As usual recent days have had no shortage of appalling news: the Supreme Court’s eviscerating of the Voting Rights Act; federal indictments of former FBI director James Comey, and the Southern Poverty Law Center; Trump’s rejection of Iran’s proposal to end its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz; an apparent attempted attack on administration officials during the White House Correspondents Dinner, leading paradoxically to increased calls to build Trump’s ballroom at the White House.

Earlier this month brought some rare but significant and impactful news, however, as Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban was ousted after sixteen years in power. Orban was defeated by Peter Magyar, a former member of Orban’s Fidesz party who left in 2024 after exposing a pardon scandal involving Magyar’s ex-wife. In an interview with The Conversation website, Fletcher School’s John Shattuck compared the election of someone named Peter Magyar in Hungary to electing someone in the US named “Joe America,” as Peter is one of the top 12 first names in Hungary and Magyar is Hungarian for “Hungary.”