A lengthy, thoughtful and for me at least, disturbing piece from a writer who continues to impress.
Liberals in Britain, no matter where they are on the political spectrum, should look very carefully at what is happening in Hungary. It is not enough to say, as Brits often do, that it could not happen here. Many things are currently happening here that we previously insisted never would. Every constituent part of the Orban programme exists here: the anti-semitism, the focus on Soros, the relentless fear-mongering about immigrants, the demonisation of the EU and its institutions, the attacks on Islam, the undermining of an independent judiciary, and, most of all, the widespread conspiracy-squint - the idea, popular on left and right, on almost all matters of political consequence, that shadowy and powerful forces are undermining the people's will.
Scaremongering? I'm not thinking so, at this moment.
Where there is so little hope, and so few ways to feel like you can make a difference, it becomes tempting to just tune out. Then the siren voices take over. They tell you that you can somehow stop illiberalism by placating it: just give in a bit on Brexit, a bit on anti-semitism, a bit on conspiracy theories, and it'll all go away. But this is false. There is no way to kill a beast by feeding it.
http://politics.co.uk/blogs/2018/04/09/ ... ghting-aga