Shortly after being elected, Donald Trump phoned three Eastern European politicians: the leader of the Polish PiS Jarosław Kaczyński, the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán and the Czech President Miloš Zeman. The new American President has (correctly) realized that the Eastern edge of the European Union is a fertile ground for regimes that share his rhetoric, so he invited their representatives to Washington in mutual delight: these three leaders look up to Trump and finally they could boast international recognition, as until now, their anti-liberal views have not been exactly popular in the West. [...]
Ten years ago, the Hungarian philosopher Gáspár Miklós Tamás called the Central European mix of authoritarianism, hard asocial capitalism, and a formal take on democracy “post-fascism.” “Fascism is defined by denying the civic laws of certain groups of people, which is already happening,” said Tamás on Czech radio, supplying the example of criminalization of the homeless in Budapest. He stresses that the term post-fascism concerns the heading of society as a whole – individual politicians or parties need not be fascist or post-fascist in order to shift their society towards what Tamás considers post-fascism. After all, there is no perfectly satisfactory way to label the current wave of politics veering away from liberal values: the ultra-right tendencies (extreme nationalism, cultural conservatism and social darwinism) is just one of the many facets of this trend. And it is one of the least visible with Babiš. [...]
What does make Babiš similar to his authoritarian neighbors (or Trump) are his methods that require a center of power – primarily owning media or at least being able to influence it. In Poland, Kaczyński can lean on the Catholic Church and its influence, including sympathetic, conservative media like Radio Maryja or his own schools for future journalists. Kaczyński had access to this PiS-friendly support structure even before he won the elections and started subjugating state television. In Hungary, Orbán’s Fidész has created a structure of clientele networks of interconnecting state, party and business subjects. These shift the balance of power towards Orbán and decisively influence his media image. Babiš can rely on one of the biggest companies in the Czech Republic, which has – right before elections – also happened to eat up the biggest publishing house in the country. Babiš placed his people as the heads of the two biggest newspapers in the country – the professional loyalist Jaroslav Plesl at MF Dnes and his friend István Léko at People’s News. The first openly sympathizes with Trump, the second with Orbán.
No comments:
Post a Comment