Mastodawn

Jan Wildeboer 😷

Hungary proves that neither Russia nor Trump can sway votes the way they think they can. Being associated with Trump or Russia is now a bad thing, which is good for democracy in Europe. Thank you, people from Hungary. You might have started something that is bigger than just this election!

Daniel Vergien 4d ago

@jwildeboer
Let's hope you are still right tomorrow morning.

Jan Wildeboer 😷

@dve Ah, the German "yes, but" that always will be among the first five replies to any of my posts ;) Yes, I am sure I will still be right tomorrow. Wanna bet? ;)

Daniel Vergien 4d ago

@jwildeboer
No, because now I saw that urban has admitted his defeat.

🇪🇺 Paul Schoonhoven 🍋🍉4d ago

@jwildeboer I don't know what Vance was thinking, but a foreign power going to tell me how to vote... In a nationalistic country?? 😇😇😅

Franchesca 4d ago

@vosje62 @jwildeboer doesn’t trump send Vance in to take the blame when they already know it’s fucked?

🇪🇺 Paul Schoonhoven 🍋🍉4d ago

@Frantasaur @jwildeboer
It doesn't matter why. 'Orban was send home the day after his visit'.

Mark Koek 4d ago

@vosje62 @jwildeboer JD’s charisma at work

Matthijs 4d ago

@jwildeboer agree!!! Hopefully a song of more to come!

Stefan Westphal 4d ago

@jwildeboer Yes, that’s what I’m hoping for too, and it lets me go to bed a little more at ease tonight.

iris ✿ sandwalker 4d ago

@jwildeboer ...and they did it _again_ !! It was #Hungary who in 1989 opened their consulate doors to East Germans wanting to flee the regime, and the Hungarian consulate/embassy let them enter and cross into the west... that underpinned the "tear down that wall" momentum 👏✊ #PanEuropean #ironCurtain #freeEurope

iris ✿ sandwalker 3d ago

@jwildeboer it was a different september eleven but as impactful

"Thousands East Germans streamed into #Hungary to take the opportunity, resulting in an exodus that accelerated the collapse of the #BerlinWall on 9 November 1989"

https://www.rferl.org/a/hungary-1989-east-germany/30156892.html

September 11, 1989: When Hungary Tore A Hole In The Iron Curtain

Thirty years ago, Hungary lifted restrictions on travel to Austria, enabling tens of thousands of East Germans to flee to the West. The September 1989 events in Hungary are often described as the first cracks in the Berlin Wall.

RFE/RL

Heliograph 3d ago

@Irisherself 👆👇🤞
https://mastodon.social/@MissingThePt/116393730049244006

Heliograph 3d ago

@Irisherself I remember watching the news at the time, seeing entire families with kids climbing the consulate fences and walls and then walking out on foot across country to reach the west... we were all holding our breaths hoping no one shoots... and it worked and reunited what should never have been separated in the first place ✌️✊
@jwildeboer

iris ✿ sandwalker 3d ago

@Heliograph ... and all that without shots fired, without bloodbath or dead people 🕊️ @jwildeboer

Alison Chaiken 3d ago

@jwildeboer First points went to Poland, don't forget.

Bill Zaumen 3d ago

@jwildeboer At the tail end of the last U.S. presidential election, I got desperate emails from the Harris campaign about how they were being outspent in "swing states". Some billionaires who wanted Trump in put up a large chunk of change for those last couple of weeks, and that was used to run lots of attack ads against Harris.

That behavior is a risk factor for Europe as well. We tried to fix it, but a U.S. Supreme Court decision declared the campaign-finance law unconstitutional.
(more)

Jan Antoš 3d ago

@bzdev @jwildeboer we have laws in Europe about campaign financing a those needs to be transparent, at least in countries I live(d)

Bill Zaumen 3d ago

@jwildeboer We have laws about reporting non-trivial campaign contributions, but it takes time for those reports to be processed, so with a large infusion of cash in the last two weeks or so, nobody really knew where it was coming from. Because most states are "winner takes all" for electoral college votes, that cash was used to target those states where the vote could go either way.

ermo | Rune Morling 3d ago

@bzdev Were I the facetious type, I might say something along the lines of "I guess the people who paid for Citizens United to go their way will have felt they got their money's worth then?"

Andrew J Spaulding 3d ago

@jwildeboer. I'm very happy for all the Hungarian people 👏.

Dark Phoenix 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈3d ago

@jwildeboer 🥳

Guillotine Jones, Flâneur 3d ago

@jwildeboer
After his effects on the late Pope and now Orban's, re-election, may I suggest that Trump send Vance on a diplomatic mission to Russia's Putin?

Inc Hulk 🧪3d ago

@jwildeboer I am in the centre of Budapest at 1am - cars with horns blaring, streets packed with very happy (some pretty drunk) people, lot of cheering and flag waving. Not see this since Athens in the early 80s when the left finally won power.

Chad McCullough 3d ago

@jwildeboer 💯

Nicole Parsons 3d ago

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/trump-says-us-start-blockading-strait-hormuz-2026-04-12/

Any entity funded by the fossil fuel industry and its massive system of international public corruption needs to acknowledge the fate that awaits.

https://www.desmog.com/2025/01/21/mapped-donald-trump-transatlantic-anti-green-network/

People tire of the high prices & fossil fuel funded fascism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/us/politics/koch-network-2024-election-trump.html

People want cheaper renewable energy, wind & solar.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-plummeting-cost-of-renewable-energy/

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/levelized-cost-of-energy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

People want to ditch waste like data centers.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-09/openai-pauses-stargate-uk-data-center-effort-citing-energy-costs

diana 🏳️‍⚧️🦋🌱3d ago

Unfortunately, we are ruled by billionaire owned media that will spin reality to align with their owners

Jan Wildeboer 😷

@dianea It seems they have failed tonight in Hungary. Before that they failed in Poland. Maybe they are not that powerful and their influence is cracking? I am always the optimist.

ermo | Rune Morling 3d ago

@jwildeboer With a margin this big, I imagine Orbán and his handlers saw no real scope to contest the results?

I am already quietly beginning to fear the ways in which state actors will ramp up their attempts to sabotage things in the EU; a defeat this resounding will have set off very loud alarm bells all the way through Beijing, Moscow and Washington*.

*: To think that we have to now include Washington (& the CIA) in said company is in itself *extremely* concerning, but here we are.

@jwildeboer Replace Trump with USA.

MostlyTato 3d ago

@jwildeboer
It could actually be a potential turning point on a much wider scale.