Speaking at a panel titled “MAGA and MEGA – A New Era in Hungarian–American Relations”, Miklos Szantho said that the efforts of Hungary’s right-wing ecosystem to build as many points of connection as possible between Hungary and the United States are beginning to bear fruit.
He added that this work will yield significant results. For example, with Donald Trump's return to office, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding for left-wing organizations ceased. Szantho stressed, however, that for conservatives, the American president should not be seen as a savior but as a comrade-in-arms.
On the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, the think tank chief said it arose from a realist recognition—a response to the liberal elites steering both America and the wider world in the wrong direction. By analogy, the MEGA (Make Europe Great Again) movement launched by Europe’s right is a rejection of elites who no longer serve the people’s interests but instead their own ideology. Postmodern individualist liberalism, Szantho argues, is anti-life and anti-family, incompatible with the traditional lifestyle of Western civilization, while “woke” politics represents only the latest wave of this, introducing anti-identity elements into politics.
The discussion also touched on the notions of an “American and a European deep state.” Regarding the latter, Szantho claimed it is capable of preventing political opponents from even running in elections, or later from governing, through overtly legalistic political tools.
Szantho described Peter Magyar as nothing more than “a low-quality Brussels import,” repackaging the old left-wing program in new wrapping. He said Magyar’s appearance fits perfectly into Brussels’s strategy, which, he argued, routinely works against the interests of the Hungarian people.
He added that austerity, tax hikes, and the dismantling of family support schemes are the political “menu” Brussels continually serves—now in Peter Magyar’s presentation.
