Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party was defeated in Hungary's recent elections after 16 years of systematically transforming the country's institutions toward authoritarianism—consolidating media control, centralizing cultural funding around government loyalty, and stacking courts and academia with allies. The article correctly identifies this as a significant moment: an entrenched authoritarian system was reversed at the ballot box rather than through external pressure or collapse, offering a rare example of democratic recovery. What's notable is that this victory isolates the European far-right—Orbán had functioned as a key intellectual hub and diplomatic anchor for the transnational right-wing movement, hosting figures from JD Vance to Marine Le Pen, and that infrastructure now faces disruption.