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According to most mainstream media accounts, a “political earthquake” has taken place in Hungary. The European far right’s poster boy and MAGA darling Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was defeated in a landslide on Sunday by political upstart Péter Magyar. The outcome of this election is indeed politically significant, as the ousting of Orbán by Hungarian voters will curtail Donald Trump’s foreign policy efforts to undermine the European Union (EU) by using Hungary as a Trojan horse in Brussels.

The Trump administration has made it abundantly clear that it wants to see a “nationalistic” Europe ruled by far right leaders. Its real interests, however, lie in weakening the EU as part of Washington’s new national security strategy in which the U.S. reasserts itself as a global hegemon. In forging a new world order, the Trump administration wants allies who are obedient subordinates. Trump’s support for Orbán was not based solely on ideological grounds but was also driven by a specific strategy for Europe, one in which the continent was to be subordinated to the interests of U.S. imperialism.

That said, the key question is this: Could the end of Orbán’s 16-year reign also mark the beginning of the end of the far right’s modern political surge? Indeed, the far right has faced other major setbacks across Europe in recent days and Donald Trump’s approval rating in the U.S. has taken a significant hit in recent surveys. The problem with concluding that the defeat of Orbán somehow represents the start of a new political era marked by the decline of right-wing authoritarianism, however, is that while the far right may currently be experiencing setbacks, the left is still struggling to articulate an alternative vision attractive enough to capture the public’s interest.

Moreover, the winner of Hungary’s so-called historic election is a former Orbán loyalist who ran on a pledge to rebuild Hungary’s relationships with the EU and NATO. Magyar also campaigned on an anti-corruption and anti-state-capture platform, which is rather typical of every mainstream politician in central and eastern Europe, but it is highly unlikely that he will shift away from Orbán’s reactionary policies on immigration. In fact, as researchers Eric Maurice and Levente Kocsis have shown, Magyar’s Tisza party’s voting behavior in the European Parliament reveals a strong convergence with Orbán’s own Fidesz party on “politically sensitive issues” such as Ukraine and immigration and “opposing language on rights and equality.” And while Magyar has spoken of wanting to move Hungary closer to the EU, he has avoided taking a........

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