Vance in Budapest: Orbán as the Far Right’s Proof of Concept – the ideological logic of the Trump–Orbán alliance comes into focus
The far-right political rulers of the USA and the Russian Federation, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, are promoting the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, ahead of a general election in the Eastern European state on Sunday April 12 2026. The implications of this political development are widely understood; a selection of reactions which have appeared on Bluesky should put an end – for ever – the obviously ludicrous theory promoted by some on the left that the 2022 Russian genocidal invasion of Ukraine was a disguised USA V Russia war (a “Proxy” war).
Vance in Budapest: Orbán as the Far Right’s Proof of Concept
What Pinochet Was to Neoliberals, Orbán Is to Christian Nationalists
When US Vice-President J.D. Vance travelled to Budapest to endorse Viktor Orbán ahead of the 2026 Hungarian elections, the ideological logic of the Trump–Orbán alliance came into focus. For American nativist Christian nationalists, Orbán’s Hungary is a proof of concept: evidence that a programme combining Christian nationalism, anti-migration politics, and systematic dismantling of democratic opposition can hold power for sixteen years. Jan Bělíček dissects Vance’s Budapest speech — its Great Replacement tropes, its anti-EU demagoguery, its hollow invocations of workers’ rights, and the irony of preaching Christian civilisation to a comparatively secular Hungarian audience. The underlying agenda, Bělíček concludes, is replication: Vance and Trump want to build in the United States what Orbán has built in Hungary. [AN]
Watching yesterday’s second appearance by J.D. Vance in Budapest, I think I finally understood why the second-highest-ranking US politician has travelled to lend his support to Viktor Orbán ahead of the elections. [1] For nativist Christian nationalists like Vance, Orbán’s Hungary represents much the same thing that Augusto Pinochet represented for the neoliberal right. [2] It demonstrates that their political experiment — grounded in Christianity, aggressive nationalism, and hostility to expert knowledge and the left — can succeed and hold power for an extraordinary sixteen years.
Read the rest of this entry »Western left campist fantasy of egalitarian China Jacobin Glorifies Leftist Yellowface, Ignores Chinese Perspectives in Article on “Chinamaxxing”
Western left campist fantasy of egalitarian China Jacobin Glorifies Leftist Yellowface, Ignores Chinese Perspectives in Article on “Chinamaxxing”
Jacobin Glorifies Leftist Yellowface, Ignores Chinese Perspectives in Article on “Chinamaxxing”
Source :
Western Left Campist Fantasy of egalitarian China
Brian Hioe reports :
A RECENT ARTICLE in Jacobin by Seth Ackerman on “Chinamaxxing” again reveals the usual blind spots of Western leftists. Ackerman discusses the online phenomenon of “Chinamaxxing”–the recent turn of Gen Z teens on social media claiming that they are in a “very Chinese period of their life.” Gen Z teens have taken to mimicking Chinese cultural habits, such as taking off shoes indoors or drinking hot water. For Ackerman, this highlights the “kill line” in the US–that living conditions are desperate and marked by scarcity–that Gen Z Americans have turned toward imitating such cultural habits.
Brian Hioe
For one, Ackerman conveniently never discusses the racial projection at work, nor does it ever seem to occur to him that this is a form of culturalist Orientalism. It is, after all, hardly just a Chinese habit to take off shoes indoors. And one is hard pressed to find the connection between drinking hot water and remedies to stark socioeconomic inequality.
Read the rest of this entry »April 8 2026 – Two week reprieve : USA President Trump Stops Bombing Iran; Straits of Hormuz Re-Opened
Main developments
President Donald Trump said he would “suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks” subject to Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s foreign minister said his country’s armed forces would halt military operations and allow safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz if the US stops its attacks.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 5 per cent, while WTI, the US benchmark, fell 9 per cent.
Pakistan had requested Trump extend his 8pm ET deadline for bombing civilian infrastructure in Iran and asked the Islamic republic to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump had on Tuesday morning escalated his rhetoric against Iran and warned that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran does not strike a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by his deadline.
The US president had previously warned of major attacks on Iran’s bridges and power plants if Tehran did not agree to his deadline.
Attacks on “objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population” are prohibited under international law. – Source : Financial Times
Trade Union Solidarity With Ukraine in Ireland – Activity of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) – by Sandra Corrigan, Global Development Officer (INTO)
Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU) held a very fruitful meeting on Tuesday 24 March 2026 in the Teachers Club (which is associated with the INTO)
Sandra Corrigan, Global Solidarity Officer of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation, described international solidarity work for teachers and children, including a solidarity fund, emergency supplies, trauma support, and advocacy that helped secure teacher salary increases for 2025–2026. Ukrainian teacher union reports emphasised the prolonged conflict and an education crisis.
Kateryna Maliuta- Osaulova of the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers TUEWSU Ukraine, worked with Sandra on this report.
Sandra’s extensive report is available here :
These issues will also be addressed at the next ILWU public meeting on April 21 2026 at 7.30pm in the Teachers’ Club 36 Parnell Square West.
Details are here :
Public Meeting
Why we need solidarity with Ukraine
Speakers:
Mick Antoniw (Labour party Member of the Senedd [Welsh Assembly]; co-founder of the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, England & Wales)
Anatoliy Primakov (Ukrainian Action Ireland)
Sinéad Gibney TD (Social Democrats)
Kevin Donoghue (Campaigns Officer, FÓRSA trade union)
Chairperson :
Nóirín Greene, ex-member of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) Executive
Time: 7:30pm
Date: Tuesday 21st April 2026
Place: Teachers Club 36 Parnell Square, Dublin 1 D01 T6V6
To participate via zoom link, please email: irishleftwithukraine@gmail.com
by 19th April
Report of Public Meeting : Solidarity With the People of Ukraine – Bring the Stolen Children Home (Tuesday March 24 2026)
Report of Public Meeting : Solidarity With the People of Ukraine – Bring the Stolen Children Home
Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU) held a very fruitful meeting on Tuesday 24 March 2026 in the Teachers Club. Interesting insights were shared. The discussion showed us all the hope that if you take action, you can make a difference.
We thank Alex Yurov, Aishe Kurtamet (Crimean refugee and mother of her abducted son Appaz), Catriona Crowe (Archivist and Historian), Sandra Corrigan (INTO Global Solidarity Officer) and Ruth O’ Dea (Labour Party) for their contributions.
Alex Yurov reviewed the situation in Donetsk from 2014, when Russia invaded that part of Ukraine. He gave us details of systematic removal and “re‑education” of children into Russian territory.
Aishe Kurtamet told the story of her son Appaz who was abducted in Crimea.
Aishe gave a sustained account of her son Appaz’s 2023 abduction from Kherson, alleging transfer to occupied Crimea, detention, forced collaboration offers, torture, and imprisonment in multiple Russian facilities; she also reported her son’s father was later abducted, tortured, and sentenced.
Link to information about the plight of Appaz Kurtamet :
Appaz Kurtamet, Aishe Kurtamet
Sandra Corrigan, Global Solidarity Officer of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation, described international solidarity work for teachers and children, including a solidarity fund, emergency supplies, trauma support, and advocacy that helped secure teacher salary increases for 2025–2026. Ukrainian teacher union reports emphasised the prolonged conflict and an education crisis.
Catriona Crowe described the fascist and genocidal nature of the war Russia is waging in Ukraine – one proof of that description is the systematic kidnapping and disappearing of children in zones of occupation. She drew our attention to the awful history of child abuse in Ireland’s Mother and Baby homes.
She highlighted the international attention shift away from Ukraine to other conflicts, such as Iran, and the need for continued support.
She emphasized the importance of providing Ukraine with adequate weaponry to resist Russian aggression.
She discussed the broader context of the war, including the unprovoked invasion by Russia and the significant casualties on both sides. war on Ukrainian children, including the kidnapping and indoctrination by Russian authorities.
Read the rest of this entry »Dishonesty of Many Campists About China – “Progressive International’s Adulation of “Whole-Process Democracy” Celebrates Capitalist Party-States”
Dishonesty of Many Campists About China – Progressive International’s Adulation of “Whole-Process Democracy” Celebrates Capitalist Party-States
Ashley Smith Comments :
The dishonesty and delusion of today’s campists about China is truly astonishing. In one publication, a couple of authors deny the mass repression and internment of Uyghurs. In another, two more embarrass themselves by celebrating the capitalist police state as a socialist democracy. How can this pass as Marxist analysis? How can anyone on the left take this seriously?
Ashley Smith facebook page
Brian Hioe writes :
Progressive International’s Adulation of “Whole-Process Democracy” Celebrates Capitalist Party-States
Say Nothing About Human Rights
A RECENT ARTICLE by Paweł Wargan and Jason Hickel, published by the Progressive International, is adulatory about what it claims to be “whole-process democracy” in China. Nevertheless, interrogating the claims of the article finds that these claims to be in themselves contradictory.
“Whole-process democracy” is a term that apologists of the Chinese Communist Party have increasingly embraced in past years, as a term to describe what they claim to be the superiority of the Chinese party-state. Supposedly, rather than serving as a means of social control, the party-state serves to concentrate the democratic will as part of what is termed “whole-process democracy” or the “mass line.”
Of course, this claim is fanciful. Almost every single state under the sun claims that its political system is one that most perfectly embodies the democratic will of the people–and yet many of these states are, of course, authoritarian.
Wargan and Hickel gesture in grandiose fashion toward the usual claims about the wonders of Chinese modernization, while suggesting that it is because of the people’s participation in “whole-process democracy” that this resulted in a development process in which the people’s will was respected. But there is little, if anything, to suggest that this is true in China.
Read the rest of this entry »Why we need solidarity with Ukraine – Public Meeting, Teachers Club Parnell Square, Dublin 1 D01T6V6, Tuesday April 212026, 7.30pm
Public Meeting
Why we need solidarity with Ukraine
Speakers:
Mick Antoniw (Labour party Member of the Senedd [Welsh Assembly]; co-founder of the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, England & Wales)
Anatoliy Primakov (Ukrainian Action Ireland)
Sinéad Gibney TD (Social Democrats)
Kevin Donoghoe (Campaigns Officer, FÓRSA trade union)
Chairperson :
Nóirín Greene, ex-member of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) Executive
Time: 7:30pm
Date: Tuesday 21st April 2026
Place: Teachers Club 36 Parnell Square, Dublin 1 D01 T6V6
To participate via zoom link, please email: irishleftwithukraine@gmail.com by 19th April
Half a million people in London protested against racism and extreme right – Saturday March 28 2026 – report on the Eastern European Bloc
The European Network for Solidarity with Ukraine reports :
On Saturday 28 March, half a million people in London protested against racism and extreme right, in the UK mainly represented by Reform UK, a party that is also close to Putin and Trump, and against support for Ukraine.
A nice block of Ukrainian, Eastern European and British solidarity protesters also participated at the manifestation, with our friends from the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign Vsesvit, Hromada Collective,Campaign for Ukraine, POMOC and the Polish left-wing party Razem.
Link :
https://ukrainesolidaritycampaign.org/
Tomás Ó Flatharta 