I’m just trying to understand. Erdogan in Turkey, Putin in Russia, Orban in Hungary etc… Why do these leaders still get so much support after all they’ve done? What do they exactly like about them?
Aren’t these people seeing a massive drop in their quality of life?
In Hungary, one big reason is that the government has all the media coverage, and they basically created a false narrative that if Orbán loses, then a) the previous government will come back and no matter how bad things are right now, it will be WORSE, b) migrants will come and wreak havock, c) our sons will have to go to war (in the last election, the opposition lost a lot of votes because there was a billboard campaign stating that the new PM candidate would send soldiers to Ukraine), d) there will be some kind of woke dictatorship.
People also think that the bad quality of life is mostly the fault of the EU and the previous government (which was in power over a decade ago…), and that it’s okay that Orbán and his party steals from them because at least they’re “on their side”.
The government also provides some help to parents, which people find valuable, so they keep voting for FIDESZ.