Some Questions regarding the last election, from an foreigner

14 comments

1. It’s influenced by the state media, yes, and people on the countryside consume more pro-government media just because there is more pro-government media relative to Budapest. I think however this, or the education level of the people as a lot of people seem to explain the Bp-countryside voting difference, these are not the real reasons for the voting preferences.

   It’s simply that city people are more responding to leftist, pro-worker, egalitarian movements while the countryside reponds better to traditionalist, conservative, religious messages like Orbán. It’s the same in the US, same in Canada, and I suppose everywhere in the developed world.

2. 1. the state public television you mentioned runs non-stop lying state propaganda
   2. electoral fraud, large-scale and this time legalised vote tourism
   3. many, many more stupid and/or corruptible people than here on reddit

   Good luck to your thesis! 😉

3. You will not find a lot of unbiased answers here, this sub is 95% leftist/opposition.

   >Why are there so many votes for the party of Orban and so many votes for the opposition in Budapest?

   If you’re making a thesis like this you should really know that in every country larger cities almost always lean towards the left, far more than the country’s average. Look at USA large cities vs rural regions, Poland has a right wing government but Warsaw has opposition mayor, same with Turkey and Istambul and Ankara, etc.

   >How can he be elected even tho so many people on reddit and other internet-medias are against him?

   Reddit does not represent the average person. Shocking discovery, I know.

4. Liberals perform better in cities literally everywhere. And if reddit was representative of the world we would all be living in a very different world.

5. This sub has over 200k people, the population of Hungary is over 9 million.

   People who vote for Orban watch and read state media 24/7 and can’t/won’t accept any other truths than his. The same state media has been and is working tirelessly to discredit any and all serious opposition contenders.

6. In villages people have no money for cable tv and many don’t use internet. So the only source of information for them comes from the state media (which is provided for free). But there are other things too besides the media.

7. Imádom, hogy az országunk konkrétan paradoxon a külföldiek számára.

8. the simplest explanation for why there are so many votes for Orban is propaganda. It must be a tad confusing why propaganda works so well in Hungary if you’ve never visited, so here’s a rundown:

   -every major channel excluding one has been bought out by Fidesz. all of these channels push government propaganda consisting of fearmongering, emotional manipulation, and straight up lies all day every day.

   -every physical newspaper (afaik) has also been bought by Fidesz. add to that the aging demographic of Hungary and that’s already a clear win. they’ve also taken over previously oppositional news sites, like index and origo, and if you weren’t paying attention, you didn’t notice. one day, your favourite news site was unbiased, the next, you could no longer trust it.

   -the fucking billboards. there’s one every few meters, everywhere, especially during campaigning season. it’s always some hateful, fearmongering tagline – stop Brussels, stop soros, etc. after seeing it a hundred times every day, you’re gonna start to believe it.

   -misinformation on Facebook is rampant.

   I probably missed a lot of aspects but these are what fuel the propaganda machine

   as for what makes people outside of Budapest more susceptible to this propaganda: I’d say its a combination of a few factors. one is that people in Budapest (this is a very simplified explanation) have access to better education, especially better higher education – the most well known and best universities are located in Budapest. The population of Budapest is also ten times that of the second largest city (2mil vs 200k). The population of Budapest is also younger than in rural areas (were talking under 45, not necessarily young adults) because there are more job opportunities and a better standard of living, and this age group tends to be oppositional. these factors give better access to unbiased news sources.

   that’s what I think, at least.

9. >How can he be elected even tho so many people on reddit and other internet-medias are against him?

   Because reddit doesnt represent the majority of the people, its just an opinion bubble.

10. Smart people live in the capital. That’s why. Your welcome

11. Most people in this country are brainwashed sadly.

    Of course, the state controlled propaganda wouldn’t work at all if majority were intelligent.

12. People only consume media that relates to their worldview people in Budapest are more liberal because they have way more money, so they consume liberal newspapers. People in rural areas have a tougher life and they dont care about liberalism so they consume coneervative newspapers.

    Its very simple the opposition is trash without actual value other than Orbán bad. While fidesz has a clear vision for Hungary.

13. Well, no short answer for that.

    Budapest is the richest part of the country. This is the city where you may find the most liberal and socialist voters. Eventually because Budapest is the economical center and the seat of learning in the country. Because of the economical center feature, many youngsters come to Budapest to start their life. It all leads that Budapest is the city where the concentration of the people believing in globalism, and United Europe is the highest. The prominent represenatives of the opposition parties all came from this environment, directly or indirectly. Well, maybe there are a few exceptions, but not much.

    The other parts of the country, except perhaps some western counties, are much poorer. They do not care much about liberalism, and many of them are not that big fan of socialism either. In several parts the religion counts more too.

    So this is the background.

    Fidesz spent many years to put strong roots in these countryside areas. They have activists everywhere. The opposition did not put much effort into that.

    Fidesz made several changes that resulted that these poorer regions became slightly richer. If you check Eurostats, you’ll see that the living conditions improved a lot. The 2008 crisis hit these regions when the socialist were the ruling party, and the people are afraid of them coming back. Because they live in a slowly but surely improving environment, they are afraid of any changes that might revert their progress.

    Further, the main themes the opposition was able to bring up is almost alien on these parts. They do not care much about migration (only they do not want aliens in their own community), they do not give a hoot to the freedom of media, they simply don’t believe that the economy goes into the wrong direction, and so on.

    The arrogant behavior of the opposition won’t help a bit. You see this arrogant behavior right here, just reading the comments – everybody is “brainwashed”, less intelligent, and so on. If you ask me, they want to hide their own incompetence with that. They do not want to do the hard work, go down and build up strong bases. They say it is impossible, so they don’t even try.

    And the people of the countryside do think that Hungary should not be a servant to any other country. So Orban’s way of “make Hungary great again” catches them. Orban has something to say what he thinks about Hungary, and the way how Hungary interacts with the world. The opposition says only the “Hungary must be part of EU and do what EU does”.

    So that’s the tip of the iceberg IMO.

    Now I guess you’ll see soon how an echo chamber works.

14. As many people already said the state boight media is ubiquitous and obviously pushes pro-state propaganda, offering little to no time for opposition parties outside of attack ads.

    I would also add the opposition had little to no presence outside of the capital, many of the mayors of small towns are from fidesz often with no actual competition, most of the representatives are often unknown to people outside of their party affiliation, often they are not even from the region. Worse yet that there was also no campaign presence outside of the capital where there were multiple events, even doorknockers, but outside of that not even the bigger cities got any attention outside of the usual billboards and posters. Whether this was due to shortsightedness or lack of funding is up to debate.