Excusing tyrants

There are always well educated and well-off people who are willing to justify what authoritarian strongman do. Putin has such supporters, Xi has them, Erdogan does, Trump too, and so does Orban in Hungary.
As disgusting as Orban is, there are people who are credible enough - as literary critics, not that that's an amazing proof of sound political judgment - who are sympathetic to him. The one I'm talking about is Tibor Fischer, long-time Fidesz sympathizer.
The Guardian has the fairness to introduce right-wing opinions, and the desire to earn clicks by outraging people, and decided to publish an apology piece for Orban, penned by Fischer.
Fischer is alright on literature. Not very knowledgeable and certainly not a friend of anything in literature that came after the 1920s, but hey, at least he sort of knows there what is he is talking about.
When it comes to politics he is just one of those intellectuals who think that politics is a battle of values and ideals, and that when a politicians work is discussed it is not important to look at
- legal changes
- changes to the welfare system
- corruption connected to that politician
- geopolitical implications.

On the first front Orban's performance is appalling. Fidesz modified the electoral laws in a way that it is very hard to beat it, they modified in several places the laws protecting workers' right to the benefit of company owners, they modified the laws about detention and these play now much more into the hands of the police, and so on.
On the second front Orban's government is doing even worse. Since Fidesz had been elected - 7 years ago - they have scrapped several benefits to people with amputated limbs, people with disabilities, people with chronic illnesses. The minimum amount of pensions is around £80 per month, and the minimum wages (currently at £277/month) are taxed for 16% income tax just as the largest salaries of millions of Forints (thousands of pounds).
On the third front, Fidesz's corruption is unprecedented. Medgyessy, Gyurcsany, and Bajnai were deeply corrupt and their cabinets and parties stole us much as was possible. However Fidesz perfected the art of channeling government money into their own pockets. They set up hundreds of companies, use government schemes (construction orders, local government schemes, land law, etc.) to this purpose. The leaders of the party set up through their friends their own companies which sell Hungarian citizenship and they made around 4 billion Euros so far.
On the fourth front, Fidesz is working hard to undermine the EU and slow down NATO, and is drawing ever closer to Putin's Russia. This is not only disastrous for Hungary and Europe, it is also deeply insulting for all those Hungarians who suffered the Soviet forced 'friendship', which was in fact an occupation.

Fidesz is now shutting down a University because Putin does not like Soros. Soros uses his private funds to support NGOs to foster balanced journalism, transparency, and to educate people up to US and European standards. CEU is just a much better run University with higher standards than most East-European institutions. Putin hates Soros because many opposition leaders made use of the support of organizations founded by Soros's charities. So, Putin instructed Orban to make the operations of CEU impossible. And Orban, like an overly eager puppy, jumped.

This is the Prime Minister and party which Fischer is excusing.