Plus Ca Régime-Change, Plus C'est la Même Chose

Greetings from Ukraine. I was supposed to spend last night in Budapest, but by early afternoon there was a palpable sense on the streets that something big was coming. So I figured I'd rather take my chances with Putin's incoming drones than hordes of Hungarian hotties high on their impending liberation from the Orbán terror. Because of some or other incident on my preferred TransCarpathian frontier post, I was obliged to detour via south-eastern Slovakia. Pleasant, if you're interested, and I encountered a nun in a full-length habit, which I don't think I've seen on a Montreal street in half-a-century. I'd been planning this trip for awhile on the assumption that this war would be coming to an end. But one consequence of yesterday's election is that the principal opposition to the EU's proxy-war-without-end has been vapourised, and Brussels can now fight on till the last Ukrainian male is either dead or servicing Sir Keir Starmer at one of his many North London properties.

Here's how Eva Vlaardingerbroek, late of this parish, sees it:

Looks like the last bastion is gone.

The Hungarians are about to learn the true meaning of “you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.”

And the rest of us in Europe have just lost our only real stronghold against the EU.

Devastating. https://t.co/2jgk2dSBnS

— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) April 12, 2026

The point about the two-thirds super-majority necessary for constitutional change is well-taken. The new government will be able to reconfigure the Hungarian state to ensure that nothing like Viktor Orbán ever happens again. Which was the goal of the Eurocrats all along. So, quietly but ruthlessly, Cruella von der Leyen has pulled off her regime change. And without a smidgeonette of shock'n'awe.

As to why the news is "devastating", consider the so-called "rise" of "populism" in Europe: Marine LePen is the eternal bridesmaid of French politics, so near and yet always so far; Geert Wilders eventually "won" a Dutch election, but was excluded from government anyway; Giorgia Meloni made it to the Prime Minister's office but was almost immediately neutered into submission. Only Viktor Orbán gained power, held power, and used it to legislate against the existential threats to European identity.