The Alaskan-Hungarian model could halt the decay of America’s democracy
- Rich Moniak
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
By Rich Moniak
A lot has been written this past week about how the campaign that led to the last weekend’s landslide defeat of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán could be a model for defeating the illiberal MAGA movement led by President Donald Trump.
I wholeheartedly agree.
But I also think part of the formula of Péter Magyar’s opposition party has been evident in Alaska since the 2010 election. In that race, enough traditionally Democratic voters put the state and nation ahead of their party’s agenda to help deliver an unprecedented write-in victory for Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
Magyar’s Tisza Party won 69% of the seats in Hungary’s National Assembly. It has a mandate to restore the independence of judiciary, electoral system, and news media. And root out the corruption that went unchecked because Orbán’s Fidesz Party controlled all the levers of power.
Magyar isn’t an outsider. From 2016 to 2024, the 45-year-old conservative lawyer held multiple posts in Orbán’s government. But in a display of political courage that’s almost entirely absent on the American right, he resigned after exposing the pardon of a Fidesz official who had covered up sexual abuse of minors in a state-run home for children.
Magyar went on to convince enough conservatives to join an alliance of mostly left-wing activists, liberals, and Green Party members. But in prioritizing his pledge to rebuild Hungary’s democracy “brick by brick,” the left agreed to put their social and environmental agendas on the back burner.
In America, Trump has been following the Project 2025 playbook to undo all the left’s prior gains.
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, wrote the Foreword to Project 2025. He also referred to Orbán’s rule as a “model for conservative governance.”
Maura Casey of the Kettering Foundation had warned implementing it could turn American democracy into “a superpower version of Viktor Orban’s Hungary.”
But despite winning the election with only 49.8% of the popular vote, Trump claimed he had “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” He appointed one of Project 2025’s principal architects to serve as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. And directed his administration to begin dismantling the institutions designed to check presidential power.
With the exception of Murkowski, congressional Republicans have mostly been going along for the ride.
However, unlike Magyar, Murkowski lacks the resolve to leave her party.
Or caucus with Democrats, like Rep. Louise Stutes (R-Kodiak) and two other Republicans did in Alaska nine years ago.
In a prelude to Trump’s tyrannical leadership, the chairman of the state Republican Party attempted to prohibit all three from running as Republicans in the next primary election. When that didn’t work, the party backed their Republican challengers.
Stutes never backed down. She was reelected every year since then and is currently doing her third stint in a bipartisan majority.
Sen. Löki Gale Tobin (D-Anchorage) succinctly summed up how the bipartisan majority functions in the Senate. To find common ground, they agreed to “take all the social issues and push them to the wayside.”
Sen. Gary Stevens (R-Kodiak) has been a member of every bipartisan majority the Senate has formed since 2007. He believes “civility is absolutely crucial.” It requires showing respect for all sides of the political spectrum.
Civility and respect for the opposition are at the bottom of Trump’s governing philosophy.
“I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them,” he told those gathered at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service last year. His political enemies list now includes Pope Leo XIV who said Trump’s threat to destroy Iran’s entire civilization was morally unacceptable.
Before the Pope spoke, Murkowski called it “an affront to the ideals our nation has sought to uphold and promote around the world for nearly 250 years.”
But Sen. Dan Sullivan, Rep. Nick Begich, and almost every other congressional Republican failed to take a moral stand.
That’s one more reason why Murkowski should make a clean break from her party.
To convince her and other moderate Republicans to make the move, congressional Democrats will need to prioritize mending our battered democracy above everything else. And to build a national coalition with the same objective, the party’s progressive wing needs to show respect and tolerance toward conservatives who disagree with their social and environmental agendas.
The alternative is a status quo of Americans split down the middle. And the risk of further backsliding of progressive gains and decay of our democracy.
• Rich Moniak is a Juneau resident and retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.
