Anglospherics

When I was in graduate school, I remember reading an essay in which Jacques Derrida purports to “write as a woman.” I was in a gender studies program in a highly secular context, and we had a lively seminar on Derrida’s essay, eventually reaching the consensus that no, Jacques, you can’t simply step into a woman’s identity like you might step into a set of trousers. This was the mid-2000s, a different era, when the word “woman” still had some fleeting connection, however tenuous, to female embodiment.

Now, fifteen years later, we have reached a juncture where appropriating the identity of women is considered laudatory, liberating, the next frontier of civil rights—and raising cautions or questions is blasphemous. Increasingly, defining a woman as an adult human female is considered hate speech.

The Democrats’ consolidation of left-wing liberalism is one piece of a broader backlash to Trumpism that shows up in the polling data right now. Another notable finding this week is from a new CNN/SSRS survey that found that about one-quarter of the public holds an unfavorable view of both parties. These are the so-called “double haters.” This group prefers Democrats on the 2025 generic ballot by 31 points.

This is a big deal for two reasons. First, that’s a massive shift; Double haters broke for Trump in 2016 and again in 2024. Now they’re swinging hard the other way.

Like Franklin’s polling, the CNN report also finds that Democrats’ gains are driven largely by opposition to the GOP, not enthusiasm for Democrats themselves. When asked what they dislike about Democrats, 22% of double haters called the party “do-nothing” and 11% said they aren’t standing up enough to Trump and the GOP, while 10% said they’re too liberal.

A series of federal prosecutions against immigration-enforcement protesters in Los Angeles has encountered setbacks in court, with some cases ending in acquittals or dismissals and others drawing scrutiny over the government’s evidence and the circumstances of the arrests. […]

Reporting from the Los Angeles Times described one of the most serious courtroom setbacks: a federal judge’s criticism of prosecutors after late disclosure of evidence in the Escobar-Gutierrez case, followed by a reported dismissal with prejudice, meaning the case cannot be brought again. During the proceedings, U.S. District Judge André Birotte Jr. told prosecutors, “You’ve got to be ready for prime time and you’re not,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

In arguing for dismissal, a federal public defender echoed that criticism, describing the episode as “amateur hour at the U.S. attorney’s office,” also according to the Los Angeles Times.

But Hungary is hardly a democracy at all. It’s an autocratic, kleptocratic mafia state, where all the levers of power are controlled behind the scenes by a single man. Since returning to power in 2010, Orbán has rewritten the constitution and amended it fifteen times, changed the electoral laws to give his party structural advantages, captured the top layer of the judiciary, occupied the chief prosecutor’s office to protect his cronies and prosecute his enemies, weaponized the tax authority, commandeered the media, installed spy software on the phones of journalists and opposition figures, harassed and restricted the rights of NGOs, revoked the rights of religious communities unwilling to collaborate with his regime, forced the country’s most prestigious university to move to Austria, harassed opposition political parties, denied them resources and spied on them illegally, nationalized and reprivatized banks and businesses to reshape and dominate the economy, steered his country into an alliance with Russia, Hungary’s historic enemy, and enriched his family and friends beyond their wildest dreams.

Given these overwhelming structural advantages, many observers of Hungary—myself included—had concluded that Orbán could never be removed from office through democratic means; that the end of his regime would come through crisis and collapse. The fact that Orbán is not only likely to lose a national election but could easily get creamed is nothing short of utterly amazing.

His kryptonite has proven to be Péter Magyar. A former Fidesz insider, Magyar understands the regime he is fighting against and has proven remarkably adept at anticipating and countering its tactics. Bestowed with seemingly superhuman levels of energy, he has barnstormed the country since he burst on the scene suddenly two years ago, demonstrating that with enough conviction, determination, and will, persuasion is possible even in a soft autocratic regime. And unlike the liberal opposition he replaced, Magyar understands the importance of national symbols and patriotism. This has allowed him to steal Fidesz’s nationalist brand and highlight the regime’s enormous hypocrisy and betrayal of the country.