Trump Thwarted, Orban Toppled: The New Roadmap for Democrats
Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts
Slate Audio
4.6 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Hungary’s autocratic creep was turned back at the ballot box last weekend, in a stark rebuke to the forces of illiberalism and to the American conservatives who invested so heavily in former Hungarian leader Viktor Orban’s mission. It’s good news. But it’s not the end of the story. It behoves pro-democracy forces in the United States to move past the example of democratic resilience in Hungary to real, systemic change to the machinery of American democracy. On this week’s Amicus podcast, Norm Eisen, former ambassador and current democracy warrior (as founder of www.democracydefendersfund.org), tells Dahlia Lithwick that America’s response to Trumpism starts with protecting the rule of law, safeguarding elections, and strangling corruption—the three pillars of a genuine democratic recovery. The key isn’t just fixing courts or passing reforms—it's about building a democratic coalition based on simple, clear issues. As Democrats dare to dream of what may be possible in a post-Trump America, it’s time to start making concrete, workable plans. This week’s show highlights the roadmap out of autocracy, through coalitions, court reform, and corruption-busting.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Amicus Slate's podcast about the courts and the law and the Supreme Court. |
| 0:09.1 | I'm Dahlia Lithuig. |
| 0:14.8 | Mr. President, you are on with about 5,000 Hungarian patriots, and I think they love you even more than they love |
| 0:21.1 | Victor Orban. |
| 0:22.6 | Well, I can't believe that. |
| 0:24.8 | I can't believe that because I love Hungary and I love that Victor. |
| 0:29.5 | I'll tell you, he's a fantastic man. |
| 0:31.4 | We've had a tremendous relationship. |
| 0:33.9 | The pro-democracy pushback, the same surge that took so many years in Hungary, has happened here in just 15 months. |
| 0:50.3 | The American rights favorite comparative roadmap to autocracy has suffered a near fatal blow at the ballot box, |
| 0:59.8 | flipping from a stark warning to those of us who care about democracy to a shining example. |
| 1:06.6 | As recently as last week, the conventional wisdom for aspiring autocrats was being Orban, not a Trump. |
| 1:13.7 | In Hungary, Victor Orban, who had been in office for almost two decades, had taken control of so many of the levers of democracy, the courts, the academy, the press, the arts, the Constitution itself, that his illiberal regime appeared bulletproof and permanent. |
| 1:29.8 | As our friend Ian Bassinet Protect Democracy reminded us two weeks ago on this show, Donald Trump could not yet make similar claims. |
| 1:39.0 | Sure, there's been a lot of obeying in advance and taking the deal, especially in the corporate media and the academy. |
| 1:45.0 | But Trump is being thwarted by trial courts by universities, independent reporters, military |
| 1:50.4 | officials, and protesters every single day. Well, this past weekend, we learned that even |
| 1:55.6 | Orban's seemingly iron grip on the levers of democracy was ephemeral. He was routed amid record turnout in the |
| 2:03.6 | recent election and routed to such an extent a supermajority as to make it legislatively and |
| 2:09.1 | constitutionally possible to claw back what's been stolen from the machinery of democracy in Hungary. |
| 2:15.9 | My guest today, Ambassador Norm Eisen, is here to teach us |
| 2:19.2 | what just such a process could look like in the United States. Now, before we get to Norm and his |
... |
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