The ruling class knows that free people who have the liberty to dissent are more difficult to govern. It is harder to tell them what to do, and expect them to obey.
In the spring of 2021, on my first fellowship at the Danube Institute in Budapest, I arranged a meeting with a leading anti-Orbán dissident. My goal was to find out what the Fidesz government’s opponents disliked about it. My interlocutor, a university professor, recited a list of complaints. Among them: Hungary does not allow same-sex marriage and same-sex couples to adopt children. The professor, a liberal, said he believes strongly in gay rights. “But I’m not sure what I think about the transgender issue.”
At the end of our talk, the professor concluded, “Despite all that, I can say anything I want in my classroom, and no one from the government will bother me.”
