OPINION: Freedom-loving Hungarians have rejected the Putin-Orban-Trump troika

April 12 saw the beginning of the unraveling of a chummy troika of one-man rule among Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Hungary’s Victor Orban and America’s Donald Trump. Over the past decade or so, each leader has been in a different stage of gaining complete control of all levers of power in their respective countries. Hungarian voters dealt Orban a massive election loss on the 12th, derailing his quest for unlimited power.

Putin began consolidating power in Russia after the turn of the century and achieved absolute control following his first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Victor Orban started his journey to one-man rule upon being elected as Prime Minister of Hungary in 2010. He became Putin’s closest friend in the European Union and used the Russian tyrant's playbook to tighten his grip over Hungary to the point of establishing a dictatorship.

Russia is a kleptocracy where Putin and his cronies have gained massive wealth through their control of the economy. Orban followed suit in Hungary. He helped his son-in-law, Mészáros Lőrinc, become a billionaire. Not to be outdone, Donald Trump and his family have doubled their fortune to about $10 billion since his election in 2024. Trump is now negotiating with his own IRS to settle a seriously flawed lawsuit he filed against that agency to collect $10 billion. Some would call that self-dealing.

Trump has been very close to both of the wealthy tyrants. He has consistently agreed with them on numerous things, including disparagement of NATO, Putin’s war against Ukraine and elevating the economic and political rights of the favored few.

The April 12 emasculation of Orban was not a surprise to me. I was electrified by the Hungarian desire for freedom when I was just 14 years old. When news came out that Hungarian students and factory workers had risen up against their Soviet masters in October of 1956, I was captivated and inspired. I studied every news report about the Hungarian Revolution and prayed mightily that the freedom fighters would win. As it turned out, the Soviets responded with crushing force on Nov. 4, 1956, killing thousands of brave Hungarians and installing a repressive leader.

Hungary was finally freed of Russian control when the Soviet Union crumbled in December of 1991. The country enjoyed a period of democracy until Orban began turning it into a dictatorship. The legacy of the Hungarians’ desire for freedom gradually grew in response, resulting in Orban being cast from power by a two-thirds vote in the April election — too much to overturn with false claims of election fraud.

The other two members of the strongman troika should take heed. Putin has such a strong grip on power that it may be hard for Russians to topple him. It is not too late, however, for Americans to take heart from the Hungarian freedom-lovers and forge our own rebirth of freedom during this 250th commemoration of our casting off the chains of the British monarch.

The U.S. has a tradition of freedom more deeply ingrained than the good people of Hungary. Americans need to organize, resist and vote to reject the repressive agenda being imposed by America’s member of the strongman troika. If Idahoans can defeat Trump’s Idaho enablers — Senator Risch and Congressmen Fulcher and Simpson — we can undercut his hold on power. It’s all in the hands of Idaho’s freedom-loving voters.

• • •

Jim Jones is a Vietnam combat veteran who served eight years as Idaho Attorney General (1983-1991) and 12 years as a Justice on the Idaho Supreme Court (2005-2017). He also publishes at substack.com/@jjcommontater