You don’t have to have watched the film to know that the first rule of Fight Club is that you don’t talk about Fight Club.
But since Viktor Orban’s Fidesz is a law unto itself, they couldn’t resist.
On the 18th of May at the BOK Arena in a Budapest they launched their “Harcosok Kljuba” — Fight Club — in front of thousands of adoring fans.
This Club is designed to get Fidesz supporters to be more active on social media.
Fidesz know it needs to re-energise its base. Current poll averages put them at 6 points behind Tisza. On social media Tisza supporters are extremely vocal and confident. Peter Magyar’s social posts get tonnes more engagement than Orban’s do.
It’s understandable why Fidesz wants to increase its support online — afterall Facebook, TikTok, YouTube can have a huge influence on votes.
BUT unfortunately the execution was perhaps not the best choice. Afterall, you can’t really increase engagement by telling people to race home after work at comment on social posts — it’s usually something that happens organically when people feel strongly about something.
It’s also human nature, to be more active when you feel like the top dog. No one wants to be in the minority commenting online and getting relentlessly mocked or howled down. Hence, why people who support the smallest parties or parties on a downward trajectory tend to pull back into the shadows.
That’s humans for you.
The event itself — that you can see on the image above — was a high-tech, high production values event. This is different to how Orban has always liked to position himself — a simple man. A man of the people.
The event reminded of an MLM sales retreat, or an Evangelical Christian event, or the Republican National Convention.
This is so unlike how Hungarians tend to do things. And I’m sure it would have been jarring to the everyday Hungarians — many middle aged or above — attending.
Also, the visuals were a big contrast to Peter Magyar who, at the same time, was walking through fields and villages on his 300 kilometre walk to Romania.
The top-tier Fidesz people speaking were basically all screaming at the crowd to Fight — the desperation laid on thick.
After the event, it was mocked mercilessly.
Every time someone posts something pro-Fidesz, others will pounce and mockingly call them a Fighter.
Then, the below sheet was released to Fidesz supporters instructing them to call Peter Magyar “Brussels Pete” or “Wife Beater”.
It also said to call him a Traitor but with the added instruction in brackets to spell it in “(one word).”
Elsewhere it even explained what emojis to put: flag, flag, heart — but instead of showing it with emojis it spelled it out like I just did.
Peter Magyar right away mocked it saying “flag, flag, heart” in his Facebook Live, and the good people of the internet went wild.
You can imagine the torrent of memes and comments.
Here are just two of my favourites:
The above meme says flag, flag and then a photo of Tamas Deutsch the leader of the Fidesz Party in the EU who is rumoured to take lots of drugs. The word for “heart” in Hungarian can also mean to smoke weed.
Then, the comment above shows two white flags and heart and says it’s Balazs Orban’s version. Balazs Orban (no relation to Viktor) was pillaried last year for saying that Ukraine was wrong to defend itself against Russia — implying that if Russia attacked like it did Hungary during 1956 he wouldn’t fight.
Even Orban posted the flag, flag, heart thing but it doesn’t suit his style. He’s already being trolled and this just led to him being trolled further. Allegedly, if you submit all the screenshots of your Fight Club comments you go in the draw to win a Fiat 500, and people straight away pounced on Orban’s post saying, Are you just trying to steal the car now, too?
Unfortunately, the event was also mired in yet another pedophile-related incident. The man below circled in yellow was invited to the private event even though he had previously been convicted and jailed for sexual crimes against a child under 12.
Probably, the most ridiculous aspect of the whole idea is that Fidesz has been trying to position itself as the Party of Peace vis-à-vis the Ukraine war.
To go from that verbiage to Fight Club is quite something.
Peter Magyar — never one to miss an opportunity — immediately pounced saying Tisza’s supporters would form a Peace League instead.
My view, is that people are tired of fighting.
They’re sick of Fidesz telling them that it is defending them against Soros, Brussels, Ursula von der Leyen, the West, Biden, Ukraine, Globalists, the EU.
The trick is wearing thin. They don’t want to fight. They want their government to stop shadow boxing and fix hospitals and schools.
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