Both the U.S. and E.U. mandate
that their respective states be republics (i.e., representative democracies),
and thus assuming an autocratic government is prohibited. When the governor of
the state of Hungary restricted freedom of the press and judicial independence,
the E.U. pushed back until Viktor Orbán lost reelection in 2026. Later that
year, when the AfD (far right) group won in a region of the state of Germany,
the state’s chancellor publicly voiced concern regarding the group’s attitude
toward democracy. Viewing the governor as the bastion of constraint on such a
trend ignores the E.U. entirely and treats Germany as still fully sovereign
rather than being a state in the federal Union, which also has authority to
protect democracy even if that authority was shown to be too weak with regard
to Orbán’s rule in Hungary.
The full essay is at "The AfD Group Surges."
