have untreated mental health conditions.

Hogan said he didn't have that number but the government is working to address facility issues, noting the budget has $15 million set aside to make additional space for services at Her Majesty's Penitentiary.

Terra Nova MHA Lloyd Parrott said a 2018 report estimated between77 per cent and 87 per cent of inmates had mental health issues, substance abuse issues or both. Six years on from that report, he said, he believes the situation is worse.

"Sadly, too many people fall through the cracks under this government's watch and instead they end up committing crimes before they have a chance to access the help they desperately need," said Parrott.

Osborne said there is "no question" that more needs to be done for people with mental health and addictions issues. He said the budget has support like the mobile crisis response units and efforts to enhance addictions centres.

He also said the six-bed mentalhealth unit at the Labrador Health Centre in Happy Valley-Goose Bayis temporarily closed due to staffing issues, but it is expected to reopen in the spring.

Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Click here to visit our landing page.

See the original post:
PC opposition blasts Liberals over handling of mental health and drug crisis - Yahoo News Canada

Justin Trudeau was hoping his housing budget would reverse the governments slide in popularity. Instead, things have gotten worse.

For the good of the Liberal Party he leads, the Prime Minister needs to think about his future.

The government gambled everything on this budget. Younger voters are unhappy. Economic uncertainty and high interest rates have worsened housing shortages, making ownership impossible and rent exorbitant for many. Their support has shifted emphatically from the Liberals to the Conservatives.

The budgets answer: billions of dollars to support new housing starts, housing infrastructure and apartment construction, along with measures to make it easier to secure a first mortgage.

Party strategists hoped the housing-focused budget would narrow the huge gap in support between the two parties over the next few months by winning back younger voters. So far, its not working.

A Nanos postbudget poll showed Conservative support increasing to 42 per cent, with the Liberals down to 23 per cent. Ipsos has only 17 per cent of Canadians giving the budget two thumbs up, while 40 per cent give it two thumbs down. Similarly, Leger has half of all Canadians rejecting the budget and only 20 per cent welcoming it.

A capital-gains tax increase included in the budget may be part of the problem. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland insisted only the very rich would be forced to pay. But it turns out the very rich include family doctors, other small business owners and people hoping to sell the cottage one day.

It also didnt help that everyone from former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge to Bill Morneau the previous Liberal finance minister, for crying out loud attacked the budget for increasing taxes in a time of weak productivity and little or no growth.

Mr. Trudeau is now ratcheting up his attacks on Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who recently consorted with some anti-Trudeau protesters once again, and who has earned the dubious distinction of being endorsed by lunatic-fringe commentator Alex Jones in the United States.

But this isnt likely to matter much to people whose mortgages are up for renewal.

The most important legislative item, outside the budget itself, is the pharmacare bill. Once it passes, the legislative record of this government will largely be complete.

The supply and confidence agreement between the Liberals and the NDP is supposed to last until October, 2025. But its more likely the government will fall over the next budget in spring of next year, if not before. Once pharmacare is law, what possible reason would New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh have to keep this tired government alive?

Mr. Trudeau has pretty much run out of opportunities to change the narrative. Interest rates have not gone down as hoped. Housing starts will be down again this year, and will remain weak over the following two years, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, whatever the budget might promise. The economy crawls forward on its stomach.

The government has reached the point where it must both raise taxes and increase debt to fund programs that most of us dont care about or dont support. People have crossed their arms. They are simply waiting for the day when they can vote Mr. Trudeau out of office.

The Prime Minister has a choice. He can step down this spring or early summer, and let the party select a new leader. Or he can stay on and meet his fate.

Mr. Trudeau may believe that he and only he can prevent the ruination of Canada as he sees it at the hands of Mr. Poilievre. But how can that be true? Given the Liberals current electoral prospects, wouldnt someone else anyone else likely fare better?

Stories have surfaced that Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc might be interested. Mark Carney, former governor of the Canadian and English central banks, is giving speeches. Others are testing the waters.

A new leader doesnt guarantee a Liberal victory in the next election far from it. But more might be saved than in an election with the current leader.

The Liberal Party was in the ditch when Justin Trudeau came to its rescue in 2013. He needs to ask himself in what state it will be if he stays.

Visit link:
Opinion: For the good of the Liberal party, Trudeau needs to think about his future - The Globe and Mail