Europe is learning to cope with Viktor Orban

FROM A CYNICALEU European perspective, Viktor Orban’s election triumphs are like covid-19 waves: nasty and seemingly inevitable, but less concerning once you have worked out how to live with them. And so it seems with the Hungarian prime minister’s victory at the polls on April 3rd, his fourth in a row. The size of Mr Orban’s win surprised the pundits. Yet the symptoms for the rest of Europe will be relatively mild. In recent months Hungary has been in the diplomatic equivalent of quarantine, thanks to its insistence on staying in a bubble with Russia. Better yet, Europe may have found new ways to combat this long-running affliction. Potent though it is at home, Mr Orban’s brand of “illiberal democracy” may finally be fading in virulence.True, Mr Orban’s victory is one of a long series of unwelcome triumphs by practitioners of despot-lite politics. His resounding win will cheer strongmen who like to add a veneer of democratic legitimacy to their autocratic regimes, from Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey to Vladimir Putin in Russia. But Mr Orban’s influence beyond Hungary—not least in America’s Trumpian swamp—comes from his contrived defiance towards liberal “elites” in Brussels and elsewhere. Sitting at Europe’s top table while flouting its rules is a core part of the Orban shtick. The more his European peers rant ineffectually about Hungary misspending funds, hobbling the media, bashing gay people and subverting courts, the more Mr Orban looks like he matters.