Mafia Terms
“Il bacio della morte”. You may not know Italian, but, if you saw the Godfather movies, you know what that means. It’s what Michael Corleone gave his brother Fredo on the lips in The Godfather Part II. It’s a big goodbye kiss, “the kiss of death”. It was soon after, that Fredo went fishing on Lake Tahoe, and Michael’s bodyguard put a bullet in the back of his head.
A lot of what the Trump Administration does looks like “organized crime”. They act outside the laws, and they enrich themselves at every turn in American policies and politics. They sell pardons to the highest bidders, and take “gifts” both from American corporations and foreign entities. And Trump definitely styles himself as the “Godfather” of MAGA’ism. He tells “his voters” who to vote for, and who to reject. Part of Trump’s absolute power over the Republican Party is his death grip on the perhaps 30% of voting Republicans, where Trump’s word is law.
Trump’s Influence
But as we move into the 2026 election cycle, when all of the House of Representatives and a third of the US Senate are up for election, Trump’s backing seems to be more of an unintentional “il bacio della morte”. Sure, Trump’s endorsement is still necessary to win a Republican party nomination. But in head to head elections Democratic candidates or propositions are winning, or dramatically cutting into the past Trump margins.
And now we’ve even seen it on the international stage. Viktor Orban, the authoritarian leader of Hungary, lost his legislative majority in the Hungarian National Assembly Sunday. In fact, the Assembly went from a majority of 133 seats favoring Orban (out of 199), to a super-majority of 138 seats opposing him. Orban charted an authoritarian course for Hungary since he gained power in 2010. Hungary became a thorn in the side to both the European Union and NATO (Hungary is a member of both). He stood in opposition to sending aid to Ukraine. And he became a supporter of Europe’s premier authoritarian leader, Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Orban’s Demise
Orban found a huge support network among American right-wing groups, including the Heritage Foundation and many in the Republican Party. He appeared at CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conference) and even created a CPAC of his own in Hungary. And Orban was a fellow proponent of Christian Nationalism. In fact, some of Trump’s actions towards those he calls “woke”, like major educational institutions, are straight from Orban’s playbook. (Compare what Trump is doing to the Ivy League Schools, and what Orban did to Hungary’s Central European University).
As the Hungarian election grew closer, both President Trump and Vice President Vance tried to help Orban maintain power. Vance actually went to campaign rallies for Orban in Hungary, and Trump called into the partisan Hungarian crowd, telling them they needed to make sure Orban stayed in office.
Like many Republican candidates here in the United States, Trump’s approval seems to be the “il bacio della morte”. Here in the US the issues are clear: ICE illegalities, hikes in consumer prices due to tariffs, cuts in health care, and foreign adventurism in the attack on Venezuela and the War in Iran. What in Biden’s day was “the price of eggs”, now is reborn as “the price of gas”. The people of Hungary know what’s going on here, and also recognize the danger that Trump, and Orban, represents to their future. Vance and Trump’s support were the “kiss of death” for Orban’s candidacy.
Fish Heads
Hungary choses its chief executive through a Parliamentary system. The party with the majority in the Assembly chooses the Prime Minister. So it’s easier for them to change the executive than the locked-in four year Presidency of the United States. But folks here in the United States can still take some heart.
If Democrats take control of the Congress, Trump may be impeached again by the House of Representatives. (The prediction markets are at 71%). But it is more than unlikely (the markets at 27%) that the Senate could reach the two-thirds threshold to convict.
But what a Democratic House and Senate could do is to block some of Trump’s most outrageous actions. And they’d have to the power to investigate and subpoena, laying out the corruption that seems endemic to the current Administration. To use another Italian expression “il pesce puzza della testa”; the fish rots from the head. A Democratic Congress will make it their business to expose that rot to the American people, particularly as we near the 2028 Presidential election.
Speaking of elections: the best way to safeguard a free and fair election in 2026 and 2028, is to protect the states from federal incursion into election processes. Since the Trump Administration is convinced that our electoral system is “rigged”, that’s going to be the tough fight to win. A Democratic Congress would help.
Give Viktor Orban credit: he recognized a legal election loss, and conceded to his opponent. That’s something that the current head of the United States government has never done.
Il pesce puzza della testa.
