Orban's divisie rhetoric and tricks explained - it won't work anymore

Seeing through Fidesz's right wing deception: the trick the Republicans, the Conservatices, Le Pen and now Orban employs

Hungary is descending further and further into the abyss under Orban. Economically only the EU subsidies keep the country afloat. Recently to keep his campaigning - entirely based on artificial fear from migration - Orban's government even stopped feeding those who apply for a refugee permit. This procedure can last for days. They try to tell people to leave before an official decision has been made, thereby basically cancelling out their application. As inhumane and evil as it can get.

Luckily, more and more people are starting to understand the communication strategy of Orban's Fidesz. And besides communication there is nothing that keeps them afloat. Orban gets support basically for reiterating every week a nice, romantic, nationalist fairy tale to his voters.
I describe here this strategy, give some examples, and tell you how to avoid falling for it.

This fairy tale is based on the schematics that there is always a new challenge or threat to Hungary. The evil person, the source of the threat is always portrayed by Fidesz as someone who is or can legitimately challenge Orban's rule, or who points out real faults with it. Such institutions and people get depicted as the evil ones and Fidesz as the saviors. Fidesz repeates its lies so often at every possible time that after a period people start discussing non-existent issues. They forget that the issue doesn't exist and start behaving as if it would.

For example Fidesz started talking of 'the liberals'. There is and never was a unified camp either in politics or among voters in Hungary that could have been identified meaningfully as such. But they repeated this lie often enough and it stuck. Now many journalists and opposition people debate as if they would be liberals and the issue would be to show that Fidesz is wrong about liberals, or that liberals and right and Fidesz is wrong.

But more and more people see it now that the correct solution is simply to point out that Fidesz is lying in the first place. There are no liberals. The problem they are talking about doesn't exist. And hence, they are just bullshitting very expensively at the voters' money instead of working.

There is a simple method to counter the effects of this rhetoric. Every time Orban, Le Pen, the Brexiters, Republicans, or people saying they are 'conservative' or 'liberal' state that there is a problem and they are the only ones who can solve it do one thing. Calmly ask yourself: is that a real problem? When Orban says that he is the only one looking at the nation's interest is that true? No. I'm against Orban and I look at it. So his claim is false. Our values and goals are the same. Where is the difference? In the facts: namely, the facts Orban wants to build his case on are non-existent. Plainly said, they are lies. This is how easy it is.

Another example: there is no threat of gay people in the world or threat of 'genders' or 'feminism'. Does any sane people disagree with the following 3 claims?
1 Gay people should be left alone to live their lives as everyone else.
2 People with all kinds of genders should be left alone to live their lives as everyone else.
3 In areas where women are disadvantages simply because they are women - in some jobs in their pay, in some legal procedures, in some stereotypes and educational institutions - they should be treated as equals.

No one disagrees with these things. This is what sane gay activists, gender activists, and feminists ask for. Since every normal grown up understands these things and agrees on this, there is no threat.
So, where is the issue? The issue is with the likes of Jordan Peterson lying that there are bigger threats (to freedom of speech, gosh), Trump railing against women because some are protesting against him, and so on. The problem is with the hate mongers who get hung up on non-issues, like how someone experiences their gender.

Call these liars out, and just move on. Don't give them attention, time, energy. Let's keep building a normal world, work, spend quality time with our families. Not everything is politics. Folks like Orban and his Fidesz would like us to believe everything is. Politics is in how we behave in our families, what we think of food, art, literature, fun, gender, etc. That is not true. Politics has nothing to do in most of these places. But sensationalist and populist politicians gain power by pretending that there is. I don't blame people who are tired and confused by the world for getting duped. It happens to all of us. Just make sure you turn away and don't vote for these people. Take a break, enjoy your life, build you community, talk with your neighbour and vote for sensible people, not sensationalists.

On the Trump presidency

Some articles (like this one in The Independent and this one in The Washington Post) mention two possibilities:

1. That Trump might not be as hot-headed and aggressive as he acted in his campaign, and that
2. a Trump presidency might be better for international military politics, because Trump said that he would be reluctant to wage wars if they are costly, or to defend allies if they don't pay towards their defense.

Both of these ideas are mistaken and there is no reason for hope and optimism.

With concern to 1.: The question is not whether Trump might be more sensible than the way he made himself look in his campaign. The question is if there is any good reason to think that is more sensible. There isn't. He was consistently haphazard, offensive, chaotic, unprepared, and unprofessional.

With concern to 2.: I've read in many places that Trump wants to talk to Putin and that is a good thing. Saying this makes it obvious that many - even intelligent - people believe that the U.S. administration and military is not maintaining constant close discussions on many topics with Russia. This is of course a false idea. Russia and the U.S. don't collide on many issues because they don't communicate.
Also, people who think that when Trump said he would talk with Russia that was a considered, serious thing haven't listened to his other ideas. He is just sputtering populist phrases. Whatever works at the moment. He knows as much about strategy, military issues, and economic competition with Russia as about other topics: next to nothing. As soon as he is seriously briefed and informed, if he even understands what he is being told, which is not sure, he might change his mind.

The same is the case concerning his ideas that the U.S. shouldn't offer defense arrangements for Japan, South-Korea and the Philippines. There are three enormous confusions here:
i) the U.S. does not offer defense. Japan had to accept that the U.S. military is stationed there at the end of the occupation following WWII. South-Korea had to accept the troops after the Korean war. The Philippines used to be a de facto U.S. colony. Also, Japan and South-Korea pay huge amounts towards the maintenance of the bases that the U.S. troops are using and towards the costs of the U.S. military.
Third, it is far from obvious that these countries really wanted the U.S. to station their troops there. That the U.S. is there ensures that these countries collide in their diplomacy with their other neighbours, Russia and China. If the U.S. troops would not be there these countries would have much more space for diplomatic manouvering and for looking out for their own interests. It is however part of the U.S. position that there can't be any powerful opponents on its borders. Canada and Mexico are no threats, across the Atlantic is a bloc of NATO countries, and Japan and South-Korea, as well as the Philippines form a big buffer zone between the U.S. and China. If the U.S. does not want to change its major defense policies it won't give up on these alliances.

Hence, there are no good reasons to be optimistic about Trump's presidency if he goes through with anything he has said.