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Hungary’s Gen Z have only known one leader, Orbán
This article first appeared in the Winter 2025 issue of Index on Censorship, Gen Z is revolting: Why the world’s youth will not be silenced, published on 18 December 2025.
The year 2025 was the “Dirty Fidesz” summer for Hungary. This was the chant that could be heard at events across the country, from small concerts to the international Sziget Festival. When the anti-government slogan first emerged in 2023, it was primarily heard at concerts by musicians openly criticising the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
By 2025, it had reached the mainstream media.
In January, Hungary’s most popular rapper and former reality TV star Majka released his music video Csurran, cseppen (Drip by Drip). The song tells the story of a corrupt dictator from an imaginary country called Bindzsisztán (literally translated as Kleptistan), who having been given a truth potion confesses in an interview about how he took over the country.
“I can survive anything; the laws are written on me,” sings the autocratic leader, as heaps of banknotes fly through the air.
The video went viral within a day, reaching 28 million views by October in a country of 9.5 million. Without any direct references, viewers quickly drew parallels between the fictional state and Orbán’s Hungary.
Other Hungarian musicians used even stronger language. The 23-year-old Hungarian superstar Azhariah, who sold out the 60,000-seat Puskás Stadium for three consecutive nights, angered government supporters when in an Instagram post, he called Fidesz voters “mentally and intellectually retarded creatures”, for which he later apologised.
However, it is not only musicians who are expressing deep anti-government sentiments in Hungary. Tension and frustration are particularly high among the young generation, who feel that they have not been able to express their views through elections for a very long time.
“We don’t like what we see,” explained Eszter, a 19-year-old university student from Budapest. She believes that the country’s problems are complex, but that Gen Z is particularly affected by the high cost of living, inflation, and social issues.
“The healthcare system is in ruins, the education system does more harm than good, wages are ridiculous, and it’s almost impossible to buy a flat unless you were born into wealth,” she told Index.
Eszter also believes that young people in Hungary lack a vision for the future. Her words are supported by demographic data. According to 2024 figures, 546,000 Hungarians are officially registered as living in other EU countries, or the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Norway. If we add the USA, Canada, South America and Israel, the estimates are around 700,000. This is around 7% of the population.
The figures are even more alarming when we consider the so-called active population, defined as people between the ages of 15-64. In 2023, there were already a total of 420,000 people in this age group living abroad, which is having an impact on the Hungarian economy.
According to researcher Ágnes Hárs, the exodus is primarily driven by the cost of living crisis, low wages and high inflation. Younger generations are also leaving for western Europe to study, as an increasing proportion of students in Hungary now have to pay for their higher education. The situation is made worse by the fact that 21 Hungarian universities have been banned from participating in EU-funded Erasmus exchange programmes because they were taken over by public trusts filled with people from Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party.
According to a recent survey by Fay Andras Foundation, only six out of 100 Gen Z Hungarians are certain to stay in the country. A staggering 57% of young people envisage living abroad within ten years. Of those who leave, the majority are unlikely to return.
For an increasing number of people, the economy is only one of the problems. Since Viktor Orbán came to power in 2010, he has steadily undermined the rule of law and democratic norms. Corruption has become rampant, prompting the EU to suspend a significant portion of the funds allocated to the country. The government has also started a culture war to dismantle the independence of academic institutions, including universities. When teachers at several secondary schools began acts of civil disobedience in response to restrictions on strikes, the authorities fired more than a dozen of those who participated.
Fidesz has also become increasingly vocal in its opposition to the LGBTQ+ community, and the introduction of a new law banning Pride parades has sparked a backlash at universities. Pázmány Péter Catholic University initiated disciplinary proceedings against three psychology lecturers who, after the ban was announced, published a newspaper article supporting the view that a loving family is more important to children than the gender of their parents, using scientific evidence. Ultimately, all three resigned.
But Gen Z are fighting back. In June, over 200,000 people defied the Pride ban and marched in Budapest to celebrate freedom. Among them was 20-year-old Zsolt, who was attending a public demonstration for the first time.
“I don’t want to care about politics, but I have no choice. It has become part of my life, whether I like it or not. Fidesz’s politics and ideology are everywhere, including my school and among my friends. Half of my classmates went on to study at foreign universities, and although I stayed, I increasingly feel suffocated by the atmosphere around me,” he said.
With fewer and fewer spaces available for young people to express their political opinions, music festivals and the ballot box are all that remain.
Opinion polls currently show that the new opposition party Tisza, headed by Péter Magyar, has a steady lead ahead of general elections in Hungary in 2026. Magyar, who is the ex-husband of Orbán’s former Justice Minister, Judit Varga, was once a beneficiary of the system. Now he is hoping to topple the regime.
Unlike Orbán, a 62-year-old grandfather who reportedly still uses an 18-year-old Nokia phone, Magyar is dynamic, sporty and stylish, and is particularly popular with younger people. Opinion polls show that Fidesz has fewer and fewer voters the younger the age group, being especially unpopular among 18–29-year-olds. According to a Medián survey published in June this year, Gen Z have almost no personal memories of any other prime minister besides Viktor Orbán, yet 58% still support the Tisza Party.
Fidesz is well aware of this and has been searching for a way to win back young people. Initially, they tried to engage with young people on social media, particularly TikTok. They are now also offering economic incentives: such as exempting people under 25 from paying personal income tax and introducing extremely favourable loans to help them buy their first home.
Some high-profile government politicians have also dismissed criticism by saying that it is only natural for younger generations to rebel against the system. Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén argued that young people in Hungary have never received more support than they do under the current government.
What they probably don’t realise is that Gen Z is not just after money. They also want a better quality of life and freedom.
“These loans aren’t free. We’re just getting into debt while our education and healthcare systems are failing. The government can’t find common ground with young people – they’re on a different wavelength – but that’s fine by us. Let’s keep it that way,” said Zsolt.
We can be the change
Hungarian pop star Marci Mehringer reflects on being a Gen Zer in Budapest today
Pop star Marci Mehringer, who rose to fame on X Factor in 2021
I often wonder how much my perception reflects reality from my somewhat privileged position. I can at least do what I love. This in itself is a luckier situation than most young people find themselves in. Nevertheless, I think our problems are exactly the same. We have always lived in democracy, and we never thought that we would have to fight for this freedom again.
As dystopian as it may sound, I think most young people feel this way. They feel that they have to raise their voices over and over again so that they can live their lives the way they want to. Even though – on paper – this is everyone’s right.
The biggest problem facing young people today – apart from the housing and livelihood crisis – is perhaps that politics has permeated everything in Hungary. Our politicians have forgotten that they are there for us and not the other way around. Young people have not. And as they have nothing to lose, they can be braver and more honest than anyone else. Even if it sometimes means making less considered decisions.
In Hungary, life has become overly politicised. This is why, even at such a young age, we are so deeply involved in certain issues and want to bring about change, primarily in people’s attitudes. But what young people really want goes beyond material goods and our livelihood. We want to live in a united society that is not filled with so much unnecessary hatred.
We do not want to live in a country where people condemn each other’s views, Hungarians turn against each other, and our corrupt politicians divide us in order to retain power. We want an accepting, European Hungary where everyone can live together in happiness and peace, regardless of their background. In short, young people want a slightly more collectivist and accepting society.
All this may sound utopian, but this is how we were raised. Therefore, I am not asking whether change will come, but when it will come and how long we will have to tolerate those responsible for this chaos.
I am also convinced that these principles are present not only in young people, but in the older generation too, they just find it more difficult to express them. Perhaps the younger a person is, the easier it is for them to want to effect change. After all, isn’t it customary to rebel when you’re young?
In any case, the future of our country is in our hands. We will live here for another 50 or 60 years and it is our duty to rebuild the country from the current ruins, creating a place where what has been said will be second nature to future generations.
I believe that we can be the change; that we can be the ones to put our hearts and minds in order for the greater good.
Marci Mehringer is a Hungarian musician who rose to fame on the 2021 series of X Factor. He regularly sells out concert halls in Budapest with his band, Mehringer. His songs often criticise the current Hungarian regime and highlight the issues facing younger generations
The US media must stand up to Donald Trump’s assault on its freedom
The reverberations of Donald Trump’s incendiary speech at the World Economic Forum at Davos are still being felt, despite the US President’s retreat on the hostile purchase of Greenland and the role of British troops in Afghanistan. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made the point in his own Davos speech last week that “the old order is not coming back.” He added: “We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.”
Through all the bombast and narcissism of Trump’s words ran a thread of cold reality. As the Yale Cold War historian Odd Arne Westad wrote in the Financial Times at the weekend, Atlanticism as we know it is over and a new multipolar age is upon us. “The global system no longer has one centre. It has many, each of which will seek to project power in whatever way serves its interests”.
It has often been said of authoritarian leaders that we should listen carefully to what they say they plan to do, however wayward or capricious, to best prepare for what is to come. The worst of Trumpian expansionism may have been averted for the time being, but the US President has made his imperial intentions for Greenland plain since his first term in office. His views on Nato have been equally clear from the outset.
The same is true for Trump’s views on free and independent journalism, which he despises. We’ve been writing about Trump’s threats to media freedom at Index since the beginning of his first term in office in 2017, but those concerned about media freedom and censorship in the US and the rest of the world would do well to go back and examine the section of the Davos speech where Trump talked about Ukraine. As is the case with many of his platform utterances, it is not always evident which parts are scripted, and which improvised. But about halfway through, the US President shifted from criticism of Nato to a discussion of Ukraine and revisited his well-worn contention that Russia would never have invaded in 2021 if he had still been in office.
The words are not entirely coherent, but the message is clear enough: “It’s a war that should have never started, and it wouldn’t have started if the 2020 US presidential election weren’t rigged. It was a rigged election. Everybody now knows that. They found out. People will soon be prosecuted for what they did. It’s probably breaking news, but it should be. It was a rigged election. Can’t have rigged elections.”
He then outlined what amounts to his political doctrine: “You need strong borders, strong elections, and ideally a good press. I always say it – strong borders, strong elections, free, fair elections, and a fair media”.
The repetition for rhetorical emphasis is interesting, but so are some key omissions. Trump wants strong borders (he says it twice), and admits the need for free and fair, as well as strong elections (again he says this twice). But he can’t bring himself to use the words “strong” or “free” to describe the media. Instead, he merely wants a “good” press and a “fair media”.
In case anyone was in any doubt about what he meant by this, he went on to elaborate:
“The media is terrible. It’s very crooked. It’s very biased, terrible, but someday it’ll straighten out, because it’s losing all credibility. Think of it, when I went in, a landslide, a giant landslide – won all seven swing states, won the popular vote, won everything – and I only get negative press. That means that it has no credibility. And if they’re going to get credibility, they’re going to have to be fair. So, you need a fair press, but you also need those other elements, and I inherited a terrible, terrible situation.”
At this point, Trump returned to discuss geopolitics and his close relationship with Vladimir Putin.
But it’s too late. The authoritarian cat is out of the bag. The logic goes like this. Trump is the greatest president since George Washington. He won a landslide election, turned around the American economy, stopped migration and ended eight foreign conflicts. And yet, the media continued to criticise him. How can this be?
The words at the heart of the Davos speech are genuinely chilling for the future of the American media and worth repeating: “I only get negative press. That means that it has no credibility. And if they’re going to get credibility, they’re going to have to be fair.”
It is no surprise that the American networks now operate with extreme caution in the face of threats to remove their licences. Strict control of access to the White House and the Pentagon has led to further timidity among the press corps, while Trump’s deep pockets and mania for defamation suits have extended the chilling effect to every newsroom in the country.
But if there is a lesson to be drawn from the events of the past week, it is TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). When European powers stood up for themselves and each other, Trump backed down. The American media should take a leaf out of their book.
MAGA 101: Inside Trump’s fast-track masterclass in undermining academic freedom
A year ago, I asked whether academic freedom could survive Donald Trump’s plans for thought control. We now have the answer. Trump’s most effective weapon to this end has been the financial mechanisms linking state and academia. In the first week of his presidency, Trump ordered a “temporary pause” on billions of dollars in funding for education and scientific research already approved by Congress. This was followed by a wave of 30 Executive Orders and legislation relating to higher education in the first 75 days of the new administration. Collectively, these have had a devastating impact on independent research, threatening to engineer compliant instruction in America’s universities.
The trend toward limiting academic freedom is not limited to the United States. In the United Kingdom, research intensive universities have begun to prepare for the worst. As reported in The Times of London this week, Cambridge University have been “cosying up” to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party, amid fears that it will copy Trump’s approach to academic freedom if they form the next UK government. During the electoral campaign last year, Reform promised to “cut funding to universities that undermine free speech [sic]”; with this threat in mind, Cambridge’s vice-chancellor Deborah Prentice warned the university’s governing council that “what the US example reminds you is you have to worry about what’s coming next.”
A mapping of the impact of the Trump administration’s cull by the Center for American Progress documented that it had targeted the termination of more than 4,000 grants across over 600 universities and colleges across the country, alongside funding cuts of between $3.3 billion and $3.7 billion. In the resulting fallout, clinical trials for cancer, covid and minority health have been stopped, satellite missions halted, and climate centres closed.
Funding freezes have been justified on the pretext of allegations of antisemitism in America’s universities, alongside claims that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices constitute “discrimination” against some students. According to a memo dispatched by the Executive Office of the President in January 2025, “[t]he use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.”
This dual framing produces contradictory and uneven demands: universities are under pressure to suppress some forms of free expression while tolerating others. In March, Trump warned institutions that a failure to crack down on “illegal protests” could jeopardise their eligibility for federal funding. DEI was cast as evidence of thought policing; professors have lost funding for researching “woke” subjects, and even been fired for allegedly teaching “gender ideology”. All this reinforces a climate in which activities or speech seen as “liberal” are punished, while opinions aligned with the administration are protected. This perception was reinforced by the firing of up to 40 educators for comments made on social media following the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September, leaving many professors unsure what they can say online.
The first casualty was Columbia University – $400m in grants were pulled over campus protests – the university settled, as did Brown. The Trump administration also dramatically ramped up enforcement of university reporting of large foreign gifts or contracts from countries like China and the Middle East. Several top institutions including Berkeley and Harvard
An article in Inside Higher Ed provides a vivid account from a PhD student of the impact of this squeeze on higher education in the United States. “Our institution is just scrambling to figure out what DEI is and what programs will be affected,” the doctoral researcher said. “I study the development of disease, which tends to affect populations of certain ethnic and cultural backgrounds more than others. Is that DEI?”
According to a poll of 1600 scientists conducted by Nature, three-quarters of respondents were considering leaving the United States following the Trump upheaval, with Europe and Canada cited as the most favoured destinations for relocation. This is hardly surprising, given the uncertainty of the moment. But is the grass truly greener on the other side? The events of the last year have sent tremors internationally, largely because of the influential status and respect accorded to US academia. As Rob Quinn, executive director of US body Scholars At Risk, told The Guardian, “We are witnessing an unprecedented situation – really as far as I can tell in history – where a global leader of education and research is voluntarily dismantling that which gave it an advantage.”
As noted above, there are fears of a similar attack on higher education in the United Kingdom. Universities are already facing similar dilemmas concerning contradictory interpretations of the right to free speech. The Office of Students has threatened to sanction universities if campus protests over Palestine and the war in Gaza are deemed to constitute “harassment and discrimination” – while in parallel rolling out similar sanctions against universities for actions taken to prevent transphobic abuse and harassment. Countries around the world are watching developments with apprehension and Scholars At Risk have warned that the Trump administration’s assault on universities is turning the US into a “model for how to dismantle” academic freedom.
Jon Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education, has argued that the Trump administration’s actions are not in accordance with the law. “They don’t have any statutory or regulatory authority to suspend research on the basis of accusations.” Fansmith sees the freezes as a way “to force a negotiation so they can claim victory when they lack any sort of authority or any sort of evidence that would allow them to do it in the appropriate way.”
In October, dealmaker-in-chief Trump offered a “compact” to nine universities, offering them preferential funding arrangements if they acceded to a list of demands. These, PEN America reported, included a prohibition on employees “making statements on social or political matters on behalf of the university”, and screening international students for “anti-American values.” Other requirements included an enforcement of a binary definition of gender, a freeze on tuition rates charged to American students for five years, and the removal of diversity as a factor for consideration in admissions decisions. Seven of the nine targeted institutions declined the offer and no major research universities agreed to sign; it seems clear that entering into such a compact would, in effect end academic independence and institutional autonomy.
The Trump administration’s tactic of extracting concessions by manufacturing crises that it then offers to resolve has had some wins though, with some universities “obeying in advance” as Timothy Snyder might say. Under significant pressure – by way of a $790 million funding freeze and a Title VI civil rights investigation – Northwestern University recently reached a $75 million settlement (albeit without conceding liability) with the Trump administration. As part of the settlement agreeement, Northwestern agreed to investigate claims of antisemitism and make statements on transgender issues that reflected Trump’s Executive Order on the issue, and promised that admissions procedures will no longer take into account “race, color, or national origin”.
Beyond funding, accreditation has become another pressure point, with professional bodies being pushed by authorities to eliminate requirements relating to diversity or social justice. The American Bar Association, for example, is reviewing its accreditation standards and has suspended enforcement of its DEI standard for law schools – an indication of the federal government’s success in pushing accreditation bodies into shifting existing norms.
All this said: in the face of potentially dire outcomes, a number of states, universities and grantees have challenged the Trump imperative in court, offering to the academic community examples of principled resistance and coalition building. Even as UCLA continued to negotiate a $1 billion fine levied on it by the administration, its frustrated faculty launched a suit to defend the institution, successfully securing a preliminary injunction preventing Government from using funding threats to override the First Amendment.
Mechanisms like regulatory friction, funding conditions, and culture war mobilisation do not need to eliminate dissent for their effect to be felt. They only need to make dissent administratively burdensome and financially risky. Academic freedom in a democracy dies not through troops taking direct control of campus, but in thousands of bureaucratic changes and risk-averse decisions – each justified as temporary, each rationalised as necessary. University administrations tend to see a clear strategic trade-off between short-term compliance and securing resources for the longer term. But the cost of this trade-off is sacrificing the freedom to think and speak that would be impossible to reverse: turning independent research, in effect, into a theatre of political compliance. When the world’s most powerful research sector is pressured into ideological alignment, it also sends a powerful message to far right political movements in the United Kingdom and everywhere else: independent scholarship can be subordinated, teachers tamed, compliance secured, if you simply follow the Trump model. The stakes could not be higher, and American universities must unite in support of their faculty to both defeat the current assault and win the larger war.