On September 15, the European Parliament voted to term one of the European Union’s member states, Hungary, an “electoral autocracy” — no longer a real democracy. Nearly 80 percent of legislators adopted a report that denounced far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán’s government for its “deliberate and systematic efforts” to remove all limits to its authority. The document cited cronyism, attacks on the independence of the media and judiciary, and persistent attacks on both migrant and LGBT rights.

The judgements included in the report were based on different standards of democracy: the Hungarian state had not only failed to ensure fair electoral processes but had also undermined liberal and egalitarian ideas of citizenship. Pro-Orbán conservatives were quick to insist that the latter issue was what really mattered. For Rod Dreher, writing in the American Conservative, there was a message for the United States: “Whenever elections produce results that the elites don’t like, it will be declared undemocratic — and those who advocate for the winning side will be deemed by Washington and the tech and financial elites as ‘threats to democracy.’”

The idea of taking on tech and financial elites is today a mainstay of right-wing politics, even in the mouths of billionaires like Donald Trump. One of few parties to reject the report on Hungary was Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, a party of neofascist origins that has long had close relations with Budapest. At the time of the EU Parliament vote, her right-wing coalition was on its way to a majority of seats in the September 25 Italian general election, and many comentators responded with surprise to her party’s vote in defense of Orbán. Why take an ideological stand alongside the unpopular leader of a small player in EU politics rather than in the “national interest” or based in electoral opportunism?