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Dissenters Against European Autocrats Warn of 'Democratic Backsliding' in Trump's America
"Many Americans think this is something that only happens to others, and I think that mindset has to be fought," said Katalin Cseh, a member of Hungary's opposition Momentum Movement Party.
Jul 17, 2025
Eastern European dissidents are warning that the autocratic politics that took over their countries is in the process of taking over the United States as well.
At a web forum hosted Tuesday by the Center for American Progress, opposition politicians and journalists from Hungary, Serbia, and Turkey spoke about the tactics that strongman leaders used to rip up the foundations of their nations' democratic institutions. They urged Americans to resist President Donald Trump as he tries to do the same.
"I do believe that many Americans think this is something that only happens to others, and I think that mindset has to be fought," said Katalin Cseh, a member of Hungary's opposition Momentum Movement Party.
Her nation, under authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is often cited as a textbook example of "democratic backsliding" in the 21st century.
Since his election in 2010, with a supermajority in the parliament, Orbán has worked to steadily capture key political institutions like election authorities and the judiciary, and cultural ones like the media and universities to bend them toward a "nationalist conservative narrative."
Notably, Cseh says, Orbán did this not by formally abolishing institutions, but by purging dissent and taking them over:
The first month of the new government back in 2010 started with the complete overhaul of the Hungarian constitution without democratic discussion. Senior judges were forced into early retirement and a new judicial administration was created...
The freedom of the media is almost lost...The media authority was staffed by loyalists. A pro-government businessman acquired private media and later donated it to a foundation run by the government. This means that if you turn on almost any channel, it has Fox News running on it...
The electoral system is very heavily manipulated. The government, after they got into power, changed the electoral system to one that is more fitting to them and gerrymandering very heavily to disenfranchise more progressive voters and to change the districts to a more favorable one for them...
The universities' minds were centralized and now mostly run by foundations set up by the government. The curriculum was also centralized and was very heavily infused with nationalist and conservative theory, and minorities, LGBTQI+ and women's rights are almost obliterated.
Cseh noted that the so-called "Hungarian blueprint" is heavily influential among American conservatives, who have hosted Orbán at conventions like CPAC and consulted pro-Orbán think tanks to create the 'Project 2025' agenda Trump has used during his second term.
Trump, moreover, has been carrying out similar ideological purges of government through the mass firings of disloyal public servants, threats to defund universities that refuse to teach the MAGA worldview as doctrine, and attempts to legally erase the government's recognition of nonwhite and LGBTQ+ individuals.
"What if this is a blueprint for MAGA? What if this is something you will see in your country?" she asked.
Szabolcs Panyi, a journalist with the Hungarian website Direkt36, likewise raised comparisons between Orbán and Trump's assaults on the press.
"It's not a coincidence that Orbán went after the free media," Panyi said. "He understood for him to grab power it's essential that people just don't see behind the curtains and don't understand what's happening."
He pointed to Trump's attacks on the free press, including his use of lawsuits, FCC investigations, and threats of prosecution against critical media outlets.
"It's interesting to see how large outlets or media owners or conglomerates try to appease Trump by settling lawsuits, firing journalists and editors," Panyi said. "It reminds me of what happened in Hungary in the 2010s."
Dissidents from Serbia and Turkey have dealt with a similar backslide and raised similar parallels to the situation in America.
Ceylan Akça, a member of the pro-Kurdish People's Equality and Democracy Party in the Turkish parliament, discussed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's use of citizenship as a political weapon against minorities like the Kurds. He has moved to strip the citizenship of naturalized Kurds, who he says support "terrorism" by militant groups like the PKK.
"We'll see people with Turkish citizenship, who were naturalized, stripped of their citizenship and being deported," Akça said, "which is the example you're having in the U.S. where you're having a discussion about naturalized citizens losing citizenship."
"We have to be aware that they are using [tools that] are usually legal but misused, institutional but hollowed out, democratic in appearance but authoritarian in essence," said Tamara Tripic, the chair of the Democratic Dialogue Network in Serbia.
Tripic said that the recent youth-led anti-corruption protests against President Aleksandar Vučić in her country provide a roadmap for how to resist. She cited the importance of mobilizing young people.
"Students actually started the process. They were the most powerful resistance we saw in recent years," she said.
Cseh said that part of building that engagement needed to come from creating a viable alternative to the right that promises people "tangible change" in their lives.
"Autocrats are not always good at governing," she said, "so the cost of living crisis, cost of healthcare, education, everything. Everybody senses that."
She said that Americans have "a very good opportunity ahead" in the next elections to reassert power.
"Start preparing for the midterms like yesterday," said Cseh. "Go to every protest, go to every march, stand right beside everybody who is being attacked, no matter if it is a group you belong to, or something that you do not share personally. You have to stand side by side [with] each other and help and support those who might feel isolated and alone."
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Popular Fury Grows in Turkey Against Tyrannical Erdoğan Emboldened by Trump
The imprisonment of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, the far-right president's top political rival, has unleashed a new wave of protests against increasingly autocratic rule.
Mar 24, 2025
International outrage and charges of "viciousness" and "outright autocracy" have followed Sunday's imprisonment of Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's top political rival, the popular Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who is seen as Erdogan's likeliest opposition challenger in upcoming national elections.
The corruption charges levied against İmamoğlu, a member of the Republican People's Party (CHP), are seen as politically motivated and follow days of sustained protests by opposition voices opposed to Erdoğan's increasingly authoritarian rule.
Tens of thousands marched and clashed with riot police after fresh protests erupted Sunday in Istanbul and elsewhere in the country following the court's actions against İmamoğlu and on Monday, the CHP announced that nearly 15 million people, members and non-members alike, participated in national primaries to support the jailed mayor's candidacy to face off against Erdoğan in the next election.
The non-member vote of more than 13 million, "could indicate," reports NBC News, "that İmamoğlu, 54, enjoys wide public support beyond the party faithful. The party's chairman said it showed the need for early elections."
Writing for Politico Europe, opinion editor Jamie Dettmer argues that that timing of Erdoğan's targeting of İmamoğlu has everything to do with the return of U.S. President Donald Trump to the international scene.
Erdoğan, Dettmer wrote on Saturday, "has spent years eroding democracy, stifling dissent and purging the country's army and civil service. Now, it looks as though he's chosen this geopolitical moment to bury the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the secular founder of the Republic of Turkey." He continued:
Erdoğan would harbor no worries as to Trump’s disapproval. The two have lavished priase on each other for years, and the Turkish leader has said he supports his American counterpart’s peace initiative in Ukraine—no doubt music to Trump’s ears.
Erdoğan isn't alone among the once embattled autocrats—and would-be autocrats—sniffing the change in the geopolitical air, and reckoning they're on the cusp of a new era, able to erase the rules and norms of old and replace them with ones more to their liking. It's influencing their behavior as they look to each other for inspiration and new ideas for running their respective countries—whether it be weaponizing policies affecting sexual minorities, scapegoating migrants, sharpening attacks on independent media, transforming public broadcasters into government mouthpieces or just closing them down.
Since his arrest on March 19, the ousted mayor has denied all charges against him and urged his supporters to continue protests in the face of the government crackdown.
"I totally believe these are bogus charges," Emre Can Erdogdu, a university student in Istanbul who attended street protests Sunday night, told the New York Times. "We entirely lost our trust in the government."
Erdogdu said he feared for the future of Turkey. "A person who could be the next president is now out of politics. It is not just about Istanbul. It is about all of Turkey."
A Turkish court jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, President Erdogan's main rival, pending trial on corruption charges triggering the country's biggest protests in over a decade https://t.co/7P7PwrjZsi pic.twitter.com/e05k1sERXI
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 24, 2025
Özgür Özel, the CHP chair, said the imprisonment would not dampen the party's prospects, but only further ignite the growing opposition. "Starting from tomorrow morning," he said from Istanbul on Sunday evening, "we will initiate a great struggle by harnessing the power of organization and using this strength for the good sake of all of us."
He called for "all democrats and all those who care the future of Turkey" to come out in sustained protest.
According to the Hürriyet Daily News, over 1,100 people have been arrested since mass protests erupted last week over İmamoğlu's initial arrest. Criticism only grew the court on Sunday stripped him of his position and sent him to prison.
"By arresting his main political rival," said human rights advocate and scholar Kenneth Roth, "Erdoğan shows he is too fearful of losing to risk even a managed election."
Roth said Erdoğan, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, would rather "opt for an electoral charade" than hold free and fair elections.
Turkish protesters demand "freedom" as police fire rubber bullets and pepper spray at crowds rallying for detained Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.https://t.co/r7gKpPg0YJ pic.twitter.com/HqAL3Z4kay
— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 24, 2025
With Turkish officials set to visit the United States this week to visit with U.S. counterparts, world's richest man Elon Musk, who has taken a seat as a top advisor to Trump, is under fire for blocking accounts of opposition figures in Turkey on his social media platform X.
As Politico reported over the weekend:
The majority of the suspended accounts were "university-associated activist accounts, basically sharing protest information, locations for students to go," Yusuf Can, coordinator and analyst at the Wilson Center's Middle East Program, told POLITICO. Many of these accounts are "grassroots activists" with their followings in the low tens of thousands, said Can.
Some accounts appear to be suspended only in Turkey and not in the rest of the world. Activist Ömer Faruk Aslan created a second account to avoid censorship. "Yesterday, my account was blocked by a court order because the tweets exceeded 6 million views," he posted.
Last week, Human Rights Watch said that İmamoğlu's arrest, as well as the targeting of other opposition figures, was politically motivated and an assault on the rule of law.
"Ekrem İmamoğlu and others detained should be released from police custody immediately," said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director for the group. "The Erdoğan presidency should ensure that the results of the Istanbul municipal elections are respected and that the criminal justice system is not weaponized for political ends."
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Israel Bombs Gaza's Only Cancer Hospital in 'US-Backed War Crime' as Death Toll Grows
One group noted that Israel "bombs hospitals, kills healthcare workers, blocks medicine, and destroys clinics—leaving Palestinians without treatment as disease spreads, starvation worsens, and people suffer."
Mar 21, 2025
U.S.-backed Israeli forces drew international condemnation Friday after bombing the only cancer hospital in the Gaza Strip, where more than 700 Palestinians including over 200 children have been killed this week and where the death toll from 532 days of genocidal assault is approaching at least 50,000.
Israel Defense Forces troops carried out an airstrike on the abandoned Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in Gaza's Netzarim Corridor, where the IDF launched what it called a "limited ground operation" earlier this week amid a ferocious wave of airstrikes that have killed at least 700 Palestinians, including 200 children and 112 women, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. More than 900 other Palestinians have been injured since Israel unilaterally broke a cease-fire.
Today, Israeli occupation forces blew up Gaza’s Turkish Friendship Hospital. It was the last hospital in Gaza that was able to treat cancer patients. This is a US-backed war crime.
[image or embed]
— CODEPINK ( @codepink.bsky.social) March 21, 2025 at 8:01 AM
"The ministry emphasizes that this criminal behavior of the occupation comes in line with the systematic destruction of the health system and the completion of the episodes of genocide," the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement, adding that the renewed Israeli slaughter has brought the overall Gaza death toll since October 2023 to at least 49,617, with upward of 112,950 others injured, and approximately 14,000 more missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble.
The effects of Israel's bombing and invasion—which include widespread starvation and sickness—have been exacerbated by the "completem siege" imposed on Gaza in October 2023 and the forced displacement of around 2 million Palestinians.
The IDF said it bombed the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital because Hamas, which rules Gaza and carried out the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, was using the facility as "terrorist infrastructure." No evidence was provided to support this allegation; past Israeli claims of this nature have been
debunked.
In fact, the IDF had used the facility as a base from which snipers indiscriminately shot Palestinians including women and children who tried to cross what Israeli soldiers and veterans described as a "kill zone." One IDF veteran said that these random slayings have become "a competition between units" to see who can kill more people.
Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital—which was built using a $34 million donation from Turkey—was the only one in Gaza equipped to treat cancer patients, although the facility had not been used as a hospital for over a year. Prior to Israel's onslaught, the hospital provided critical treatment to thousands of cancer patients.
In a statement Friday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry condemned Israel's latest hospital bombing.
"The deliberate targeting of a hospital providing healthcare services to civilians in Gaza is part of Israel's policy to render Gaza unlivable and force the Palestinian people into displacement," the ministry asserted, according to Hürriyet Daily News. "We urge the international community to take firm and effective steps against Israel's unlawful attacks and systematic state terrorism."
Israeli forces have obliterated Gaza's medical infrastructure along with the rest of the densely populated strip. Last year, an independent United Nations commission found that "Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza's healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities."
The report detailed hundreds of IDF attacks on Gaza healthcare facilities and the killing or wounding of around 1,700 medical workers, calling such killings "widespread and systematic."
Israel is the subject of an ongoing
genocide case brought before the International Court of Justice in The Hague by South Africa. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are also wanted by the International Criminal Court, also in The Hague, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
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