Scott Alexander read some biographies of Hungary's Viktor Orban & wrote them up. It's a quick (& amusingly written) way to catch up on who Orban is & where he came from. A few sentences jumped out at me ... astralcodexten.substack.com/p/dictator-boo…
"He was neither exceptionally bright nor exceptionally charismatic."
"Viktor Orban is a man who almost automatically believes in the veracity of whatever he considers to be politically useful to him."
"He shamelessly gerrymandered unequally sized districts."
"Viktor Orban is a man who almost automatically believes in the veracity of whatever he considers to be politically useful to him."
"He shamelessly gerrymandered unequally sized districts."
"Whatever the reason, anti-immigrant measures in Hungary were polling around the mid-80s-percent. For Viktor Orban, who really likes winning, co-opting the issue was a no-brainer."
"He was able to beat everyone else by taking advantage of loopholes everyone else left open because they didn’t think anyone would be crazy enough to use them."
And yet, heroically, Alexander makes it through the entire review without using the word "Trump."
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